Raleigh’s Holdernesses talk about the ‘surreal’ experience of winning ‘Amazing Race’
Kim and Penn Holderness, part of the Raleigh family known for “Christmas Jammies” and other viral videos, were crowned the Season 33 winners of CBS’s “The Amazing Race” Wednesday night.
The race, which took more than two years to complete due to the COVID-19 pandemic, took the duo and 10 other teams of two around the globe to seven countries and 17 cities.
The Holdernesses had been the most consistent team leading up to the finale, having won three straight and four total legs of the race up to that point — more than any other team.
But Wednesday’s two-hour finale was still a nail-biter, coming down to the wire. In the end, though, Kim and Penn crossed the finish line first, walking away $1 million richer.
The News & Observer followed the duo’s journey all season, and we caught up with them in an interview Thursday, where they told us more about their experience on the show.
Here’s what the Holdernesses had to say about crossing the finish line, watching the finale with their kids and fellow cast members, what they plan to do with their prize money and more.
They’re ‘relieved’ now that finale has aired
In a previous interview with The N&O, Penn Holderness said that the experience of competing on the show “never really felt real to me until it made its way onto television” — especially because he couldn’t talk about the experience, and how it ended, with anyone besides Kim and his fellow castmates.
The couple’s kids didn’t even know how their parents fared until they watched the finale live Wednesday night.
But now that the show has aired, and the world knows that they won, Penn said he mostly felt “relieved.”
“I could not possibly be more relieved. Lying to my children is not something that I would recommend or say that anyone should try to do, but it’s something that we had to do for several months,” Penn Holderness said. “And now that we were able to like, enjoy that moment with them and see the looks on their faces when it was over, it was pretty special.”
The duo released a video Thursday showing their kids’ reactions to watching the final moments of the finale, which appeared to be a mix of shock, joy and pride.
Watching the finale with ‘Amazing Race’ castmates
The family watched the finale in Florida, at a viewing party hosted by fellow cast members Lulu and Lala, twin sisters and radio hosts who had been eliminated in the Week 7 episode in Greece.
Kim Holderness told The N&O that the family hadn’t previously watched many episodes with friends or extended family, saying, “I just struggle watching myself on TV.”
But for the finale, they watched the action unfold in a “nightclub”-like environment, she said, surrounded by their castmates.
Throughout the season, the Holdernesses have said on their popular social media accounts and podcast that one of the best and most unexpected parts of the race was getting to know the other competitors, who ended up becoming “lifelong friends.”
And just as the Holdernesses brought their kids along to watch the finale, the other castmates brought their families, too, which added to the viewing experience, Kim Holderness said.
“Everybody had kind of a cheering section, so when one person would do really well, you know, they’d start cheering,” Kim Holderness said. “So, it was really cool to be able to watch it with them.”
Preparing for the final challenge with Kim’s drawings
The finale came down to the wire, with the Holdernesses locked in a neck-and-neck race with flight attendants Raquel and Cayla at the end to complete a “giant memory puzzle,” piecing together riddles and pictures from previous challenges in the season.
But in the end, the Holdernesses crossed the finish line first, thanks in part to Kim’s “copious” note-taking and picture-drawing throughout the race.
Kim said her note-taking was a therapeutic way for her to cope with the stresses of the race.
In a video interview with The N&O, she showed off some of the drawings she made throughout the race, including one of a man in London wearing a black bowler hat in Trafalgar Square.
There was no way of knowing in advance that the final challenge of the race would involve recalling specific images from the race, the duo said, but Kim had a hunch early on that “there’d be some sort of visual challenge at the end.”
“So, I started drawing pictures,” she told The N&O.
And not only did she draw the pictures — she and Penn studied them, like flashcards, in the hotel for two nights before running the final leg of the race.
“It was like all of that preparation that allowed us to really motor through that last challenge,” Penn Holderness said.
Penn estimated that the final challenge took the duo about six or seven minutes.
“And that was it. That was the race. That’s how we won,” he said. “That’s how we won $1 million dollars.”
Crossing the finish line
After finishing the final challenge, the duo raced to the finish line, which was on the field at Dignity Health Sports Park, home of the LA Galaxy soccer team.
Penn Holderness described the feeling of approaching the finish line, with the “warmth of the sun” beating down on them, as “surreal” and as if the couple was “floating on air.”
As the couple arrived on the finish mat, they had a hard time believing that it was real, that they had actually won — until host Phil Keoghan officially told them they’d won.
“We were like, waiting for him to penalize us,” Penn Holderness said.
But they hadn’t done anything wrong, and they won. At the finish, they talked with Keoghan about what the victory meant to them, and to their kids back home.
“I hope what our kids saw is that it didn’t matter where we were gonna finish, we were gonna work as hard as we could, and that the finish doesn’t really matter,” Penn said during the finale episode. “Even though we finished first, which is kind of awesome.”
What they plan to do after the race and with the $1 million
Of course, with winning the race comes the show’s $1 million grand prize.
The duo said early in the race that they hoped to use the money for their kids’ college tuition costs, which they said during the interview with The N&O Thursday will be a big “lifestyle change” for the family.
“That is going to change not just our lives, because we’re not going to have that burden” Kim Holderness said. “Because right now, we are trying to actively save for it, and that takes away from retirement savings, whatever. So, that’s a lifestyle change to have that taken care of.”
But the couple also plans to “share a portion” of the money, something they said they’ll talk more about on their online platforms soon.
And, they’ll have to “give a big portion to Uncle Sam,” Kim Holderness said, as they pay taxes on their winnings.
The couple also won a couple of trips throughout the race, thanks to their four 1st place finishes.
While their trip to Turkey, which they won during the France leg of the race, will likely be on hold for the time being due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, they said they’re looking forward to their trip to Cape Cod, which they won during the Scotland leg of the race.
Penn said the couple would also like to travel back to some of the locations they competed in during the race, such as Lugano, Switzerland, this time taking their time and seeing more of each area.
And perhaps the duo will connect with fellow Raleighites, brothers Bates and Anthony Battaglia, won Season 22 of “The Amazing Race” in 2013.
The Holdernesses said they hadn’t talked with the brothers yet, citing that the show’s producers “were pretty adamant that you’re not really supposed to talk to former racers before you go on the show,” Penn said.
But the duo said they would love to “compare stories” from their respective times on the race, especially since Penn previously covered Bates, who played professional hockey for the Carolina Hurricanes, as a sportscaster.
Final reflections on the race
Reflecting on their win, the Holdernesses said they realize how much of a privilege it was to go on the race.
“I would say that it was never lost on us that this was an incredible privilege,” Kim Holderness said. “I think even if you’re the team that goes home first, it is such a privilege to be chosen, to be one of those teams. Very few people ever get to do it, so that was never lost on us.”
The duo dreamed of going on the show for years, but thought they’d never be able to make it work logistically, they previously told The N&O.
But with the help of others in their life to take care of their kids and keep their business going while they were gone, they finally made it work.
That made the couple’s win more like a “team win,” Penn Holderness said.
“I know that we were the face on it,” he said, “but it was a lot more than just us who got us to that finish line.”
This story was originally published March 3, 2022 at 5:11 PM with the headline "Raleigh’s Holdernesses talk about the ‘surreal’ experience of winning ‘Amazing Race’."
