Benevolent producers, a million dollars just isn’t what it used to be. Neither is the $75,000 third-place prize I happened to win. So, I’d like you to consider a Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) roughly commensurate with the rate of inflation. I don’t think that’s too much to ask. I jumped through literal hoops for you.
I’m not ungrateful. You’ll remember how I cried on finale night, filled out the paperwork without even skimming it, and made some joke about how you’d never see me again. Well, then I got home and remembered how expensive everything is. I told my roommates about the prize money, and they shrugged and asked if I could start paying my rent on time then. I crunched the numbers, and I cannot. So here I am, confident that even Hollywood bankrollers who shop at Erewhon must be feeling the pinch and be willing to compensate for the ballooning cost of my Netflix subscription.
It feels like during the month or so I spent on set (forget the years since the show started), the price of everything has doubled – and my debt collectors have gotten even more desperate. Then there’s this new president who actually has reality show experience but is making life virtually unlivable for your average reality show star like me. Where’s the showbiz camaraderie? I digress. I’m just saying I don’t think it’s a good look for you to have one of your winners fishing through a pencil pouch of coupons just to pay for his toilet paper.
And I know ya’ll need some good PR after Mr. First Place blew through his million-dollar prize. I should have seen it coming based on the kind of game he played on the show, always taking a gamble. But I don’t think his meltdown in the casino is his fault so much as yours. I would have thought a million dollars would get me more buy, too.
I’ve run the comps. And your prize pot is not up to industry standards. With more reality competition shows being produced now than ever before, plus YouTube challenges, Instagram giveaways, board game tournaments – the lottery? – completing whimsical obstacle course challenges has a certain fiscal value you aren’t meeting. If I’d have known I’d win less than 100k, I would have tried my luck at an air-conditioned Catan tournament instead of wrestling with a literal bear. I didn’t want to bring that up, but can you blame me? It’s great leverage. If you won’t raise the prize money because I can’t afford to make an omelet with it, at least raise it because I’d have to crack the eggs with my feet now.
When you first started offering that kind of prize money, I’m sure it turned heads. But that was a different time. People mailed in handwritten applications for crying out loud. You and I both know, thanks to an overly friendly associate producer, that you have less people applying to your show now than The Amazing Race did during COVID. Why do you think that is? Your show’s silence on alleged studio-wide corruption? Numerous contestant injuries? Lack of vegan food options on set? No, it’s the dough.
After taxes, flexing on my family with a weeklong resort vacation, and this tariff economy, I barely have enough funds leftover to buy myself a ticket back from Cabo. And unless my family has some savings lying around, they’re stuck there. Seventy-five grand is just not that much money anymore. And I think it’s only fair that you send me a couple more thousand dollars so that I can actually feel like a winner again.