When it came to Destination X contestants, Ally Bross made it clear that she was one many would underestimate. While she always admitted that her geographical knowledge wasn’t great, she had a lot of other great skills, and she played an excellent social game.
She made it to the Top 5, becoming the last woman standing, only to be eliminated due to manipulation and tactics between Rick and Peter in Destination X season 1, episode 8. It led to the end of the showmance with Shayne, and now she’s learned that Biggy was part of the reason she ended up in the situation she did.
Ally chatted with us about her time on Destination X, including the showmance (and how things are going now), her strategy going in, Biggy’s backstabbing, and so much more.
Ally Bross was shocked to learn of Biggy’s betrayal in Destination X
GeekSided: I want to jump in first to ask why you wanted to go on Destination X in the first place.
Ally Bross: As I said in the show, I have been to all seven continents already, and I was feeling like I needed a new adventure. I needed a new goal, and when I was approached about the show, I was like ‘holy s**t. This is for me.’
They said it’s also pop culture, so you’re gonna need to know a lot of different things about the most random things, and I thought it sounded amazing. It’s brand new, unlikely anything that’s been done before. It’s not like I even had to study past game culture, because it hasn’t been done. So, it was a no-brainer.
And I haven’t traveled a ton of Europe. I did like a Mediterranean cruise, so I thought I was gonna get to see a ton of it. Turns out, a blacked-out bus, but I thought it sounded like such a challenge. I love to push myself to the limits, and I love a good social game. I knew only 10 of us on a bus was going to be a lot of social game.
GS: With that in mind, what was your strategy going in? I’m guessing you watched a lot of social games before?
AB: I watched Survivor as a kid, but I stopped watching reality TV because growing up, I was so jealous. I wanted to be on it. My parents would be like, ‘Let’s watch Big Brother this season.’ And I was like, ‘You know I don’t watch Big Brother. I should be on it.’ I was like 12!
But yeah, my social strategy. I wanted to be as honest as I possibly could, because when you’re just authentically yourself and honest, you can’t really go wrong. You can be twisted any sort of way by other players, but you have the security that you are being yourself. That’s like a security blanket for me and my own psyche.
My plan was to really go in, have a strong alliance, hopefully with two or more players, as I feel like loyalty is big in these games. I know that a lot of times in these games, people stab each other in the back, but I think that people who are loyal to one or two people from the very beginning have way higher odds of making it to the final few episodes, historically. So that was my plan.
I also wanted people to think that I was not as smart as I actually was. Even though I’m not amazing at European geography, I do know a lot, and I didn’t want people to catch on to that.
GS: You were definitely being underestimated in this game. Even Mack said she didn’t think you were a threat.
AB: No, she didn’t! We live together now; she’s my roommate. She’ll say all the time that she didn’t realize I was so smart. I’m like ‘Dang girl.’ But that was my strategy. You don’t want people to think that you’re any more than just some pretty girl, and I think that is a common strategy for young women. Let people underestimate you, especially in a male-dominated world.
There’s going to be a lot of testosterone in those last two episodes, a lot of bickering and fighting and grunting. I wouldn’t be surprised if they start wrestling.
But you don’t want to seem like a super strong threat, and I did in the beginning. In episode 1, I was inviting people to the back of the bus to try to make an alliance with them, and immediately, the boys didn’t like that. I don’t think men like to be threatened by strong women, so I was like, ‘I’ll let the showmance be my cover.’ I was winning challenges. I was playing the game.
GS: As you brought the showmance up, was that just for the show, or has it gone somewhere?
AB: We dated for two months after the show, but he lives in Indianapolis, and I travel all the time. I just kind of told him that if we’re not going to see each other more than once a month, I can’t do this. He was pretty upset, and it was a sad moment, but I was going through a lot of personal change and discovery about myself after the show. I felt like it was a better time for me to be myself.
Him and I are such good friends. We talk almost every day, and I’m going to visit him next weekend.
GS: Nice! So what did you learn about yourself while playing the game?
AB: Some of those things can’t be revealed yet, and it’s hard, because I’m not ready to say all of them. I learned a lot about social dynamics and being perceived for the cover rather than the book. I think that I’ve always been pretty aware that people make snap judgments based on someone’s job. I’m an influencer, and people immediately talk down to me. They don’t know that I did go to college and I have a loving family at home. I have my laptop sitting on 10 religious studies and political science books.
I think it taught me that those opinions don’t matter hardly as much as you would think they do. Experiencing the audience reaction on Instagram and Twitter has mostly been positive for me, but my friends send me screenshots of Reddit, and they just hate me. They hate Shayne, they hate me, and it doesn’t matter. I think the show really solidified that for me, so I can share I did learn that about myself.
GS: You mentioned some backstabbing earlier, and yes, there was some backstabbing in Destination X season 1, episode 8. How did it feel watching and realizing what Biggy did with the daggers?
AB: That was shocking! Biggy and I are friends. He’s actually stayed at my house. We’ve seen each other a few times since the show wrapped. The rest of us have talked about what we did in the game and kind of apologized for things, so I was really shocked to see that he put daggers on Shayne and I, and he never told me!
I have no bad blood against him. I think he’s great; he’s hilarious. I’m going to see him next week as well, actually. I think he’s a really down-to-earth guy, but I was really shocked and surprised by that gameplay decision.
I think at that point in the game where you should be thinking about who you can beat in the end and not the showmance, I don’t understand my people were so threatened by a showmance in a game where no voting was allowed. We’re not voting each other out, so the showmance wasn’t a threat. Arguably, out of the people left, Shayne and I were the ones who knew the least about European geography.
I wish Biggy had told me post filming, but there’s no bad blood. He was playing a game, and he did what he thought was best. I think Rick got in his head with the stories and lies about never having traveled. It was so calculated and manipulative, and I think Biggy really fell for that.
Biggy didn’t know he was going to have the power to save Shayne, so he was really gambling that Shayne could have gone home, which to me felt pretty crazy to see that when Shayne's been so loyal to Biggy throughout the show. But again, it’s a game, and you get manipulated by someone.
GS: I’m guessing you weren’t too surprised to see Biggy choose Shayne over you when Shayne had already chosen Biggy over you earlier in the game.
AB: That didn’t surprise me at all. From the very beginning, they were in an alliance. I was in an alliance with Tai, and Shayne and I agreed that our relationship would come somewhere in the middle. Then, when Tai left early, it became the three of us, then Mack was with us, but I wasn’t that close with Mack. So, it was mostly Biggy and Shayne.
Biggy was really nice to me. I wanted Biggy to stay in the game. I was very loyal to Biggy and Shayne, but I thought our alliance was a lot more solid than I guess it was to Biggy.
If it had been Biggy, Shayne, and I in the final three, and it had come down to European geography alone, Biggy would have won.
GS: How did it feel going out the way you did rather than putting the wrong location on the map?
AB: Yeah. I knew all of the tarot cards. I keep saying in these interviews that I don’t know much European geography, but it’s just that I haven’t had experience traveling Europe, so it’s not easy for me to find particular cities. But I mean, the way I went out, it is what it is. Everything happens for a reason.
Going into that challenge with Rick and Peter, I knew they were working together, so I knew I was going home. The only chance I had was maybe it would be a challenge where we were all playing individually or with our own individual geographical knowledge, or pop culture, or Mozart! Something like that.
That we were able to pick who went next, I knew from the very beginning that I was going home. Again, it was silly on both Rick and Peter’s strategy, knowing how good they have both done.
GS: How much of a badly kept secret was that Rick and Peter alliance?
AB: It was a horribly kept secret. I don’t know why they’re trying to make it look like none of us knew. Shayne, Mack, and I knew. Biggy believed Rick when Rick said they weren’t working together, and I think that was the issue. I think he might have figured it out later on, but I haven’t seen all the episodes, so I don’t know.
GS: I have to ask about the VR goggle experience. What was that like for you, because lots of people have said bad things?
AB: They were just heavy on our face. We had to wear sleeping masks underneath them, so that was kind of uncomfortable. We would be sitting in places for hours, and I would have existential dread. I can’t see, I can’t hear, and I have Aphantasia, so it’s not like I can make up dreams in my head. It’s just dark.
I’d be sitting there, calling out to the producers saying, 'I’m having an existential crisis.’ I’d ask things like, 'What is life? What happens after death? Why are we existing?'
My consciousness is just a stream of thought, so that would take me out of the game. I’ve always been like that since I was a kid, so it’s fine.
GS: Were the Venetian masks easier? They looked so pretty.
AB: They were so pretty. They were also less painful. I liked them, and you couldn’t see anything, so they did a good job with that.
GS: Did you get to keep your mask?
AB: I didn’t get to keep s**t. Some of the other players got to keep water bottles and hoodies, but they took everything from me. I managed to get Mack’s water bottle, so she has that, but I don’t have anything from the show.
GS: So, my last question is more of a two parter. Would you do another reality show, and if so, which one would it be?
AB: A thousand percent, I would do another reality TV show. I think Traitors is my number one, because I feel like I’m an extremely underestimated player. I have a lot of really good social moves. I figured out a lot of the challenge clues, so I feel like I would be really good at Traitors. I also stayed loyal throughout my game, and I feel like that would be a good trait on Traitors.
DONDI I would love to do. I love being in a bikini, so put me on a beach. I’d do Survivor, or Big Brother, or The Challenge. Mack and I want to do The Amazing Race since we live together. We just think we’d kill it with her knowing so much about geography and me knowing so much about history, politically and religiously. I think we would destroy Amazing Race.
GS: I should have probably asked which one you wouldn’t want to do!
AB: I think I’ll do anything, even Fear Factor! I love the thrill of challenging myself and pushing myself to mental, emotional, and physical limits that you don’t otherwise have to face in regular life.
Destination X airs on Tuesdays at 10/9c on NBC.