Josh Martinez fell short of the final once again when Cory Wharton eliminated him on “The Challenge 40: Battle of the Eras” on Wednesday night. The two battled it out in the arena after Josh lost the Daily Challenge and Cory was sent into the sand by Rachel Robinson. The two raced towards a bell in “Coming From Behind,” and Cory swept the game by a score of 4-0. Watch Josh’s exit interview with Gold Derby above.
“It sucked,” the 30-year-old Challenger says bluntly. “As soon as I saw the elimination, I was like, ‘F—! This is gonna be hard.’ It was the fourth time I got so close to a final and didn’t make it. I feel like I played a really good game and I had a really good season. I wasn’t winning dailies, but I was always right behind Jordan, right behind Kyland. These guys were dominating in the game. I had a good season performance-wise, it just crumbled right before my eyes.”
Josh says if he had to lose to anyone in an elimination, he’s glad it was Cory, who has put on a clinic winning three arenas this season. “Even though we’re at odds in the game, I’m not going to take away that he is truly one of the best in the sand. I’m happy for him.”
The “Big Brother 19” winner-turned-Challenger says he had something to prove to himself this season, but not to online trolls who have been gunning for him over the past seven years. “In my first few seasons, you would look at my social media and I would like like the happiest person on earth. The reality is, I was dealing with the worst depression and at the time I didn’t even really know it,” he admits. “It was because of the hate that I was getting and the backlash that I was getting from the show. I was down so bad. Now, I’m able to watch the comments and I kind of laugh at it.”
Josh also addresses the drama he had in the house with so-called friends, like Cory, Tori Deal, and Michele Fitzgerald. “I obviously had strong ties going into this season with the Vacation Alliance,” he explains. “But I also had Rachel and Johnny, who are really good friends of mine. When those two sides came to a head, it was the most uncomfortable position to be in. I wanted to disappear. At the same time, that’s just who I am as a person. I connect with people, I build friendships. Kyland was going around saying, ‘You can’t be aligned with everyone.’ Everybody in here is doing the same thing! It was interesting that all these people were throwing jabs when a lot of guys were playing the same exact game.”
He also foreshadows some drama we can expect to see when the reunion airs, particularly within the Vacation Alliance. “Outside of the game, those people have been some of the biggest lights in my life,” he reveals. “But moving forward in this game, I really don’t know where I stand, especially with Devin. After the reunion, I still feel a little bit uncomfortable with that alliance and I don’t know where we’re at. At the end of the day, I think we’re always going to have love for each other, but do I think it’s going to be a tight unit how we were? No. It was from me watching back the season and seeing the way people were talking about me in interviews, saying that I was a liability. Having to watch that with my family was really embarrassing.” He says he left the reunion “feeling more uneasy” than he did going into it.
