Tori Deal did not keep the whole prize after Team Orange won The Challenge Season 42’s two-day final. Instead, she used her captain’s control of the $550,000 pot to split it nearly evenly, leaving herself just four dollars more than the rest of her teammates.
That choice matters because Johnny “Bananas” Devenanzio had already set the standard for what a winner could do with the money, and Deal could have followed the same path. She did the opposite, turning a twist built for personal payoff into a shared result for a team that also included Chris “C.T.” Tamburello, Michele Fitzgerald and Will Gagnon.
Deal said becoming a two-time champion pushed her into “legend talk,” a phrase that fits the moment as much as the prize split itself. With the victory, Devenanzio became an eight-time winner, Tamburello a six-time winner and Fitzgerald a first-time Challenge champion. The win also capped a final that Deal said had her worried the result might slip away before it was over.
The money breakdown makes the decision even clearer. Team Orange’s total prize was $550,000, and the captain’s fee she kept amounted to four dollars more than what each of the others received. In practical terms, that left the rest of the pot divided almost equally among four teammates, a structure that gave Deal control without turning the finish into a solo grab.
Deal said Michele Fitzgerald helped her a lot in the game and that the two made every decision together. She also recalled telling Fitzgerald, “We’re not going to be able to pass you physical strength. You’ll be able to pass me strategy if I’m in the elimination, but we won’t be able to pass you strength,” a line that captures how closely the pair worked through the season. That dynamic helps explain why the final prize split landed the way it did: the season had been played as a partnership, and the payout followed that logic.
There was also a more personal edge to the win. Before speaking about the finale, Deal went into the proving ground against Sarah Rice, whom she had not seen in a decade. Deal called Rice an amazing competitor and said she was gracious in front of the cameras. The matchup added another layer to a finish that had already become about more than one night of competition.
For Deal, the lasting detail is not just that she won again. It is that she had the chance to repeat the old take-it-all precedent and chose instead to leave her teammates with nearly the full share. That decision turns Team Orange’s victory into one of the rare Challenge finishes where the champion held the power and still decided to spread the money around.
