‘Deal or No Deal Island’ Runner-Up Alexis Lete Knows Exactly Who to Blame for Her Not Winning

Alexis Lete was just inches away from going into the final temple of the season on Deal or No Deal Island. And after watching David Genat do so and walk away $5.8 million richer, she knows exactly who she holds accountable for her narrow miss of that big moment.

All throughout DONDI Season 2, Lete held her own against some of the biggest names in reality television, outlasting both Parvati Shallow and Will “Dr. Will” Kirby to advance to the finale. She did so by being athletic and competent in the challenges and not making enemies among the other contestants. So she was especially surprised when the final challenge came down to essentially a jury game, in which her fate rested in the hands of her former castmates, and one of them decided to turn against her in favor of David, who’d actually sent them home.

So who is the person responsible for Alexis Lete narrowly missing her chance at the big temple? And what else does she want us to know about her time on Deal or No Deal Island. TV Insider caught up with Alexis Lete to find out!

Congratulations on making it so far. It’s got to be bittersweet, though, right? 

Alexis Lete: Bitter definitely. I’ve been feeling the bitter a little bit more than sweet. I think right after the show, I felt the sweet, but after watching the previous week of the way that people told me how they acted in the final challenge and then actually seeing their actions not match up with their words, I’m feeling pretty bitter right now.’

Is there anyone in particular that you kind of blame for that situation? 

Phillip [Solomon].

What happened between you guys? 

I wish I knew. And that’s what breaks my heart. To go on a show like this and bond with someone and spend nights with them and spend vulnerable moments with them and share so much about your life and to come to the finale and you have yourself that’s been nothing but good to them, helped them ride with you to the end, been happy for them for their $75k, even risked your game so they could get that $75k, and then for them to help the person who’s already won a show and help the person who sent them home, has been really hard for me to wrap my head around and has honestly been mentally tough to understand why someone that in the moment I loved would betray me like that.

Did you not get a chance at the temple when you all were together again to confront him and find out? 

He told me — well, I’m upset about the few things he said when we were on the bus riding back. I thought it was Dickon [Wong], and I was like, “Dickson, you screwed me over.” And I was riding on the bus with Phillip and Dickson back to the hotel where everybody stays when they get voted out, and Dickson’s like, “What do you mean? It wasn’t me.” And I was like, “What do you mean? Ih, who was it?”  And I was like, “Well, okay, I know La Shell [Wooten] gave me the medium case,” which I suspected that, but like, “Who… how did…” I was like, “Wait, Philip, what did you give David?” He’s like, “Oh, I gave him the highest,” and I just, my heart just sunk into my a**. And I said, “Why would you do that?” And he was like, “Well, I figured maybe he would choose a different case if I offered him one.” I looked back at the footage [and he] says, “This case is yours.” It wasn’t like, “Choose one.” It wasn’t, “This or that this case is yours,” and afterwards I kept going like, “I don’t understand, my head can’t wrap around this,” and he told me, he said, “You’re pretty, you’ll be good.” And I think that’s also something that’s haunted me throughout this whole process of someone who came on the show talking about their vulnerability, talking about not judging people, talking about we never know what people are going through, to judge my exterior of your pretty thinking my life is perfect, was a really big blow to who I am, everything I’ve overcome and all the struggles in my life. And for me, that’s pretty low.

Monty Brinton / NBC

About Dickson, are you guys okay now? He told me he texts you sometimes.

I love Dickson as a person. Do we live close and hang out? No, but none of us on the show really live close. If I was in his city, I’d for sure hit him up and go to dinner and play pickleball. I think he’s a really nice person, and I had a lovely time with him on the island. I love nerdy people. I love the underdogs, so Dickson was a fun person to have on the show.

I was a little surprised that Parvati agreed to help you, even though she was obviously very team David. Did you perceive it in real time that she was slowing you down a little bit during the bridge challenge? 

No, no, she really wasn’t. She helped me, and I think I remember at temple, Joe was like, “Oh, Parvati slowed you down.” No, she did not. I don’t know why they put that in the edit if they did, but she really helped me — genuinely she wasn’t having any bad blood with me, and I was surprised, and I thought higher of her because of that because I didn’t screw her over in the game. I didn’t lie to her. I didn’t backstab her. I didn’t do anything that really hurt her game or hurt her as a person. So to me it made sense of, yeah, she’d helped me because I did nothing to hurt her game or hurt her. If anything, she had people rallying around me to hurt me.

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Parvati Shallow Is Done With Reality Competitions After 'Deal or No Deal Island'

Did you guys have any clue who the banker was, and what was your reaction when you found out? 

I thought it was — who is that blonde girl who does Project Runway? … I thought it was Heidi Klum. I was so confident… Throughout being on the island — they didn’t show it on the show — but they gave us clues. We had a big delivery of bathing suits where we did a runway walk, and we had a whole spread of food, which was the food from the originality that Chrissy Teigen comes from, and so that gave it away that it was Chrissy Teigen. And I was excited because I want to be a Sports Illustrated model one day, and if I had the opportunity to play the banker, I was like, “I’m gonna talk to her about it. I’m gonna see if we can take the pictures together, like Sports Illustrated swim.” I was super excited because I saw it as an opportunity to advance my career and start moving towards my next dream.

Monty Brinton / NBC

How hard was it for you once you were in the temple to watch David play? He took so many risks. 

It wasn’t hard to watch. It was a thrill to watch. It was so fun, and you go on the show with all these different people and all these different personalities, and, yes, some people annoy you. Yes, you don’t like some people, but at the end of the day, it’s like a family. It’s like, this is my big brother that annoys the sh** out of me, or this is my sister that I want to pull her hair, and to see David go up there, it was really fun to see him challenge himself time after time again to reach these new cases. And it was fun for us, too, because like we were making bets behind the scenes like, “Oh if this happens we’re gonna do this after,” “if this happens we’re getting shots here at the club.” So it was such a thrill to be a part of and such an awesome moment and experience of game show history period. The fact that we got to sit there and be a part of the largest winning in game show history is something that is really exciting.

He’s the new Ken Jennings. How do you feel about knowing the winningest person in game show history?

Yeah, I’m gonna ask him to buy me a Rolex, so I think he might. I mean, he’s got like $5 million now, so you would think that less than 1% of the money he has, he would be able to spend on the runner-up, considering I got nothing.

You told Parvati Shallow in that last challenge that you wanted her to pass the “Black Widow” torch, and when I talked to her, she said she’s done with reality television, at least in front of the screen. Are there any shows that you’re thinking you might like to be a part of next? 

Yes, I am so thrilled. I didn’t realize that you could make a career out of this, but after the show, Parvati and David were gracious enough to kind of give me a rundown and talk about their experiences, and this is what they do for work, for a living, and to me that it just got me so excited because I had the best time of my life. Not exaggerating at all, the best time of my whole 28 years on this planet was when I was on the island for Deal. I think The Traitors is something that is so fun. I love the outfits. I love the style. Please glam me up in a plaid skirt and a little beret. I also think The Challenge is something that I would be enticed to do because of my physical abilities. I’m still young, I’m still agile, I’m still lifting weights, and I really like to challenge myself physically, not just mentally. And then Amazing Race is something that I would love to do later on. I grew up watching it with my mom and dad and dreaming of traveling the world. I grew up in southern Indiana, which is where I currently live right now, and I always want to see what else is out there, and I love how that show explores and celebrates other cultures.

With The Traitors, how would you do that, because your big thing is playing with integrity?  

I have to be a Pilot Pete. Yeah, I would have to be a Pilot Pete or Dylan Efron. If Alan [Cumming] came and tapped my shoulder to be a traitor, I’d be like, “Oh no!” But I am an actress, so I could do it, and I would have to look in the mirror and morally be like, “It’s okay, Lete, it’s just a game, it’s not real life.” And then every day I’d have to go back and just like sulk for a moment.

Was there anything that we didn’t get to see of you, or anything that maybe we don’t know about you that you wish had come through? 

I was not always the pretty, outgoing girl — always outgoing, but not always the pretty one. And I talked with Philip about it and CK about being picked on when I was younger for the way I looked and being a little bit different than people and never feeling like I really belonged anywhere. And I think it’s important to know that just because you see someone’s exterior, you see the way someone looks on social media, it’s not always how it is behind the doors. You don’t know what they’ve been through. You don’t know what they’ve gone through to get to where they’re at, and I’m really grateful for the struggles that I faced in my past because I think it’s made me able to be a version of the human that I want to be that’s able to see people not just of where they’re at right now, but the experiences that happened before the person I’m looking at right now.