The Amazing Race > The Racers
TAR 21: James LoMenzo & Mark “Abba” Abbattista "Friends"
georgiapeach:
I LOVED the way these two ran their race....A class act in my book (and funny and a delight to watch) and I would love to see them back for another shot anytime!
georgiapeach:
'Amazing Race': James and Abba on Their Stolen Passport and Why They Were in a Limo With a Priest 5:04 PM PST 11/19/2012 by Kimberly Nordyke The rocker and entertainment attorney were eliminated in Sunday night's episode after a taxi drove off with their backpacks. Cliff Lipson/CBS James LoMenzo, left, and Mark "Abba" Abbatista "We was robbed," James LoMenzo quipped at the end of Sunday night's The Amazing Race. "Literally," chimed in Mark "Abba" Abbatista. Which sums up the duo's stroke of seriously bad luck leading to their elimination in Sunday night's episode.
It all started in last week's episode, when James, a former member of the bands White Lion and Megadeth, and Abba, an entertainment lawyer, left their backpacks in a taxi while heading to perform one of the challenges to receive their next clue -- and the cab driver drove off with their belongings, including Abba's passport. As longtime viewers know, teams must have their passport to continue on with the race.
When James and Abba reached the mat, host Phil Keoghan told they were in fourth place and still had time to find the missing passport. Failing to locate the taxi, they finally returned to the mat in last place, only to be told it was a non-elimination leg.
James, 53, and Abba, 45, spent a good deal of time in this week's episode trying to procure a new passport for Abba -- including filing a police report -- to no avail. As such, they were eliminated from the race. (Five teams remain.)
On Monday, the duo talked to The Hollywood Reporter about how they got home, whether they finished the entire leg, the prank Abba almost pulled on the other competitors and why they were seen in a limo with a priest.
The Hollywood Reporter: So Abba, it was just you who lost the passport?
Abba: No, I did not lose my passport; it was stolen from us. We had a cab driver who drove away with both our bags. As soon as we got out of the car, he drove off; it was a conscious, malicious act of theft and not something stupid where we just left our bags somewhere. Why my passport was in my bag was I had gotten out of the pool [where the challenge called for the competitors to perform with a Russian synchronized swim team] and I had no towel and I was wet. I took the passport out of my clothes because they were soaking wet. It was the one of the oddest circumstances in my life; next time I'm synchronized-swimming with a Russian Olympic team, that definitely will not happen.
James: He normally has his passport tattooed to himself.
Abba: Normally, I sleep with my passport because I'm so insecure; I have it tied with a piece of string and I tie my bags to me, so people can't take something if I'm sleeping. We were in the airport overnight in Bangladesh and everybody was sleeping and took off their shoes. And I was contemplating taking everybody's shoes just for fun. They were all just laying there with their bags. I [took extra precaution] to make sure nobody took my shoes. It's a lesson for everybody: No matter how careful you are, every once in a while it gets you.
THR: So he literally just drove off as soon as you got out of the car? Had you told him to wait for you?
James: Throughout the race, I told the twins [Natalie and Nadiya] on more than one occasion, [leaving your bags] was the most foolish thing you could do, and they did it with impunity. I felt it would be OK to leave our bags there because I actually saw the clue box where we pulled over, and I thought we could grab the clue and jump back into the cab and go on to the next clue.
Abba: We were only 50 feet from the car.
James: It was a calculated risk, but it didn't feel like that at the time. We thought we'd jump back in the car and go on with our day. The rules are that you can't really split up, so I couldn't hold the cab while Abba did the task. By the time we started getting to the task, several minutes had gone by, and Abba said, "Let's make sure the cab is still there. By that time, the cab was long gone. It happened so fast. The situation was not that uncommon; everybody does it: I could see the clue box and I thought we'd run up there and grab it and in 30 seconds we'd be back to the car. It wasn't a stupid move; it was a common move. Everybody out there did the same thing; the only time we did it, our bags were taken.
THR: So how was the situation finally resolved?
James: We're actually talking to you from a Russian prison [laughs] .
Abba: Who's paying for this phone call? Because this one is expensive [laughs]. We did our best before the elimination during the leg, going out to different police stations and hoping to file reports. But the Russian bureaucracy and the culture of the governement and the authoritative organization of the police are quite a bit different than ours. You have to sign their forms 15 different ways, and then everybody else has to sign it. ... And everything happened on a Friday and Saturday, and Tuesday was Russia's Independence Day. The country shut down. It was the worst possible weekend it could have happened. We were knocking on everybody's door, trying to get some leeway. We went inside Interpol -- some places we were like, "How did we get here?" ... We spent quite a bit of time there -- six days -- before we were able to get this thing taken care of and out of there.
THR: So I take it you never got your backpacks back?
James: There is some guy wearing very stylish clothes wandering around Russia [laughs]. At this point, we had nothing. I literally had a hair tie, and James had a sweatshirt on. That night we were combing our hair with a fork because we had no comb. We were total MacGyvers. It was rough because lost a pair of prescription eyeglasses, so I was basically blind and wearing my contacts until I got home.
James: I had a Snickers bar -- damn, I was satisfied [laughs].
THR: Did you complete all the challenges?
James: I actually completed two of them. The speed bump [the duo had to complete a speed bump for coming in last during a non-elimination leg, but it wasn't shown on TV] was to bring a priest to a church but there were only one-way streets and you had to figure out a way to get around [without asking anybody for directions] -- we nailed that. We got to the time zone challenge and did it in 20 minutes. But by that time, because we had burned the whole day, we just went back to the finish; we had nowhere else to go. Having seen the Russian dancing challenge, I don't know if Abba could have done that [because of problems he was experiencing with his knees]; it would have been horrific.
THR: I was going to ask you why we saw you in a limo with a priest with no explanation.
James: Obviously, he was not a very good priest [laughs]. We needed some divine intervention. Please pray for our passport or do something.
THR: Earlier, your money was found by two other teams [the twins and Lexi/Trey] while you were making travel arrangements, but you thought you had lost it. When did you realize those teams found and kept the money for themselves?
Abba: Until we saw the episode, we had no idea. We had been in a cab, and I fell asleep while in the back, and I thought that while I was laying down it fell out in the cab.
THR: Were you shocked when you discovered the truth?
Abba: Yeah, I think I was, especially Lexi and Trey. Their participation in it was shocking to me. We got along with all the teams, but it was pretty disappointing to see what happened.
James: It created another great adventure for us we hadn't counted on.
Abba: And James was extremely supportive in that situation. I was just embarrassed and guilty and ashamed. ... But getting out of that situation was probably one of my favorite moments of the whole race [they hit the streets to ask people for money]. The generosity of strangers really saved us. It was a touching moment where we were in one of the poorest places on the planet, and people are helping you and giving you something they don't even have.
THR: What do you think about your nickname, "Long hair, don't care," that the Chippendales [James and Jaymes] gave you?
James: I love it. When people are talking about you, it's great.
Abba: What happened was, we wound up on a flight that nobody else was on in Indonesia. This created a situation where the other teams were going, "Oh my god, what the heck are those guys doing?" I asked [the Chippendales], and so they told me that Chippendales are usually clean-cut guys, but some decided to let their hair go? And they would ask, "What, are you not going to get your haircut? You're long hair, don't care?" Because they don't care enough to get a haircut. ... But we played well into "long hair, do care."
James: We realized jumping into alliances early in the game couldn't serve us in any way. But I could see how that looked to an outsider and why they called us out. But I thought it was perfectly cool.
Abba: It was confusing to them, but we are older and more experienced in our travels, and we didn't need the validation of the group to make a decision. We played differently ... but also attracted a bunch of attention to ourselves. But like James said, if people are talking about you, it's a good thing.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/amazing-race-james-abba-elimination-392013
bc922:
http://www.realitywanted.com/newsitem/5954-the-amazing-race-21-exclusive-interview-with-james-lomenzo-and-mark-abba-abbattista#.UKxFtYUU7Vo
The Amazing Race 21: Exclusive Interview with James LoMenzo and Mark "Abba" Abbattista
Posted on 11/20/2012 by Gina in The Amazing Race and Cast Interviews
by Gina Scarpa
It's safe to say that James and Abba did not have the best of luck this season on The Amazing Race. From dealing with a sick parent back home to having their money stolen (by a fellow team no less) in Bangladesh to losing their passports in Russia, it was a constant emotional rollercoaster for the rocker and entertainment lawyer. Yet, the friends always kept it classy and remained positive all the way up until their elimination this week. We talked to them today in an exclusive interview to find out what they really thought of their money being taken, trying to track down their passports, and whether or not they'd be ready for a second chance on The Amazing Race.
Q. Gina, RealityWanted: Whose idea was it to do The Amazing Race?
A. James: This is where we point to each other and say, "It was his idea!" Abba was the fan of the show and I had seen it a few times.
Q. Gina, RealityWanted: And did you do any preparation before leaving to compete?
A. James: We just kept losing our passports! No, I spent a lot of time running under the Hollywood sign. You have to take it seriously because you're going to be running.
Q. Gina, RealityWanted: I'm sure everyone wants to know when you found out the real story about how your money went missing.
A. Abba: I was sitting on my couch and was watching the commercial two days before the show started airing. We had taken a van in Bangladesh and each one of us had a bench seat. I had laid down and fallen asleep. I thought the money had fallen out and was fearing that episode. When I first saw the commercial for that episode, I shot off the couch and called James like, "Oh my god! Did you see what happened?" I don't think that you drive forward looking in the rearview mirror. We're disappointed definitely, we got along with both teams and now we know something different.
A. James: It brings you back to the notion about it being a competitive game. It's more of a moral thing that they have to deal with. They were exposed on tv with that.
A. Abba: They felt the wrath and scorn of the public. We chose to go a different way. We had the opportunity to solve a problem, which we did. I think we were mature and classy and it was one of my favorite days of the whole race. We wound up meeting a whole lot of Bangladeshi people. It was roundabout way of getting to something positive.
Q. Gina, RealityWanted: How much time did you spend looking for your passports after you first checked in in Russia?
A. James: As soon as we checked in, and Phil informed us that we weren't out of the game just yet, we went and got a hotel and got right on it.
A. Abba: At that time, we could have conceded and quit but because the other two teams were out on the course, you could head back out. They were hours and hours behind us. We wound up going and doing as much as we could. It was a Russian holiday so everything was closed. Had it been a Tuesday, maybe things would've turned out differently but if my aunt had a wiener, she might be my uncle.
Q. Gina, RealityWanted: That might be the greatest thing any Amazing Race team has ever said to me! Was it tough to run that last leg, without knowing if you'd track your passports down?
A. Abba: We had a different Speed Bump, you could say.
A. James: We kind of hoped that something would happen. We stopped at a bunch of police stations and put out as much information as we could. We were hoping it would turn up somewhere. It was mostly language as the biggest problem. At the police station, it was pure Russian. At one point, you saw on the episode, a young man stopped by and we asked him to help us and he spent hours translating. We couldn't do anything until we filled out the forms. It was definitely a tough situation.
A. Abba: With that, it was like, we know we're dead, what are we gonna run to the electric chair for? There was sort of an appreciation for what we were going through even though we knew what was happening. We went by a church, the bells started ringing, the Speed Bump with the priest... we made the most out of a pretty crappy day.
Q. Gina, RealityWanted: There are many fans who would love to see you return for all star edition or second shot at the money. I assume if The Amazing Race called you right now...
A. Abba: I would leave right now, I wouldn't even pack.
A. James: Now see, that's what got us into this in the first place!
A. Abba: It was an honor to be on the show, it's an amazing show. When you see the production, it's unbelievable! And again the world is brought to your living room. It's something special and it's a wonderful situation. It's the best reality show on tv, period, the end.
bc922:
http://www.etonline.com/tv/127207_Amazing_Race_s_James_Abba_Talk_Moscow_Misfortune/
Amazing Race's James & Abba Talk Moscow Misfortune
By LISA HIRSCH
November 20, 2012
The Amazing Race bid farewell to long-haired music industry veterans James LoMenzo and Mark "Abba" Abbatista on Sunday night, and ETonline caught up with the pair to find out how hard it was to have their bags stolen in Moscow, if they ever made it out of Russia, and what they thought of two other teams taking their cash, in an interview filled with lots of laughs.
James: (Plays the ET theme song on his guitar).
Abba: That was James by the way. How are ya?
ETonline: I'm good how are you? I'm sad to be talking to you guys honestly.
James: Oh we're not… we're happy.
Abba: I'm not. (laughs)
ETonline: Because I wanted you to keep going. Oh my gosh it was so hard to see you--
James: Who says we're out of the race yet -- Abba?
ETonline: You're still out there racing, right?
Abba: There may be a gas leak in James's house, uh...
James: No, there's a gas leak in this Russian prison cell...
ETonline: I was really bummed to see you lose your bags, that was just awful to watch. How did that feel? What was your reaction when you saw that the cabbie left?
Abba: It felt great! It was a lot easier without the bags… No. Let me correct you too because we didn't lose our bags, this was a cabbie drove away with our bags and conscious act of theft here we got out of the cab and he drove away.
ETonline: Oh, okay.
Abba: And so you know, we were like fifty feet away from the clue box, you could see it, and you know we just thought we were running up and getting the clue and coming back, we had not paid him at the time, and apparently he thought that the bags were more important and more valuable than the money we owed him, and as soon as we got out of the car, boom he went.
ETonline: Wow.
Abba: So again it wasn't some act of you know kind of foolishness or you know, slack part of anything on our part, it was really just a bad situation. And the reason to why my passport was in there was because we had come out of the pool and I didn't have a towel, and when we put our closed on they were soaking wet because I couldn't dry off. And that's the reason why. I mean normally my passport, I sleep with it when I travel. And so again, just weird things happened and it got us.
James: I have a confession Abba. I slept with your passport too. Maybe this isn't the place.
ETonline: On the show it wasn't really clear, because I know a lot of the times on The Amazing Race people will leave their bags in the cab and so I just assumed watching it that that was what had happened, but the way you describe it, that's much worse.
Abba: You know I would bet, and I'll probably go back and take a look at this, that every single team did exactly that. And that was the first and only time that we ever separated from our bags. In the bamboo challenge we actually put them down and I tied them to the bike that we were in. So, okay I sit corrected that there were actually two times that I ever remember leaving the bag that was not in our possession like that.
James: Throughout the race I kept telling the Sri Lankan girls, you girls are out of your mind, don't leave your bags in the cab cause they were doing it with impunity, and I thought well you know, you guys are just risking it. So it wasn't like we were, you know not aware that could happen or weren't thinking that couldn't happen. Again it was all at the moment, we were rushing, we thought okay let's just get up there, get back in the cab and move on. So that's kind of why we took that shot.
ETonline: Yeah, that guy probably made a lot of money off of all the stuff you had in your bags.
Abba: Well we actually had the lightest bags ever in race history. We were under ten pounds on our bags so good luck to him he stole the wrong ones.
ETonline: Ha!
Abba: But you know, we had to comb our hair with a fork the next day because you know we didn't have a comb.
ETonline: (laughs) I was going to ask you guys that because besides the fact that you ended up getting eliminated from the race, I mean how hard was it to be in a foreign country with basically only the clothes on your back?
Abba: Yeah it was a little bit uncomfortable. Especially cause it was raining and cold. (laughs)
James: Yeah, actually it was freezing that night. ... Having lost luggage many times, it's not the first time we've ended up somewhere without or stuff, you know? 'Cause we've traveled [while] touring [with a band] for years. And that's almost commonplace to have your bags go away for a day or two.
Abba: It was rough for me because I had contacts in, and my glasses were stolen and I'm pretty not much functional without my glasses, so having contacts in every day and waking up in the middle of the night in a hotel and I couldn't see where the bathroom or something was and I couldn't walk anyway because you know… That was pretty hard to go through a daily situation of nothing but contacts.
ETonline: Totally.
Abba: But you know what, you MacGyver things you know, as best you can.
James: Strapped on some glasses backwards on his eyes.
L: How long did it take you to get a passport and get out of the country?
J: It is an interesting story, tell her why we couldn't get it right away.
A: What happened is that you just can't get a passport ... There's also a Russian visa for entry and exit, so you're dealing with two different governments at this point. This happened on a Friday and a Saturday, and Tuesday was the Russian day of independence like our Fourth of July. ... So not only did we get hit with lightning, we got hit with a hurricane on top of that, and then like an electric eel came and zapped us and then we were stung in the face by a bee. ... We wound up having to go through the bureaucracy of the Russian system which is a very procedure-driven, it's not the easiest kind of culture to be in sometimes, there's no flexibility in it, everything is very much by the rules and very you know, that's the way it is and you have to jump through the hoops. But you know what we got lucky with some of it and we were able to get the passport issued, the temporary passport that got us home, and then the visa that allowed us to get out too. So, and there's a little bit more story to that but um there was actually a letter of diplomatic immunity that was granted, that is how this thing happened.
ETonline: (laughs) Wow.
James: We would have had to stay there for over a month (laughs).
ETonline: How long did it take?
Abba: It was I think six days.
ETonline: Wow.
Abba: I looked at James at one point I said, "Hey you know what, if we had won this leg, we would have got say a trip to go somewhere." So this way here we got our six day all-expense paid trip to Moscow, you know?
James: (laughs)
Abba: And that was kind of how we felt and it was like you know what like alright, we're over it we're out of the race, we have to kind of re-transition ourselves, and even though we're doing this all day long at least at night we can drink voluminous--
James: Vodka!
Abba: Vodka (laughs).
ETonline: So on Sunday night's episode in the last closing scene, you see that you are in a car with a priest. Can you tell me how that happened?
Abba: (laughs)
James: That was our speed bump, if you recall we heard the speed bump. ... So we were the only ones that had to do that, that's why you kept seeing our faces on the speed bump sign, and that was actually his church which was conspicuously placed throughout a bunch of roads going in the same direction. So it was a bit of a challenge, we knocked it out pretty quick. We were kind of hoping that, you know, maybe he'd put in a good prayer for us or at least he'd open up his collection box and the passport would be in it but obviously he wasn't a very good priest because neither one of those things happened (laughs).
ETonline: Unfortunately he couldn't materialize your passport for you (laughs). ... I also want to talk to you about another turning point in the race this season, another major, major event. What did you think when you watched the episode where the twins took your money and shared it with Trey and Lexi?
James: I was dumbfounded because we were convinced that we had lost the money. I mean just lost it, like it just slipped out of Abba's pocket along the way. So that was the first, I mean we kind of discovered that with the audience watching the show, you know. It was kind of weird to all of a sudden look at these people we'd been running around with and go, 'Oh my God, look at them!' But you know, my take on it, Abba's a little different, there's no rule against picking up somebody's money if it's fallen on the floor, you know, and part of the game is to kind of compete and get ahead and stuff like that. I don't know if it was a scrupulous thing but you know I don't hold really any animosity towards them. I think it was kind of, you know it's bad taste to have to be shown on TV doing something like that. And I was really surprised that Lexi jumped on board as well. You know, and to me it is kind of a part of the game, maybe not the most, [moral] part of the game. I don't know.
Abba: Yep, and as he said I don't totally buy into that kind of situation. I mean, I don't condone what happened. I think under the circumstances that we were the only people in there, it was a substantial amount of American money, and they knew it was, and so I'm disappointed, kind of shocked at Trey and Lexi. Not so shocked at the twins. But you know what, it happened to us, we didn't know that that had happened until we saw it on television that week. Previously going there we had been in a van as our cab and I had fallen asleep on the back bench and that's how I thought the money was lost. You know I wasn't going to accuse anybody because I didn't know that, and now, looking at it in hindsight, I just don't think that looking in the rearview mirror is the best way to go forward. So, you know, it happened and I think that you know I was very happy the way that we kind of dealt with it level-headed and--
James: It created a really great experience anyway, you know? Despite all that we did get back on track relatively quickly, so I mean it kind of [ended up being positive] in a strange way.
ETonline: Yeah, I thought it was pretty amazing that in a country like Bangladesh where there's clearly so much poverty, that you were able to replace that money with everyone being so generous.
Abba: Yeah. And you know what again if we had had the money, we would not have had that life experience, and I think that quite honestly for me, that day was probably one of my highlights of the whole race, you know? Because it's really like the generosity of strangers giving you something that, you have no chance of ever paying back, and it really is just like, why are you doing this, you know? And then it kind of makes you feel guilty about all the times that maybe you could've reached out your hand to somebody and you didn't, you know? And you're kind of like, God I feel somewhat terrible about myself here, but at least at the same time it's like there's these angels around us that are you know, kind of like -- wow.
Abba: I'll tend to look at it as, if that didn't happen that day we would have never had that experience, and you know again it wasn't something fatal, you know we said sort of through it that a lot of times you know you're gonna to make mistakes trying to stay away from the catastrophic ones, well we hit one of those (laughs), you know? But I think just going through life if you bend and don't break, you're probably better off. And I think that you know it was a nice gesture of the Bangladeshi people. You saw throughout the race, we had support of a lot of the locals. Everywhere we went with the children in Bangladesh, and the people helping us with the bamboo, and if you look there's always a circle around us that are sort of smiling and enjoying what it is that we're doing. And you know, I think that that's sort of a testament to James and I, and I hope anyway that that's why they were there, because they wanted to be with us. And we could respect their culture and their local customs, and you know, who they are, and I'd like to think that's some of the experience of us traveling, you know? That we're not scared of this stuff that seems so exotic and so foreign sometimes the first time that you see it.
Abba: And even the poverty that was there in Bangladesh, it's awful, you know? I mean the conditions that these people are living in -- they're there right now today and have the same conditions. But the spirit of the people in some of the poorest places that I've ever been has been the most wonderful spirits that I could find. Anywhere. And you know it's just I think a nice reminder sometimes and people use it as that positive kind of reminder, then you know what, it was a lesson that we learned, and hopefully everybody else could kind of benefit from it.
ETonline: Yeah definitely. Has it changed how you live your life daily now that you're back in any way?
James: You know what, I've always kind of had an open heart for people, and more so than a lot of people in my business. But this has kind of reinforced that. When we were stuck in Russia we were at the police station, and we were trying desperately to find our passport, we just couldn't make a connection language wise with the guy on duty, and we had to fill out a form. And so you saw this fellow come walking up and I asked him could you help translate. That guy stood there for hours. Hours. He had just come home from school, and he had his smoothie he was gonna sit down and eat, and he gave us all that time. And, I mean, I was amazed, I am forever thankful to him. It didn't get us the passports, nonetheless he gave us all that time to try and help us. I mean there are so many great people in the world and I think you know, we get the kind of the thing of being ugly Americans, you know that kind of strips off once you see the generosity of people with maybe a little less. I mean not so much [with this guy] but certainly Bangladesh. I came away with so much renewed positivity for people in general throughout the whole world.
Abba: I think we kind of came across as being kind of serious and it's really not the way that so much of this was, you know I think we had a whole lot of goofy like moments through things, and there were people that helped us. Again we wound up even going into the final pit stop, there was a really pretty girl that was jogging along, and it was kind of like I put out my thumb like hitchhiking and she laughed, and you know she walked up to the pit stop with us, and we kind of hugged her, and when we were in Moscow the first time again there was another very pretty woman that was dressed in this business suit and she was the one who kind of helped and walked with us, and got a cab for us. Going on to the one plane that we wound up getting on going into Russia we met these two women that were I think from Ireland or Scotland, and they got on the plane and we wound up going down the runway with them holding hands and like singing and dancing, and like you know. I mean it was just so much fun that like we had, and you know obviously they can't show everything but you know what it's like we enjoyed the experience.
Abba: And I think that's really something everybody should take [away, that] there's so much stuff in the world that you could just kind of unbelievably enjoy. Try to eat something different today. Say hello to somebody you've never said hello to before, you know just do something different, whatever it is. And I think that if you have that attitude, life really opens up and maybe these people were all around us all the time but you know what, it's like a clenched fist can't receive the gift. So if you open up your hand sometimes you might be surprised what falls into them. And not just when you need something. And, again, I think our experiences of traveling have sort of maybe taught us that slowly along the way, and maybe you saw some of that. I'd like to think that that's sort of how we live our life, and I think it was pretty accurately represented.
ETonline: One last question: Who do you think of the remaining pairs, who do you think will win?
Abba: I'm gonna go with Monster Truck.
James: Yeah me too.
ETonline: (laughs) You guys know they're not in it any more, right?
A: They're not? Who are you voting for?
J: They only let us watch TV for forty minutes at a time here in Russia.
A: Yeah we're still in Russia by the way. Did they tell you that?
bc922:
http://www.seattlepi.com/entertainment/tv/tvguide/article/Amazing-Race-s-James-and-Abba-We-d-Love-to-Know-4051063.php
Amazing Race's James and Abba: We'd Love to Know What the Cabbie Did with Our Bags
By Joyce Eng, TV GUIDE
Published 2:42 p.m., Monday, November 19, 2012
James and Abba's Amazing Race came to an end Sunday after two of the unluckiest legs in Race history. A week after Natalie and Nadiya kept their dropped $100, the rockers' cabbie in Moscow drove off with their bags and Abba's passport. They were saved by a non-elimination, but ultimately couldn't recover the lost passport. "We did everything we could," Abba tells TVGuide.com. "We went to all the police stations in the area with the hope that someone might have found it. We spent a long time inside Interpol. There was nothing else we could've done." So why did they leave their bags in the cab in the first place? Do they hold a grudge against the twins for keeping their money? Find out below.
What was it like being dead men walking in Moscow?
Abba: You're asking all these happy questions! [Laughs] Obviously, it wasn't the situation we wished we were in, but every problem poses the opportunity to find a solution. That was really it. As soon as the cabbie took off with our stuff, we realized the grimness of the situation, but at the same time, we knew we were not dead yet. I think that was something that came across.
Did you do any of the tasks? We just saw you in what looked like a hearse with a priest. Was that the Speed Bump?
James: [Laughs] Yeah, we did. We actually went to Interpol and a bunch of police stations. They only showed us at one. After we exhausted everything we could possible do - basically what it boiled down to was putting in a police report and hoping that someone would turn it in - we picked up back in the Race. Abba did the time zone Roadblock. He ripped through in about 20 minutes. We did the Speed Bump, which involved the priest.
Abba: That was our last rites.
James: [Laughs] Yeah, we had to get him to a church. We found him his way home before we found ours. Those are the ones we did.
Abba: A lot of people think, "Go to the embassy." But this happened on a Friday and a Saturday, and that Tuesday was the Russian Independence Day, so for the whole week, all the government places were closed, so it took a while before anyone could do anything for us. I don't think viewers realized that it was during the weekend and it was also a national holiday. ... After we reported to every place we could, you just realize there's nothing else you can do, so let's just move forward and do the tasks and have some fun. That's how we ended the day.
One of the top two Race rules is to always have your passport on you. Why did you leave it in the cab?
James: What's funny is, throughout the Race, I had told the twins at least twice, quite vehemently, "That's crazy! Never leave your bags in the cab." They were doing it with reckless abandon. In this case, when we got to the Trees of Love, we could see the cluebox from where we were parked. It was maybe 50 feet away. We figured, let's get out, get the clue and see if we still need the cab or if we need to go by foot or something. This was one of those things where it seemed to make sense to hold the driver, which we had been doing through the Race, since he was in our eyeshot. But when we got the clue, it was like, "You have to start the challenge." Abba started it and the rules say you can't be apart from your partner past a certain distance unless otherwise noted, so I couldn't go back to the cab by myself. We both had to go back. This probably transpired in five minutes. But it is always your responsibility to keep your stuff with you.
You only lost one passport along with your bags, right?
Abba: Yeah, it was all our bags, but my passport was in the backpack because when we came out of the pool, I didn't have a towel, so my clothes got wet. Because of that, I took my passport out of my pocket and put it in the backpack. It was just odd circumstances that had never happened to me before, and I hope to God never happens again. I'm going to have some synchronized swimming lessons this summer. I'm gonna sign up all the kids in my neighborhood now that I'm an experienced Russian Olympic synchronized swimmer. [Laughs] It just shows that no matter how prepared you are, not even going into the Race, but just daily life, you never know what's going to happen to you. This was catastrophic, but this experience also gave us something no one else on the Race experienced. No one else spent hours in police stations and saw what Russian jail cells looked like.
None of the past three teams who lost their passports went through anything like this.
Abba: Yeah, and they lost theirs. I think there is a difference and I want it on the record that ours was stolen. This was theft. Should we have left our bags in cab? In retrospect, no, but we knew we left them there, so we didn't lose anything. This guy just drove away with our stuff. We didn't even pay him.
Why did he drive off when you didn't pay him?
Abba: I think he realized that the bags were more expensive than whatever few dollars the fare was. The other thing is how the cabs work there. You're not allowed to get into gypsy cabs anywhere else, but Russia is set up where everybody is a gypsy cab. There are very, very few official cabs. These are just people who if you wave down, they'll come and pick you up, and that's their culture. This was just a private person who picked us up and gypped us. We couldn't call Black and White Cab Company or whatever and say, "Your cab took off with our stuff." It's not like that. He just got us. I just wonder what he was thinking. I have no idea what he did with our stuff. I'd love to know! I mean, he has no idea how he impacted our lives that day. It'll be interesting to know if he ever finds out what he did.
How surprised were you that it was a non-elimination leg and you were still in the Race, even though you're supposed to have your passport when you check in?
James: That was strange because on one hand, you're elated, and the other, you realize how hopeless the situation is. We got lucky that the next leg was still in Moscow and we didn't have to fly. It felt good to grasp onto that for a moment. We had conquered something similarly when we lost our money on the last leg in Bangladesh. It was like, "Well, can we do this twice?" [Laughs]
Did you not know the twins took your money until the episode aired?
Abba: Yup. I saw it when I saw the commercial. It was news to me. Until we saw the episode, we didn't know what happened. We don't see it until the public sees it. It's interesting because people ask, "What's your favorite part of the Race?" And they don't realize that, quite honestly, it's not over for us yet. Although we know the ending and what we did, we don't know what anybody else did or said. Seeing even the Russian dancing Detour last night - we had no idea what that was. That was the first time we saw it. Each week as you watch, it opens a new experience for yourself. I got some e-mails from some of the other teams this morning, saying, "We had no idea that happened to you guys."
They just saw that you had a Speed Bump.
Abba: Yeah, and one of the Chippendales was talking about it in a deleted scene, where they commented on our picture on the Speed Bump. "How did they come in last when we left them at the first clue?" And they thought we must've spent 12 hours in the pool. [Laughs] They had no idea.
Are you upset the twins didn't give the money back to you?
James: I can't really fault them for not giving it back to us. We thought we lost it, which we did, but we didn't know it was found until the episode. They didn't steal it from our bags. We accidentally lost it, had no idea where we lost it, and they found it. There's no rule about finding money and having to give it back to people. It was unpleasant for us, but they didn't violate any rules. [Laughs] The thing that amazes me about The Amazing Race, for lack of a better word, is what you see is what you get. When [Kaylani lost her] passport at a gas station one season and some good Samaritan returned it to her, I thought, "Oh, come on! The producers set that up." I can tell you firsthand that there is no interference. The producers do a great job with the show because they really pull the story together as it happens. They don't interfere, but just monitor the rules, which is a great thing for the audience because the show has a lot of integrity. I'd like to think that comes through when you watch it.
Abba: If you want to move forward in your life, you don't drive just looking through the rearview mirror. As far as the money, we didn't know what happened at the time. I think we did a commendable job keeping our wits. I was really proud of how James dealt with me. I was ashamed and embarrassed and guilty. I thought I lost the money and I did drop it. I was really surprised he didn't blast into me because I thought I deserved it. I think a lot of it had to do with our friendship. He said to me, "What am I going to do? Yell at you? Is that going to make you feel better? We have a problem, so let's figure it out." I think our friendship and support was apparent. I take pride that he's my friend and my partner on this. What happened happened.
What are you up to now?
James: Up to no good!
Abba: James shaved his head.
James: [Laughs] Yeah, we thought we'd shave our heads in solidarity for all those who had to do it on the show.
Abba: Well, there were only two. And both teams already had a bald person on the team. That's not fair.
That's why they did it. It's half a Fast Forward.
Abba: Yeah, it's half a challenge! We're enjoying the rest of the season. We've got Thanksgiving coming up and there's sort of a transition of coming back. We've both got families and children, and some other teams don't, so I think for us going away might've been a different emotional kind of thing, saying goodbye to our wives and children for a month. I'm very thankful to my family for doing all the things that they did to allow this to happen in my life and I really appreciate it. We won two trips. When I left, my son said, "Daddy, I just want you to win a trip." And when we won, I was like, "Dude, I got one for ya!" There are so many people who are involved in this that you don't see on TV.
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