Dining with Jonathan and Victoria: Not As Awkward As Expected - 
by B-side
Well, with their stress skyrocketing, Victoria said she became absolutely nuts (ie. her infamous hysterical crying that we love oh so much), and when Jonathan threw down his bag en route to the Pitstop, it was like the last straw for her. As for Jonathan, he simply summed up the entire event by reiterating that he was running the race like a Mack Truck and every time he hit the gas, Victoria was there to stop him (forced analogy, but we'll take it). As they hurtled towards the Pit Stop, Jonathan shoved Victoria in what he admitted was a "conscious decision" to motivate her. Jonathan claimed he wanted to show the audience how serious he was about the competition but never expected the reaction his theatrics received. Still, he told us that he takes full responsibility for his actions and wishes he had never done it. Jonathan then revealed to us that in the wake of that episode, he has received copious amounts of hate mail, and yes, death threats. In fact, up until about a month ago, he claimed that their spa had lost about thirty percent of its business.
Some people *really* had a problem with Team JV
As bad as Jonathan had it though, Victoria noted that it was actually her who received the most grief from people on the streets. Many viewers actually faulted her for either whining so much or putting up with Jonathan. Victoria said one woman went so far as to fake spit on her -- a bizarre but oddly amusing reaction, if you ask me. Yes, it's good to see that blame-the-victim mentality still reigns supreme. Way to break the cycle, SOCIETY. At the end of the day, the only people that ever seemed to be friendly to this team were, you guessed it, Canadians. For some reason, Canadians love Jonathan and Victoria. The couple couldn't explain why, but hey, you can't always ask for logic from a country that embraces Celine Dion.
Anyway, after the "shove" incident, Jonathan and Victoria knew they would be primed as the season's villains, especially several months later when exec producer Bertram Van Munster called the couple and warned them that they'd be portrayed "a little badly." It's kind of like saying Hitler was "sort of mean." Anyway, according to Jonathan and Victoria, the producers were so eager to make them look evil that they completely excised footage of them donating all their clothes, money (over a thousand dollars), and items to the Ethiopians after they were eliminated. In fact, the Prime Minister of the country allegedly called the production the next day to thank the couple for its charity.
And as long as we're dishing the dirt about Prime Ministers and such, I might as well share some of the scuttlebutt Team JV passed along to us.
- First, Adam is not gay but is part of some gay, stoner clique (don't ask me what the hell that means).
- Rebecca ate that Hungarian soup in like two minutes. Plus, she's funny in real life too
- Kendra complained about being on the race nearly every single day.
- Kris and Jon weren't happy ALL the time.
- Victoria is super hot. That's not really gossip, just something we noticed.
When we asked about Phil, the two of them immediately recoiled in anger. Jonathan then seethed, "Phil is a two-faced motherf--ker!" Whoa. Apparently Phil used to come and sit down with them during Pitstops. He'd even encourage their behavior, saying they were making great television. But later Phil bashed the couple in the press -- hence Team JV's vehement reaction. Still, they may hate our puffy-haired New Zealand host, but he'll always be welcomed here at TVgasm.
Nevertheless, as fascinating as these behind-the-scenes glimpses are, the real question is "Are Jonathan and Victoria as crazy as they appear?" Well, I'm sad to say that the answer is no, not really. In person, they were pretty friendly, and after a season of watching Jonathan completely dominate his wife on The Amazing Race, I was fairly surprised to see that Victoria is very much her own woman -- not the wilting flower often portrayed on the series. In fact, for stretches, it seemed like Victoria actually dominated the conversation -- to the point where we witnessed some classic Jonathan Baker as he snapped, "Would you stop talking? Such a motormouth!" Yeah, not a terribly classy thing to say to your wife in front of virtual strangers. In fact, it had me wondering whether or not we had just seen a crack in the "happy-marriage" façade. After two and a half hours though, I didn't get a sense that we were being conned into some image. I left the dinner believing that these were two people who actually do function well as a couple, but unfortunately go absolutely nuts under stress and duress.
In fact, J-Unit did find time to ask the obvious. How did the two meet? As previously stated Victoria is gorgeous, and I'm not saying that Jonathan is a bad looking guy, but I think J-Unit wanted to know the details of how the two met so maybehe could get a few pointers to help in his search for the perfect girl. Victoria then went into some detail on how it happened. Met at a party, Jonathan pursued (big surprise, I think not), moved in together, and the rest is history.
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