The Challenge: All Stars 4's Ryan needed surgery for an injury he competed with all season long

Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Challenge: All Stars 4 episode 11, "Life Free or Die Starred."

Ryan Kehoe waited all season to compete for a star, but waiting around ultimately cost him right before the final began on The Challenge: All Stars 4.

The Fresh Meat alum was hoping to make it to his second final but was purged in the last challenge in this week's episode alongside Adam Larson when Derek Chavez won the last male star. Meanwhile Laurel Stucky won the last female star, sending Averey Tressler home after Flora Alekseyeva quit right before the purge.

Ryan calls his exit so close to the final "bittersweet," but reveals that he was actually proud of himself for making it as far as he did since he was competing the entire season with a broken collarbone.

"What they didn't show is that I had shattered my clavicle on day 5 at the very beginning of the season on a water slide in the house on our day off," Ryan tells Entertainment Weekly. "It was a freak accident because Tina put dish soap on the water slide. I was being told or suggested to get an X-ray, and I said no. I refused because I knew that they would send me home."

Since it was so early in the season — they had only completed one challenge at this point — Ryan didn't want to risk being sent home, so he hid how bad the injury was. But that also played a big part of why he backed out of going into the last male elimination against Jay Gotti, which he now regrets since it led to his exit in the purge.

"I pushed through with this injury the entire season, so that opportunity I would've had to go against Jay, I know it looks like to viewers, 'Why didn't he go in?'" he says. "But I thought they were going to do something huge because it was the last male elimination — I'm thinking like Hall Brawl or Pole Wrestle — and I didn't want to further that injury. I was like, 'Be a little responsible with your body,' but yeah, it's kind of lame that I didn't go in after seeing what the elimination was."

Below, Ryan details more about how he competed with his injury, why he regrets siding with Laurel against Cara Maria Sorbello all season, and a very harrowing story about how a stomach bug almost took out multiple players during an elimination.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Do you think you could have beaten Jay in that elimination, even with a broken clavicle?

RYAN KEHOE: Yes, because I am a water baby, I love swimming, and unfortunately Jay was colorblind and also had a deviated septum, so he couldn't really go underwater without holding his nose. There were a lot of things not working in Jay's favor, but we never know what it's going to be so it's always a crap shoot. But I just knew there would be one more opportunity, and I assumed it would be a purge kind of situation, so I just was holding out for that.

That's such a big risk to wait for a purge. What gave you the confidence to think you had one more shot?

I always literally look at the writing on the wall, the set design, and up until the very end of the season, there was always six stars on the wall. And on the last challenge we did with the laundry carts and the Wonder Woman lassoing, there were eight stars on the wall, which in my head I'm like, Is that an Easter egg? It was confirming, at least in my own head, that meant there was going to be one more opportunity for one male and one female star. That's what helped me sleep at night.

Looking back on it now, do you think your best shot at getting a star was in the purge against Derek and Adam?

In retrospect now, I should have gone in with Jay. That would've been more of a guarantee for me to come out with a star, and then I wouldn't have had to compete in that last purge mini-final. Listen, I know what Derek is capable of, I know what Adam is capable of. They're such strong competitors just all across the board, so I knew that the injury was going to definitely affect my performance. Pulling that giant rope around the tree, I had one good arm to work with, and then paddling to the middle of the lake, I could only paddle one side. I'm fully healed now, but at the time, I had a floating bone that was shattered, so everything was struggle bus for me, to be honest. But I did it. I never gave up. And I didn't know it was broken until I got an X-ray when I got back in the States.

But yeah, I should have gone in against Jay. I think I learned a lesson to not operate out of fear. You could say I was a little scared to go against Jay because Jay was never in the bottom group once the entire season. He was a baller.

He really got his redemption this season.

I didn't watch shows beyond my last season, so when I saw him at the airport in Newark, I literally was like, "Oh, this fan wants to take a picture with someone." I had no idea he was on the show. I didn't know that he was the guy that couldn't drink the drink. I was like, "This guy's getting really close to our group." And I told him that. But yes, Jay is a badass. I've got to give him credit where credit is due.

You should also give yourself a lot of credit because competing with a broken bone is not something most people can or would do.

Thank you. Honestly, I have Brad and Rachel to thank because they both are more of an athlete than I am, and they saw the bone popping up and they saw the bruising the day after, which lasted almost a year after. They were like, "How bad is it?" I was like, "It's the worst pain I've ever been in, but I'm sober, so I feel like the universe is tossing me a new challenge, the challenge within a challenge, like how much more do you have?" And they're like, "Can you maintain it?" I was like, "Yeah. We're here. I'm not going to go home week one from an injury. Push through the pain, not complain about it, ice it, heat it, do the thing, and just have a sense of humor about it." And then, of course, when I saw the X-ray, I was like, Oh, no, Ryan. But I didn't die. It didn't kill me. I've been through worse in life. Now I have a metal plate in my shoulder for the rest of my life.

So you had to have surgery when you got home?

Yeah, there was fragments of bone floating around in there, so they had to make me a new metal clavicle. So I'm bionic on this side, setting off metal detectors in the airport here and there. It's pretty dope.

How long did it take to heal afterwards?

Five months. But I'm back and better than ever. I wish I could say I was wrestling Leroy in a mud pit, something cooler. A fricking waterslide with dish soap on our day off, not so heroic, but I have to see the humor in it. I don't think any of us really knew the severity of the injury until the X-ray spoke for itself.

If I was still drinking, with that injury, I would've gone home because I would've been less clear-headed. I came into this being like, "You're going to do a season sober, against all odds, against what your therapist is saying is a good idea." And then the injury happened so soon. I was like, "Okay, this is something that the universe put in front of me to be like, 'It's not going to be that easy. We're going to make it a little harder for you.'" Not saying it was a responsible decision to stay with a broken bone, but I felt like I was capable of anything. When you're not hooked on your vice, everything is so clear. And I think the worst of the tragedies of my life and the worst of my battles have been behind me, so I just felt like I had this newfound confidence that I can do it all.

Sign up for Entertainment Weekly's free daily newsletter to get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.

So much of this season has focused on Laurel and Kam vs. Cara Maria, so where did you stand on that during the season, and has your opinion changed in the time since it was filmed?

Things change in real time and real life. I was very much aligned with Laurel. I really always loved Cara as a person, I thought she was really sweet, and I couldn't really understand that toxicity between Laurel and Cara. It was a little twisted to me. And certainly Laurel's opinion of Cara didn't deter me from talking to Cara. I will say 18 months later, Cara is a very close friend. Laurel is not in my life, vice versa. I experienced her outside of the show, and we're just not on the same page as humans. I saw the red flags while I was on All Stars 4, and those red flags continued outside of the show. So I think it was best for us to just part ways, and I wish her well. Hopefully I don't have to do a season with her.

But as far as real life, when I got my surgery, Cara was checking in with me. When I got my puppy in September, Cara was like, "Send me videos of your dog." Cara and I just got closer after the show, and I think I see the writing on the wall now that I'm outside of that experience. But yeah, Cara got a lot of unnecessary negativity. I get it, she's a strong girl, but there was nothing that she did that deserved the way that she was treated on All Stars 4.

What has surprised you the most while watching these episodes back a year and a half later?

Just how resilient Cara is. Her back is up against the wall, and losing or not having a little bit of support in a season is very upsetting. People ganged up on Cara. And I didn't voice my opinion in the moment, but I certainly would have her back moving forward if we were to do another season together because she's really just a good person. And after Rachel was gone, Kam, Cara, and Laurel were the three to beat, even if you were a guy. If there's only one winner and it doesn't matter what sex it is, those are the three people you want gone before the final.

If you could go back, what would you do differently this season?

[Laughs] I wouldn't go on the water slide. I wouldn't follow one person or root for one person. When I got eliminated in that purge, I was like, "I want my best friend Derek to win, but if he doesn't win, I want Laurel to win." That's just based on the relationships that I had in that moment.

I wouldn't be so quick to trust people. I think my intuition and my spider sense was a little malfunctioned in the moment because, honestly, Cara wasn't throwing shade at anyone. She was just trying to survive in the house, and she was just being her quirky, little, fun, weirdo self. But lesson learned. I think I'll pay attention to more things going into the next one if I ever have the opportunity.

What else happened this season that wasn't shown in the episodes?

We all had this stomach virus from the food there. It was like a strain of something that was going around in South Africa at the time. So Veronica and I got to know each other really well in the Porta Potties at an elimination. We were simultaneously exploding in Porta Potties that were adjacent, laughing but also crying from how bad our stomach was. And my poor boy Derek got it after we did, and he had a moment in his bed in the middle of the night with all the production lights down where he had to move his mattress out and throw out some clothing. There was some soiling. The stomach bug that went around really took us out. Tina had it during her elimination with Kam and had to run to the Porta Potti because she was afraid she was going to do it on the trampoline. It's funny now in retrospect.