The Amazing Race has always been welcoming to the LGBTQ community, featuring queer couples and people competing. In its 36th season, CBS's Emmy-winning reality competition series welcomed two LGTBQ couples and one of them would have a near-perfect race to win the whole season.
Couple Ricky Rotandi , a 34-year-old preschool teacher, and Cesar Aldrete , a 34-year-old chef and food stylist, competed against couple Yvonne Chavez and Melissa Main as well as 11 other teams on the series. ON the May 15 season finale they conquered the final leg in Philadelphia. After traveling over 11,700 miles all over the globe, they were the first to cross the finish line first and win the grand prize of $1,000,000.
Rotandi and Aldrete saw themselves as underdogs but that quickly faded away as the pair slayed the season, winning seven of the 11 legs including the final, and never placing below third. This marks the one of the best ⁘ if not the best track records in the history of the franchise.
The couple add to the rainbow circle of Amazing Race winners that includes Josh Kilmer-Purcell and Brent Ridge from season 21; Will Jardell and James Wallington from season 32; as well as then-couple Reichen Lehmkuhl and Chip Arndt, Jr . from season 4.
GLAAD had the opportunity to talk to newly crowned winners about competing as a couple, defying the ⁘underdog⁘ label, and the importance of LGTBQ representation on shows like The Amazing Race.
CESAR ALDRETE: I mean, I've always wanted to be on the show! I have talked about applying with a friend , with a cousin but like, I just never saw it feasible because I wanted to wait until I was ⁘ fit. ⁘ I just thought of it as a race and seeing how hard it is just made me stop ⁘ but then, if something happened to the show or if it got canceled because of COVID, I didn't want to regret never applying and at that point, I had proved to myself that Ricky was a perfect partner for me, especially for a situation like The Amazing Race.
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