Credit: CBS Broadcasting

December 2022

After a series of trials and tribulations, Derek and Claire finished season 34 of The Amazing Race on top, winning the $1 million grand prize together. Derek told Us that the competition strengthened the duo’s bond in ways he’d never imagined.

“I think at the very beginning, I had delusions of grandeur around how good our relationship was because we hadn’t been tested, so I didn’t know. But then we actually got tested, and now I think our relationship actually is where I thought it was,” the Baltimore native said.

Claire added: “We just were really required to talk about like, ‘How do we communicate, how do we wanna solve problems?’ and be very honest and be very real with each other in a way that I think a lot of couples don’t have to be, necessarily, and still be happy. So, that just made it so much stronger, and it’s made it so much more applicable when we get into, like, fights or whatever outside of the race too. I do think it was really a test — which I think is very cliche that people say — but I think that it did make us a lot, lot stronger.”