‘The Challenge’s’ Aviv explains why she joined Bananas’ Angels: ‘Did it help me? Absolutely’

Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Challenge: Battle of the Eras, season 40, episode 15, “Thinking Thin Era.”

One of “Bananas’ Angels” has finally fallen on The Challenge season 40.

Johnny “Bananas” Devenanzio managed to keep his female allies safe during the entire individual portion of Battle of the Eras, since he won multiple eliminations and saved them from being targets. But in this Wednesday’s episode, one of his Angels finally got her wings clipped.

Going into the episode, two of Bananas’ Angels were at risk of elimination, since Aviv Melmed Bruno and Jenny West were both targets. Making matters worse was the fact that Aviv also had a time penalty for this challenge since she placed last the week prior. And then she DQed in the challenge, sending herself straight into elimination. Meanwhile Jenny was thrown in as her opponent by the male challenge winner Kyland Young, so two Angels were forced to compete against each other — much to Bananas and Rachel Robinson’s disappointment.

Due to her size and speed advantage, Total Madness winner Jenny dominated each round of the physical cage match elimination and ultimately sent Fresh Meat champ Aviv home, right before the final. “It sucked,” Aviv tells Entertainment Weekly.

Since Bananas was not a cast member on Aviv’s only other past season, she didn’t know him going into season 40. But she says that simply working together on Era 2 made them become friends “very organically,” which ultimately led to her joining the Bananas’ Angels alliance.

“I appreciate his stupid sense of humor, and I didn’t take him too seriously,” Aviv says. “And when there were things that I didn’t agree with, I would tell him. That was the basis of our relationship — we were goofy, but then he respected me and I respected him. It wasn’t like I was just going to go with whatever he said because he said it.”

While she wasn’t “winning the dailies,” she was still performing well in all the challenges, which she says is another reason why Bananas wanted to be allies with her. “He obviously saw that I wasn’t a horrible competitor either, so there was value that I could provide,” she adds. “And then I had other relationships, like Rachel, so Rachel started to become closer to him as well.”

But does she think that was the best alliance she could have made this season? Or does she regret not getting closer to any of the other male competitors? “Look, I didn’t know what I was walking into,” Aviv explains. “Our alliance, as everyone calls it, started just as a friendship, and we were a really strong alliance. I wouldn’t have done any better on a different alliance. Jordan [Wiseley] already had his people that were from years ago. There was no way to infiltrate that, nor was I trying to. I wasn’t ever counting on my alliance to take me to the end.”

She also points out that being part of the Bananas’ Angels alliance kept her out of eliminations for most of the season.

“Did it help me? Absolutely,” Aviv says. “Everyone hated Johnny and kept throwing him in and he kept winning and saving us, so 100 percent, that helped me get to the end. But as you get closer and closer to the end, you can only depend on yourself to get to the next stage. You could only have one No. 1. Even Jordan would’ve had to put Rachel in at some point potentially if she’s his No. 2. You’ve got to count on yourself to win, and that’s the only way to really guarantee it.”

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While she didn’t add another championship title to her Challenge resumé, she’s proud of how far she made it this season after an 18-year hiatus. She also had a lot of fun competing and meeting new people, which is why she wants to return for more seasons in the future — hopefully before another 18-year break.

“It’s not ideal with a family and kids,” Aviv says with a laugh. “Everyone on the show has to be a bit of an adrenaline junkie. There’s nothing like it. It’s a little twisted psychologically that we want more. But I definitely have the itch of it now.”

She laughs as she admits that “no one” could have predicted this Aviv comeback on The Challenge. “I definitely didn’t,” she adds.

The Challenge: Battle of the Eras airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on MTV.