I probably phrased that hastily and indelicately. Of course you can be in a serious relationship without legal or blood ties…but I think the producers are going more and more to stunt casting, or looking for potential drama within the team.
Huh? Brendon and Rachel (as annoying as they are to me) have been dating on and off for several years now. They met on Big Brother 12 and have been pretty much attached since then. They did not just hook up for the race.
Now, Rebecca and Adam, from TAR 6, were pretty much just hooked up for the race. She actually tried to get on the race before that season, with someone she was really dating, but got turned down. She figured it was because the guy she was dating was pretty boring, so she got together with Adam (and, to be honest, I don’t know for sure that she made him think she was really into him or if it was a mutual business deal), who made good drama by being a whiney mama’s-boy, complementing her uberbitch act.
I was thinking of Vanessa & Ralph from last year.
Ah…although I had no idea they were a mock couple.
Me neither. Was this revealed at some point? I thought they were both divorcees who were dating, seemed to get along fairly well except for the walk up the hill to the castle, when they swore their hate for one another.
Hmm, well they are a local team (San Antonio) and all the newspaper articles described Ralph as Vanessa’s “ex-beau” from the beginning. So they did date, signed up for Amazing Race, but where “just friends” by the time the race came around. As I remember it, anyhow… So anyhow, I guess a “prior relationship” still falls in the spirit of the Amazing Race rules, but they weren’t the usual “trying to make it work again” couple.
Maybe they got along so well because they knew they weren’t going to be tied together for life.
StG
I got the impression they were cast while still a couple but had broken up between then and when the race started.