All Stars Rivals’ Champion Adam Larson Speaks Out

Until just a couple of years ago, Adam Larson was pretty sure that his reality television days were long behind him. That chapter of his life started in 2001 when he appeared on MTV’s Road Rules: The Quest, and continued through 2005 on various seasons of The Real World/Road Rules Challenge, which later shortened its name to simply The Challenge.

But he returned to civilian life in 2006, found work in the corporate sphere as a brand development manager, working with virtual reality and augmented reality, had a couple of daughters, and figured the MTV world was just a nice memory from his youth.

“I never thought I was going to get called back to The Challenge,” he tells Rolling Stone. “However, it felt like you feel after taking an amazing vacation. You want to go back. And I knew it would never leave me. I just thought I had passed the baton.”

The baton came back to him once Paramount Plus gave a green light to The Challenge: All Stars, and OGs like himself were given a second shot at glory. The older, wiser Larson first reappeared in 2024 on the fourth incarnation of All Stars. He made it nearly to the end, but was eliminated when his original Road Rules castmate Steve Meinke stole the “star” that gave him a spot in the final competition. In Larson’s eyes, this was an enormous betrayal and the end of their friendship.

Along the way, however, he started up a relationship with The Real World: Portland cast member Avery Tressler. And unlike most reality showmances, this one continued when they went back home and the cameras turned off. They now live together with Larson’s daughters in Greenville, South Carolina. She stayed home with the girls when Larson was called back for the fifth season of All Stars, where he was paired with Meinke. Despite their past differences, they managed to work well together. And in the last episode, which aired tonight, they won the championship and agreed to split the money evenly.

It ended with Larson looking into the camera and proposing to Tessler. A couple of days before it aired, Larson hopped on Zoom with Rolling Stone to talk about how it all went down.

I only have dim memories of your original season of Road Rules back in 2001. How did you and Steve get along back then?
We were very, very competitive. He was a couple of years older than I was, and I was used to being able to just come in and drive and do whatever I wanted. I think that we were both attracted to the same girl. We were both used to being outspoken on our sports teams. We were the same people.

Whenever anybody asked me why I don’t like Steve, I’m like, “Well, do you like people who remind you of yourself?” Usually, the people you don’t get along with, there’s something about them that you just can’t stand. It’s like, “Oh, I’m the same way. I’m constantly one-upping everybody.” At the start of this season, we sat down and talked it out. And I just thank God we least put our differences aside.

Tell me about those conversations. How did you find a way to put aside what happened and move forward?
Well, we’re not putting anything aside. We just decided that we’re going to work together, and then we’re going to talk about it later, especially since we were a target from the very beginning. We thought by grabbing a star early that we would get some kind of protection. Instead, it was the exact opposite. It’s just a big target on your back.

We were like, “Well, we know how much we’re going to fight. What’s the plan? You come up with an idea, I come up with an idea, and then as long as we can pivot, and we’re good working back and forth, it doesn’t matter who’s taking charge.” There was a parenting plan for us. We had to be like, “All right, you could get 15 seconds with your idea. If it doesn’t work, then we need to switch to this idea.”

That way, we both felt ownership over both ideas. Then we really started to enjoy working with each other. By the fourth elimination, you could see it. The hugs are so real. All of a sudden, I wasn’t even thinking about all of the ways that we had messed up in the past.

I was thinking about the time when I was crawling down that snake pit in the very first episode of Road Rules, and I’m scared shitless of snakes, and some rock came down and hit me right in the forehead. Who ties a bandana on me and takes care of it? Steve. Now, I’m starting to remember all the good things that happened 20 years ago. And then our conversations on the bus became, “What are you going to do with your family?” All of a sudden, we stopped being these children.

Some cast members have said it was unfair that there were guy/guy teams competing against guy/girl and girl/girl teams. Do you think that made the game unfair in any way?
I can tell you that holding Steve out over 55 stories trying to grab stars wasn’t easier than holding Amber [Borzotra]. And it’s All Stars. They want our personalities there so that we can actually give the fans the entertainment they want. I think that the fairness of whether it’s guy/girl, girl/girl, because for everything it’s going to … Sam [McGinn] doesn’t get to a final, if truly guys could dominate, then it would’ve been different.

Let me back up and at least be sensitive to it. There was a reason that there was a target on our backs. As a guy/guy team, I’m not claiming that we were some victims. Devin [Walker] and Leroy [Garrett], Steve and Adam, that looks like physical threats. It looks like a mental threat. It looks like a lot of different things. Let me not ignore the elephant in the room and say that a guy/guy team is just as fair in everything, but I thought on All Stars, it was fair.

Frank [Fox] made a promise not to say your name near the end that he violated. Did you actually trust him when he made you that promise?
What they didn’t show is the night before, I just couldn’t sleep. Steve’s telling me we’re going in. I’m like, “No, man, don’t worry about it. We’ve played so hard.” I went down to Frank, andI was like, “Frank, I just can’t sleep, man. If we’re going in, let me know. If not, let me know too.”

Now, this is definitely me being super petty, but the fact that he threw us in and didn’t tell me about it, I did not forgive him for that. When it came time to the final, I didn’t care who won as long as it wasn’t him. You can see that in the game with the barrels [we had to press together]. We could have torched that. But I got everyone together besides Frank and Sam and was like, “All right guys, here’s the thing. There’s a center point on a barrel and you need to roll your toes with it, don’t lean back.” I just wanted anyone to win besides Frank.

I don’t know if it broke him or not. But after a few things like that, he came over to me and apologized. I was like, “That’s all I needed, man. The only thing was you could have told me, you knew I was good with it. You could have told me the truth, and you chose not to.”

Going into the final, did you think that you and Steve were the favorites?
I thought if they made it physical, where there was running between checkpoints or if there was an endurance element, we were going to crush everybody. I was amped up. I mean, I was ready to Ultimate Warrior-tear into this final, and then we went up and down [in points]. We actually went up and down three times.

It just was thing after thing after thing after thing. I turned to Steve [at the teeter totter at the very end], and he had the same idea that everybody else did with the bags and going back and forth. I was like, “Steve, give me 15 seconds. I’ve got us. I’m going to win this whole thing for us.”

They never communicated any of the numbers to us the entire time. TJ never said who was in the lead. We just felt we had a shot, and we knew it was going to be close. I think we’re the only ones that used each other’s body weight, and figured that extra element.

The way they edited that sequence, it looked like you won by a fraction of a second. Was it actually that close in reality?
The way it felt was that we climbed on that thing, and we’re done in 10 seconds. The way it actually was in reality is it probably took 10 seconds to load, 15 seconds to get the first balance. But were Da’Vonne and Shane even close to us? No. We had gotten off before they got there. It was close. The edit wasn’t out of control, but we destroyed Mel [Reeves] and Nicole [Zanatta] by five minutes, maybe eight minutes.

On past Rivals seasons, one winner had the chance to steal the money from the other. You must have known this was a possibility. Did you guys talk about this and make a plan?
We never communicated well on how it would be done. In fact, we over-communicated in a multiplicity of ways that we could do it. Steve was like, “You’re way better with money. You know how to invest and do this. Maybe it makes more sense for tax reasons and all of this other stuff…” And if you know Steve, you know that sometimes he will think himself into something. It doesn’t really need to make sense.

I couldn’t even make sense out of why he would want me to take the money. He was so tortured when he had to make the decision. He came back and was just sitting here shaking his head. We weren’t allowed to communicate. They wouldn’t let us see each other. Finally, when they lined us up next to each other, he’s just sitting here swaying. I’m like, “Are you okay?” Steve’s eyes looked like ice. And they say “ice” when they don’t want you to communicate. “I was like, “All right, decision’s been made, everything’s been done.” I was so scared.

Does winning the show feel different in your forties than it did in your twenties?
Oh, yeah. It is amazingly more satisfying. I mean, they shared the why, which is really nice. Also, I love winning as a team. I’ve done it in two different team sorts of ways. I don’t know if I can get myself to a final because I do stupid stuff, like making sure other people are going to lose. This time around, I’m winning for the right reasons. I’m going home. I’ve already won. I already feel like I won by getting to meet Avery and incorporating her into my family. It’s just the perfect fit.

Do you forgive Steve now for stealing your star?
I forgave him before. And we had a lot of fun this season. I don’t think anybody could have beaten us in anything. We would out-think you. We would outlast you. We just had the best time. You couldn’t rile us. Even with Frank, we eventually got even. The universe took care of itself, and gave us the win. Thank God.

Are you guys in touch now?
I keep in touch with every single person, and I consider them family. There was a beautiful moment where we wrote a letter to our partner at that dinner before the final, and then we went off and lit it on fire. But we had to read our letter to our partner, and that was my forgiveness letter to Steve.

I wish they had aired it since I felt lighter after that night. It meant so much. I was crying and hugging Steve. The amount of cathartic release that happened to be able to do something so meaningful together this time. We didn’t get any free passes. It’s poetic justice because Sarah Greyson had gone in five times [when our team won The Gauntlet back in 2004], and was basically the scapegoat for our team to get to the end.

This time, Steve and I maybe helped other people get to the final. We were those people. Do you call that karma? Do you call it poetic justice? I don’t know what you call it. It was a story book.

And when you get to watch with your kids on the couch, it is so much different than watching it in a bar, doing an appearance, getting drunk. I’m just so proud of the experience this time. My daughters absolutely love it. We’re packing up the RV right now, and we’re going up to an amusement park and then campgrounds, and it’s really nice to not just tell your kids about that, but let them see it. I feel like I’m just the most fortunate guy in the whole wide world.

Are you hoping to get back on the flagship now?
I’d love to. I don’t think I have any business being there, but I would love to give it a shot.

It films for much longer than All Stars. Could you leave your life for three months?
I’m not even sure that I could last. I just want the experience. I want to try to compete against some of these younger guys who are the GOATs because I’ve never met them. I’ve never met a Johnny Bananas. I’ve never met C.T. I got to meet Wes [Bergmann] at a triathlon for 15 minutes. Who’s the other guy? Jordan [Wiseley], who did the Real World with Avery and means a lot to her. I would love to meet him. Then, there’s all the females, obviously outside of Rachel [Robinson], but Jenny [West], I haven’t met Jenny or anybody else.

When you take a step back, it’s pretty nuts that you come back to The Challenge after 20 years for All Stars 4 and meet your future wife there. And then you come back for All Stars 5 and win the damn thing.
I think I’m the luckiest…I’m probably too lucky, and I feel like something really bad’s about to happen. But I’m luckier in more ways than you could possibly imagine. Avery is way more beautiful on the inside than she is on the outside. She’s so kind and generous. She emancipated at 15. She’s a rock star of a human being. When you talk about being able to even have somebody in your life…and the fact that she’s willing to be that role model for my daughters is next level. I am winning everywhere.

My family moved down here to Greenville to be around me. My brother’s around. My mom’s around. The girls are thriving. Somehow, I’m winning Challenges. The fact that I’m even being invited back to have this reunion with a family that I’ve missed, I feel like I had this phoenix-like sort of rebirth. I was in a really bad spot. I’m so lucky, man.

Near the end of the final episode, you look into the camera and basically propose to Avery. Was that the actual proposal, or did it happen earlier?
Well, the real proposal was going to happen somewhere else. I’ve just found out about the proposal [making the cut for the episode] just now. And then I’ve been designing the ring. Full disclosure, the real ring gets here on the 23rd. This is airing before. I went out and I got a little mock ring, and I’ve already talked to my family about this. I’ve talked to her family about it, but I want to involve the girls.

We’re not even going to be watching the episode. Her phone’s going to be blowing up. How are we going to do this? I have two different things planned, and I think that a nice family moment where we can have this conversation about what a proposal in marriage would look like, and then taking Avery somewhere else to do the special thing that I had planned would also be nice. Then, it’s a win-win for her.

I don’t want to miss this opportunity, but nobody told me that it was going to be in the edit and so it was impossible to plan for, but I’m still going to make sure that I have something similar.

Well, congrats on the win. I always root for the OGs. It was great to see you pull it off.
Us OGs are coming back. And I’m really glad that they’re making the show about the comedy. I am dying watching this show. I mean, maybe it’s just because I think that Steve is so funny and the game is so interesting, but it’s nice to be back.