AE: While you've been in the public eye forever, people haven't had this kind of access to you before. Is that something you wanted to do as an identity thing, for people to get to know you?
CB: My career kind of went to a halt because of drug abuse so this also seemed like a good opportunity to get back out there and get things going again, and to get some positive exposure.
(Bono's lunch break is up and she leaves to participate in a high ropes course.)
Interview Part 2: 3/7/2006
AE: Now that the show's over, have you kept losing weight?
CB: I've probably maintained.
AE: I thought you came off really well on the show. You seemed to be the most compassionate, likeable person on the show, plus you were funny.
CB: I've never been in the media as just myself. Everything that I've done has either been for a cause or for something I was promoting, so I gave me a chance to just be, which was interesting.
AE: Some of the challenges were harsh.
CB: The challenges were all pretty difficult, and it was definitely hard going in on Saturday and having no idea what they were going to make you do (laughs).
AE: What was the one challenge where you thought, “Oh shit”?
CB: The obstacle course.
AE: You had the biggest problem with climbing the cargo net - you got to the very top and then didn't have the energy or the balance to get over it.
CB: When you're climbing up, you get to use your hands and your arms and your legs. And then once you get to the top, the last thing is you have to lift your body weight up on one leg and I was just having a hard time doing that and then I started to feel shaky, so then I was worried about falling also. I was probably up about fifteen, twenty feet.
AE: You didn't have a harness on?
CB: No.
AE: That seems a little scary.
CB: Yeah it was, and I don't have any height phobia, but it was definitely possible to fall when your body starts to get shaky. So it was a combination of lack of strength and then starting to panic a little bit about, “Okay I'm up here and if I don't make it and fall, I will hurt myself.”
AE: Jeff Conaway was in the first couple episodes and he seemed to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol and he eventually left the show and checked into rehab for prescription drug dependency. Do you think they should have even had him on to begin with?
CB: Not once we saw the shape that he was in no, but apparently he didn't come in for his interview in that condition.
AE: Did watching him just cement your own recovery?
CB: I guess it made me grateful that I wasn't like that, but I think after awhile it was just bothersome.
AE: When I was on the set in December you talked about being clean for awhile. What were you on, prescription painkillers?
CB: Painkillers. At the end, Oxy.
AE: All prescribed by a doctor?
CB: Yeah, yeah.
AE: So you were taking beyond the dose that you should have been taking?
CB: I actually wasn't. It's kind of frightening. It's kind of frightening that one doctor would give me that much.
AE: So you were taking too high of a dose to begin with?
CB: You build up a tolerance over time.
AE: What was it prescribed for?
CB: I had endometriosis for years and years.
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