Claim to Fame Winner on Emotional Finale and Being Painted as the Antihero: 'Not a Complete Image of Myself' (Exclusive)

This post contains spoilers from the season 3 finale of Claim to Fame.

Claim to fame season 3 has crowned its winner.

During the second part of Wednesday’s two-hour finale, Hud, Adam and Mackenzie faced off as they competed for the $100,000 grand prize.

After winning the challenge earlier in the episode, Adam got the upper hand in the competition by choosing himself as the guesser for both Mackenzie and Hood.

Although Adam was a wild card all season, he was eventually declared the winner for correctly guessing Mackenzie’s cousin as her father Trace Adkins and Hud’s cousin as his father John Mellencamp. Meanwhile, it was revealed that Adam is Michael Bolton’s nephew.

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Of course, his path to victory was not entirely smooth. Earlier in the episode, Adam injured himself during a challenge that nearly knocked him out of the competition entirely. “The adrenaline was high,” he says of the events leading up to the injury that left his head bleeding and later requiring stitches.

“Luckily, I was able to pull myself together, but before the producer or the team really let me go on, the reality sunk in that I had come this far, and I was my own death because I was just going too fast, too hard, and I did this to myself. I did, and I let my family down. I’m letting myself down,” he explains.

“It was all at once. And so I just cried. When I got the okay, when they wrapped me up and I saw that I was there on the leaderboard and the rest of the game was in my hands, it was real magic. For me, it was Hollywood magic. It was living this fairytale experience firsthand, and you want to win. And so I had the opportunity to not be able to go home in an ambulance and finish the competition, I’m so thankful that it went that way.”

Adam on his claim to fame.

Disney/Chris Willard

He repeats that he is much better now and even has a small scar by which he will remember the performance. “There is no major damage. Maybe that made me at least a few cents,” he jokes.

Although Adam has been portrayed as an anti-hero throughout the season, he notes that not everything is as it appears on television. “Honestly, as far as editing goes, they capture so much reality. “I don’t think for a second that they recorded something that I didn’t,” he explains. “I really had a good life in terms of being myself and trying to find my way. That might rub people the wrong way sometimes and that’s okay.”

“Everything is fair when you just watch something and don’t know the person,” he adds about the audience’s reactions to him on the Internet. “But at the end of the day, everyone who knows me, especially my wife, has been there to really comfort me with that initial shock of being seen as someone who isn’t really the full picture of myself.”

He adds that his wife and children were one of his biggest fans during the season, watching every episode. “My daughter, wife and I would have a great time on Wednesday nights sitting together,” he notes, adding that his four-year-old was actually a better guesser than he was.

“She was literally calling out what was going to happen,” he says. “She has a sixth sense. She is so beautiful. I married into a bigger family and I felt like, ‘Hey guys, I hope I’m not embarrassing you on national television. They make me a really unpleasant character.’ But they are simply loving and supportive. They know who I am and they were able to see through everything that was said, and that really helped me get through that experience as someone who is so targeted.”

Adam on Claim to Fame and Michael Bolton.

Disney/Erica Hernandez; David Livingston/FilmMagic

Adam adds that Bolton has also been very supportive. During the finale, Adam briefly talks about his uncle’s surgery earlier this year to remove a brain tumor as he gets emotional over his written message.

“For him to take a moment and text me and encourage me like he did so many times — I have so many signatures on his photo, ‘To my handsome, talented, handsome nephew.’ – For a long time, I lived on every word he had for me – says Adam about his uncle.

“I grew up watching him as a kid on stage, and it was the craziest experience,” he says. “I mean, we lived in housing ward 8, and we’d take a limo, we’d go to these big concerts, and it was like everything there. I knew he would be proud because we are a very competitive family. And knowing the challenges he had to overcome in his life, I just want to make him proud.”

As for how he plans to use the prize money, Adam notes that he has already bought his father a truck that he plans to surprise him with after the finale.

“That was my goal going into the show, which was to get enough money to buy my dad a truck, and also to meet people who also have famous relatives and empathize with each other and see how it’s affected their lives,” he says. “[After the finale]we’re going to take the truck out and surprise my dad. I am very excited to do this for the man who has worked so hard for me. He gives everything. He took the shirt off his back. He has done everything and asks for nothing in return.”

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After his appearance on the show, Adam also hopes to bring attention to causes close to his heart, including his studio Musical Intervention in New Haven, Conn.

“I wanted to build a creative space for people where people wouldn’t be judged and just accepted for their creative talents,” he says of Music Intervention, which he started at age 17. “I got my degree and started working in psychiatric hospitals, writing and recording songs with people, and I actually discovered that music is a language that everyone can share. So I opened a studio in downtown New Haven that is completely free and open to the public. It’s a sober environment, which means anyone can come and work with each other, find inspiration and develop their skills. Especially for people who don’t have money, who don’t have access to music equipment, producers, other bands and bandmates, it’s a really special thing that I believe belongs to every city.”

Adam notes that his uncle’s passion for music greatly inspired him and the initiative. “If Michael left me anything, it’s a musical lineage, a very deep passion for it,” he explains. “He is a very compassionate man. He is a great philanthropist. And it’s something I put my heart and soul into. It’s a modest budget, but we manage. This is a vision I’ve had since I was 17, and to continue it, to see lives changed, is a real reward. At the end of the day, I get to make music with really amazing, inspiring people and I get to turn people on to the wonderful world of music.”

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Claim to fame season 3 is currently streaming on Hulu.

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Source: HIS Education