1 of 5 | From left to right, Christine Quinn, Plane Jane, Drita D’Avanzo, Tom Sandoval and Paul Abrahamian star in “House of Villains” Season 3, premiering Thursday on Peacock. Photo courtesy of Peacock
House of Villains Season 3, premiering Thursday on Peacock, unites reality stars from Selling Sunset, Survivor, Below Deck and more shows. Though they are competing for a $200,000 prize, cast members appreciated showing their softer sides.
In a recent Zoom interview with UPI, Survivor Season 27 winner Tyson Apostol said the House of Villains competition is less serious. Villains’ competitions include cake eating and equipment smashing contests, as host Joel McHale mocks the contestants.
“It’s a little more light-hearted,” Apostol, 46, said, adding that with Survivor eliminations, “everyone is so secretive and there’s no rhyme or reason to it. Sometimes just because the group decided while you were going to the bathroom that it was going to be you. So this was not as stressful as that.”
Many of the contestants were fans of each other. Selling Sunset star Christine Quinn had seen Jackie Christie on Basketball Wives and Drita D’Avanzo on Mob Wives, but got to know them in person in the Villains house.
“I think we all got to show our vulnerable sides, who we really are,” Quinn, 37, said. “I told Drita, ‘I’m so scared of Jackie,’ but then I got to know her and I was like, ‘Oh my God, she’s a sweetheart. She’s so loyal. She’s wonderful.'”
D’Avanzo, 50, found her Villains co-stars a relief from her fellow women involved with convicted men in Mob Wives. She took it upon herself to prepare meals for the House of Villains.
“It’s like swimming with piranhas and then asking me what it’s like to walk through the woods,” D’Avanzo said. “I used to go to their room and be like, ‘What would you like? What would you like?’ So I was literally like mama bear.”
Vanderpump Rules and The Traitors star Tom Sandoval, 43, also put his mixology skills to work endearing himself to House of Villains castmates.
“I love making cocktails,” Sandoval said. “So when we had the opportunity to make drinks for people I was like, ‘Oh, I’m making cocktails. Who wants a drink?'”
Three of the Season 3 cast members appeared on different seasons of The Challenge. Apostol and Johnny Middlebrooks were on different seasons, but Ashley Mitchell won over $1 million winning The Challenge.
Mitchell, 38, said the luxury of House of Villains was appealing after completing The Challenge’s outdoor battles.
“I get treated like a human,” Mitchell said. “I’m not going back to eating worms no more, unless Joel asks me to. Unless there’s money on the line. Who are we kidding? I take that back. I’ll do it for $10 right now.”
Middlebrooks’ claim to House of Villains infamy was Love Island. He noticed that the producers of Love Island took out aspects of his personality that House of Villains left in.
“You still laugh, you still joke, you still have a good time but they cut out all that on the other shows,” Middlebrooks, 27, said. “They only show things that correlate with you being a villain, so to speak.”
One House of Villains star who didn’t change much is RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 16 contestant Plane Jane. House of Villains shows her preparing her drag looks every morning.
“That hurricane that you saw that was my room was very much also my work station on Drag Race,” Plane Jane, 28, said. “I was the messiest bitch.”
Contestants like Big Brother star Paul Abrahamian were used to sharing bedrooms. That was a shock to Christie and D’Avanzo, whose previous shows allowed them to go home at night.
For Below Deck star Kate Chastain, 43, the bedrooms were lavish compared to crew cabins.
“I’m used to being in a confined space with other people on a show so I think that was actually an advantage,” Chastain said. “I’ve never lived in a house in the outskirts of Burbank with no doors with a bunch of lunatics so I think that I reacted in ways I never have before.”
Challenges in the premiere episodes also include a tea party murder mystery. Abrahamian, 32, said subsequent episodes get even wilder.
“There’s a lot of over the top competitions,” Abrahamian said. “If you think it’s bad, they make it worse.”
Chastain concurred, adding, “Every challenge moving forward gets progressively wackier and harder. They’re not going to give the 200K away. They make you earn it.”
Mitchell was surprised how risque some of the upcoming challenges get.
“There’s a lot of ones that make you think, ‘Is this PG?'” Mitchell said. “‘Is this PG-13?’ Is Peacock allowed to show this? How is this allowed? Why is that in her mouth?”
