- The Challenge‘s Wes Bergmann joined season 2 of House of Villains after announcing his retirement from the MTV franchise
- Bergmann tells PEOPLE he tried to “go after the less funny people” on House of Villains
- The Real World alum teases Challenge cameos in his future and says he’ll be the show’s “biggest cheerleader” going forward
Months after announcing his retirement from The Challenge, Wes Bergmann popped up on the cast list for House of Villains season 2.
“My fans are on me all the time. They’re like, ‘You’ll come back and you’ll do this. What do you doing?’” Bergmann, 40, tells PEOPLE. “There was a 10 times difference in time commitments. I could show up to this fat and dumb and out of shape and do just fine. Whereas on The Challenge, I have to train for six months, leave the country and check into prison for three months. That’s way, way, way different.”
Bergmann added that on House of Villains, he could “come out and hang out” with his castmates Teresa Giudice (The Real Housewives of New Jersey), Jessie Godderz (Big Brother), Richard Hatch (Survivor), Victoria Larson (The Bachelor), Larissa Lima (90 Day Fiancé), Kandy Muse (RuPaul’s Drag Race), Camilla Poindexter (Bad Girls Club), Tiffany “New York” Pollard (Flavor of Love) and Safaree (Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta).
“I obviously knew who Teresa was, so I thought that was fun,” Bergmann says. “And I could tell right away that I was going to be friends with Safaree, so I wasn’t gaming as much as they want to give me credit for at the beginning, we were just kind of getting to know each other and it was really playful. There were some cool friendships that were formed. And then we used the gamesmanship to go after the less funny people.”
The strategy worked so far to keep Bergmann off the Hit List. The season 2 premiere episode that aired on Wednesday, Oct. 9, saw Supervillain of the Week Safaree, 43, nominate Muse, 29, Larson, 31, and Lima, 38, for elimination.
Bergmann says he “was collecting data” at the beginning of the game — and reveals he touched base with House of Villains season 1 finalist and fellow Challenge champ Johnny “Bananas” Devenanzio.
But “you can only take what he says with a grain of salt,” Bergmann says. “In some ways he’s very, very different than I am. But I got the gist of everything and it was helpful to talk with him. But I can’t do what he does because he’s got that thing that I could never replicate, so I still had to be myself.”
Bergmann’s been watching Devenanzio on The Challenge 40: Battle of the Eras and admits he has “a little bit of FOMO” about not participating.
“I’m going to be The Challenge‘s biggest cheerleader, and there are cameo-esque things in my future for The Challenge,” the three-time Challenge winner says. “But getting to do different things with very different types of people checks off more of my bucket list than what would’ve amounted to my 22nd or 23rd season. There was starting to be a law of diminishing returns of what I was getting out of The Challenge.”
The MTV vet thinks a few of his Challenge colleagues would do well on House of Villains, too. “Ashley Mitchell, Amanda Garcia, Devin Walker, those three would thrive in this environment,” he says.
While there may be Challenge cameos down the line for Bergmann, he demurs the possibility of an appearance on The Challenge: All Stars, which typically requires a shorter filming commitment.
“Everyone likes to say, ‘Oh, go do All Stars. This is the easy version.’ Those are just as hard!” the father of 12-month-old daughter Lucy says. “It’s just on a different channel, also in another country, also with the same people. We’re still hiking mountains and jumping out of helicopters and stuff.”
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House of Villains’ two-night premiere continues on Thursday, Oct. 10, at 10 p.m. ET on E!
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