“The Amazing Race was a lot of fun, but it was truly traumatizing. It's crazy. They wanted me to come out on the show!" the Season 22 contestant said
Credit: Robin L Marshall/Getty
NEED TO KNOW
- Joey Graceffa called his time on The Amazing Race both fun and “truly traumatizing” due what he described as personal pressures
- Graceffa claims producers encouraged him to come out on the show, but he chose to wait until he was ready in 2015
- Graceffa has since expanded his career by becoming a book author
Joey Graceffa, a YouTube creator with over 9 million subscribers and an expansive video catalog, is opening up about his experience on The Amazing Race, describing it as both memorable and deeply difficult.
In a recent interview with Out, Graceffa said his time on the long-running reality competition series in 2013 came with what he perceived as unexpected pressure at a pivotal moment in his personal life. At the time of filming, he had not yet publicly come out as a gay man, and he ultimately chose not to do so on the show.
“The Amazing Race was a lot of fun, but it was truly traumatizing. It's crazy. They wanted me to come out on the show!” Graceffa claimed. He also claimed that a producer encouraged him directly, saying there was one producer "who was like, ‘You should come out on the show.’ I was like, ‘I'll come out if you write me that $1 million check at the finish line!’ That didn't happen. I would not have been ready back then.” (Graceffa did not specify the producer, and it is not clear who he was referring to. The show has had many producers over its long history.)
Graceffa competed on two seasons of The Amazing Race alongside fellow influencer Meghan Camarena. The pair placed fifth during Season 22 in 2013 and later returned for the all-stars Season 24, in which they were eliminated in the third episode.
PEOPLE reached out to Amazing Race production studios CBS Studios and Twentieth Television for comment.
Graceffa later came out in 2015, releasing a video titled “YES I’M GAY,” in which he shared his story and reflected on the overwhelming support he received from his audience. The video has since amassed more than 8 million views. That October, he followed up with another video, “MY COMING OUT STORY!,” published in honor of National Coming Out Day, where he offered further insight into his journey and encouragement to others navigating similar experiences.
"I was the weirdo nerd kid in high school," Graceffa told Out. "That mentality still lives inside me. I feel like such a loser sometimes. Honestly, having the YouTube audience gave me something to build me up and make me feel special."
Graceffa has continued to expand his creative work beyond YouTube. Most recently, he released a new book, The Twelve, adding to a growing list of literary projects that includes a memoir and the Children of Eden trilogy.
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Speaking to PEOPLE in a previous interview about his writing journey, Graceffa reflected on how far he has come.
“I grew up in special education classes,” he told PEOPLE in February 2026. “My learning comprehension was so bad that I never ever thought I'd be writing books, or just to have anything in the literature space."
He added that reading was not always a passion. “I hated reading as a kid because it seemed so boring,” he said, though he now sees storytelling as central to his identity. “I've always had this imagination… And the freedom that I found in writing for books is just so much better because you don't have to worry about a budget when writing. You can just build the most extreme world possible and just let my imagination go wild.
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