Exclusive Interview
‘Amazing Race’ Couple Paige Seber & Izzy Gleicher React to Their Historic Season 38 Run
What To Know
- Paige Seber and Izzy Gleicher competed on The Amazing Race Season 38.
- The couple sat down with Swooon for an exclusive interview about their relationship following the competition.
- The newlyweds became the highest-ranking lesbian couple in the show’s history.
[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for The Amazing Race Season 38 finale.]
Team Pizzy stans, this one goes out to you!
On December 10, Season 38 of The Amazing Race came to an end with the final three duos racing to the finish line in New York City. However, before the final three teams could face off, fourth-place finishers Paige Seber and Izzy Gleicher were sent packing in Paris, which is, ironically, the City of Love.
While the podium was just out of reach for the longtime couple and then-fiancées, Paige and Izzy left the race to find out that they had hit a major milestone in The Amazing Race history, becoming the highest-ranking lesbian couple of all time in the American version of the competition show. Following their historic run, Paige and Izzy sat down with Swooon, just a week after their wedding, to share how they found out about their new title and let Amazing Race fans in on how it felt to be so publicly embraced by their Team Pizzy stans.
Izzy and Paige are massive fans of the Race. Looking back on their fourth-place finish, Izzy told Swooon, “I guess I don’t know when we learned officially. We’re fans of the Race and that trope ‘Students of the Race.’ We know a lot of you know trivia and things like that.” For that reason, they knew as they got further in the ranks that they were “placing very high as a lesbian couple.”
CBS
Recalling the specific moment, which came after they were eliminated in Paris, Paige revealed, “I think [it was] actually, as soon as we got our phones back on the way home.” Taking us behind the scenes, Paige shared that there is an online community that follows The Amazing Race as it is being filmed, “The Race is actually so public,” she told Swooon. “People take pictures of you and follow you. As you’re running the Race, they’ll recognize what’s happening.”
Naturally, Izzy joked, “They don’t want you talking about this.” But don’t worry, CBS confirmed that they could share this wholesome BTS story of what happened after their elimination. As Paige put it, “An anonymous account sent us a message on our flight home, saying, ‘We’re pretty sure you guys just became the highest ranking lesbian couple to ever run the race.’ So, we just kind of put it together slowly, [but] I guess you’re the first person to say it officially.”
Looking forward to what their milestone means for the entire queer community, the couple wrote on Instagram, “We are so proud to be the highest placing lesbian couple to ever compete on The Amazing Race, and we will be so proud to hand that title off as soon as we can. We did it for the Queers.”
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The couple added, “We emotionally prepared ourselves for all of the ignorant questions of, ‘Who’s the boy one? Who’s the girl one?’ and we didn’t spend any time thinking about the people who weren’t going to be asking those questions, who were just going to be showing up and getting it.”
Izzy admitted, “I feel like we were prepped for fan response after being on Big Brother. But this — it’s not that I wasn’t expecting it. I mean, I think we’re cute and charming, but, wow. I mean, it felt like this race, this show, was such a love letter to our journey.”
She continued, “It’s not that often that we see a lesbian couple that looks slightly unconventional. To have so much love for our relationship [and] not to be made fun of, I’m so proud that our relationship was taken really seriously. And I think that’s because, even though we have a great sense of humor, we like to be all out there and be authentic, we take ourselves seriously, you know? We took the Race seriously, so that was amazing to feel, I don’t know, like a super team because of the fans seeing the reality of who we were and what we were doing.”
Be sure to check out our full interview on Paige and Izzy’s wedding here!
The Amazing Race, Season 38, Streaming Now, Paramount+
