MTV Challenge: Battle of the Exes Vinny talk about life on the show and his untimely elimination

Last Week, MTV Challenge: Battle of the Exes experienced a whirlwind when not one, but two teams got eliminated. Mandi and Wes got eliminated after they fought in the dome, and were ultimately defeated. Sarah and Vinnny, on the other hand, got pulled from the game early after a night at the club went terribly wrong.

TheCelebrityCafe.com caught up with Vinny to talk about his experiences on the show, and to see just what happened that night.

TheCelebrityCafe: What was your mindset going into “Battle of the exes” with your own ex, Sarah?

Vinny: I was feeling pretty confident, I’m always pretty confident in myself. And Sarah, I was confident because, I was looking around at the other girls and Sarah had all of the power in her hands. She’s a nice kid, doesn’t get into a lot of trouble, and she usually keeps pretty quiet. I figured…well, if I could not act like myself [laughing] then we could win this. I told myself going into this, I said, “Vinny, please, don’t act like yourself.” But, it came out. I didn’t really drink that much on the show, on past shows I drank a lot. I kinda got mouthy with people, and I didn’t want to be that person, so I haven’t really been partying or drinking…UNTIL I won the challenge and took 15 shots and got crazy, that’s kind of…yeah the joke was on me at the end.

TCC: Well yes, you went from being the power couple on the verge of eliminating your “enemy” to being eliminated as well. How did things get so out of hand at the club?

Vinny: Well, we don’t have TV and music in the house, so aside from the drama in the house, I mean, everybody’s ex-girlfriend is in the house, so it’s not your average house. It was more like the girls against the guys, they don’t really show it like that, but the girls hated us. And the guys, they just wanted to have fun. The girls have their own little cult or something. They just joined up, there’s a lot of tension. So, we got to the club and I remember I was in the room with Mark, Jonny, CT and we were taking shots in the room before going to the club. We were all pumped up and ready to go. CT was doing bicep curls in the back room, so everyone was hyping it up…it kind of got me going you know? I got a lot of drinks and a lot of shots, I was doing a dance off with this Dominican guy, I had no shirt on because I had already sweat through it - it was like 95 out and I was dancing for an hour straight. Then, Mandi jumps in and starts grinding on me, and we had been talking about her dress all night, you know this girls boobs are practically out! Her nipples were the only thing covered by this dress and she had no bra on. Her brand new fake boobs. Mandi and I are good friends, so I didn’t think anything of it when I did it, but now it’s like this big, “Oh my God,” but, Mandi is a friend of mine and it wasn’t some random girl. I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone, that wasn’t my intention; it was more of a practical joke that went totally wrong.

TCC: Going back into the house, knowing you and Sarah were the power couple, you let your feelings be known about Wes, why are things so tense between you two?

Vinny: It’s not that they’re tense. He tried to buy me drinks all night at the club and he thought that he could become my friend over night and I wouldn’t vote him in. Even though on Fresh Meat II this kid voted me in and it was only my second episode, I was pissed, you know, because I was friends with Kenny, he voted me in, that was his reason. Now, I won, and I’m voting you in and that’s pretty much how it went. I just wanted to put him in his place, there are not a lot of people who put him in his place, and they kind of just let him go. I will admit that it went too far. We got up at 9 a.m. after being out till 6 a.m., I wasn’t even in my hung over stage yet...I was still drunk! I remember telling Sarah, "Sarah please, if I start talking just cut me off, please, I can’t talk, I’m gonna say something crazy." I said that before I even did it!

TCC: A lot of people assumed after what happened at the club with Mandi, that you may cut them a break and not send them to the dome. However, you ended up doing that anyways. Was that your game plan all along?

Vinny: Well, maybe I should have reevaluated the situation and maybe not have sent them in. We just didn’t want to deal with this in the house anymore. Leroy was going in, so what better time to throw Wes in. I thought, ‘Leroy can definitely win this one,’ you know, Wes didn’t come into this house in too good of shape, he knew that. He didn’t have that confidence in himself, but he tried to pretend like he did. I probably shouldn’t have threw him in there, I probably should have thrown somebody else in there so as to draw the attention off of me and Mandi. I didn’t see what I did as being that big of a deal…Mandi wasn’t upset about it for than five minutes. I apologized to her on three different occasions. I apologized at the club, after the club, back home; we had a personal conversation for like 10 minutes and then again that morning when we woke up. I woke up thinking, “oh, I did do that last night…” If she was really upset about it, or destroyed by it, it would be a totally different story. But she wasn’t. Even that morning she even asked, “If you’re voting us in I understand.” We all knew I was voting him in because Johnny had just voted him in, and we kind of had a little alliance in that room of the veterans, and then knew I wanted him out. Everyone gave him a chance when we first got there, but he just what he always does. He went right up to the rookies and tried to get them on his side, and they saw right through it, and he got screwed on both ends. No one liked him.

TCC: Who was the biggest competitor in the house that you felt you had to beat?

Vinny: Combination of Johnny and Camila, CT and Diem and Mark and Robin. Everyone always says Ty and Emily, but I’m more scared of Emily than I am of Ty…and that’s the truth!

TCC: How are things between you and Sarah now?

Vinny: Sarah is very easy going, so we’re not at each other throats, but I’m sure she’s not too fond of me. And, since she voted me off on my second season, it was called Cutthroat, that’s when I stopped liking Sarah and realized who she was to me. As far as that goes, we both like money, so when we got on the show it was like, “Oh this is easy,” but we don’t care about each other, we never really cared about each other. We didn’t have a relationship for two years or anything, we went out for maybe a month. So we tried to make it work, but a week or two after the show ended it just didn’t. We weren’t hung up on each other, she has a boyfriend, I had a new girlfriend. We got along pretty well actually. Not in the house though, I didn’t talk to Sarah one time until a challenge would come about and then we would start talking about what to do, but while we were in the house, we kind of stayed on opposite sides…I would definitely say we were on different lunch tables in the cafeteria [laughs].

TCC: So what does the future hold for you now?

Vinny: I’ve been working out really hard, I’m on my way back to Marine Vinny, I lost a lot of weight, kind of getting back to the old Vinny…staying off of the lasagna, as Paula would say…that was a great comment from her. If they were to ask me back, I would love to go back. The show always offers different scenarios so you never know. If they asked me back I would go back. I would love to get back in the house with Wes again, that would really just… I watched the end of the show last night, and I’m thinking, “Oh I can’t believe they let him comment like that,” because I’m not there! He would never talk like that if I were there. He never said one word when I was there, only when the cameras were rolling or I’m out of the room. That’s how he is.