Destination X's Kim Conner Exited the Bus By Choice: "I Could've Won the Whole Thing"
There was a lot more drama going on inside the bus than we got to see!
This interview contains spoilers to Season 1, Episode 5 of Destination X.
As the only Destination X player on the bus over the age of 50, Kim Connors said she knew she would have a disadvantage in the game from the second she met her fellow 11 players on the bus.
As an empty nester and Child Protective Services Investigator, Kim brought plenty of observational experience and a lot of life skills with her into the game. But that doesn’t help when younger players are playing a different game.
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"It took me probably two to three days to acclimate and to even contemplate the idea that I'm going to be stuck with all these young kids for a great length of time,” Kim told NBC Insider with a laugh.
As it turns out, “lone wolf” Kim was able to make it halfway through the game, but she also left by choice. She explained all.
Kim Connors played a solo game, and played to win
Having raised her kids and looking for new adventures, Kim told us that she signed up for Destination X as a way to meet new people and see the world more. She even acclimated to the claustrophobia of the bus quickly and came out of her shell.
"We all started to get to know each other a little bit,” she said. "And then it became way better than what I thought, for sure."
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Where she said she felt out of tune with the younger players was not agreeing with them in making alliances all over the bus.
"From day one, I knew that I didn't really want alliances. I'm not going to trust anybody else better than I trust myself,” she said. "And if you think I'm going to trust a 20-some-year-old... no, thank you. I'll pass. But I did listen to what they're talking about. And I'm like, ‘If I'm going out, it's going to be my mistake, my decision, my feeling of where I am that got me to the exit.'"
Of all the players, Kim said she felt the most affinity to Biggy Bailey, who she felt was a straight shooter.
“As our relationship kind of grew, I didn't feel like he would lead me in the wrong direction had I needed information,” she said. "There were several times when he asked me, 'Kim, you good? You know where you are?' and I said, ‘Yeah.’"
Overall, she just didn’t understand the group mentality of her fellow players.
“The problem that I found in the bus the whole time was the amount of sharing,” she said. "We had gotten down to seven before JaNa and Peter came on the bus. I remember saying at some point, 'Hey, you guys, you know this is a game, right? You gotta stop sharing your information!'"
Kim admits she left the bus on purpose by picking Frankfurt instead of Munich
Kim said her fellow players understood that she wasn’t going to accept an alliance, which is why she let Peter run point with the train challenge that had them purposefully lose. She didn’t like “quitting,” but she said she let him take the lead.
“Normally, I don't give in that easy. But I was just like, 'Screw it at this point!’” she said. "I was just exhausted."
Surprisingly, Kim revealed that her exhaustion wasn’t from lack of sleep but from the emotional fallout after she had a major argument with another castmate prior to the Germany challenges.
"It was pretty major,” she shared. "After that, I knew I couldn't sit on a bus with somebody that I didn't want to look at, to be honest. I looked at it like, 'OK, I'm the older one, just take the high road.' But if I had to continue on a bus with that particular person looking straight across from me, at some point, I was going to blow my lid."
Kim said she decided to make a dramatic choice in the Map Room.
"I knew I couldn't sit on the bus with that any longer. And I knew we were in Munich,” she said. "Look, we're on a bus. We’re [driving] through Europe. It's around September, October. Common Sense, we're going to an Oktoberfest. So I said, ‘Frankfurt.’
"Had that [argument] not happened, I feel like I could've won the whole thing,” she added.
She declined to name names, but she said she’s moved on: "It kind of sucked, but it doesn't take away from all the goodness that I had with everybody else.”
When she exited the bus, Kim said she shared a beer at Oktoberfest and then traveled with the production team a little further.
"I stayed around for a little while," she said. "I can't tell where I went home from, but it was not Munich. And it was good fun!"
Watch Destination X Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET/PT on NBC. Episodes are available to stream the next day on Peacock.
