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The first season of Nation’s Dumbest has come to an end … and the winner of the Fox game show is now speaking out.
Chase “Huddy” Hudson spoke exclusively to Us about coming out on top after Hilaria Baldwin graduated during the Wednesday, September 16, episode, saying, “I’m wearing that title with pride, for sure. I don’t think that it was a bad thing. I think that it’s going to be a good thing in the long run.”
Hudson, 24, pointed out that he had the honor of being the first person crowned the “Nation’s Dumbest.”
“For a TV show that’s never aired in America before, I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into. So when I was getting off the show, they told me everyone that had done this TV show in Europe had left the show and became these huge ambassadors of different things and shooting commercials,” he noted. “Everybody else that had shot the show, they’re going about their day, but the winner gets a crown, in a way.”
The musician didn’t mind wearing what he called a “badge of honor” despite it coming as a result of him not passing enough logic and classroom challenges.
“A lot of people at home are playing this with us, which is a cool thing. And they have been telling me, ‘Oh, I’ve been trying to play, and I got a lot of the same things you got wrong. I wouldn’t know any of this stuff,’” he recalled. “There are harder questions that stumped everybody. No one was able to guess it. So I’m like, ‘You know what? It doesn’t make me feel that bad now that I’m looking back on it.’ There were some pretty tough and very random things.”
Hudson went on to point out that “you can’t even study” for Nation’s Dumbest, adding, “There’s nothing that you could do differently because you don’t know what trivia question you’re going to be asked. They’re spinning a wheel on a million random questions from a million different places, and a lot of them are meant to stump you. There’s trick questions where you’re going to think it’s one thing and it’s another.”
He continued: “The thing that I did when I went in there was I studied all the baseball teams, all the football teams and anything that had to do with, like, American sports or even the cities where the capitals were and landmarks. I thought it was just going to be American geography, and I knew that they were going to do coins as well. I knew they were going to do something with money, so I actually looked at all the faces. So when that came up in a challenge, I knew I studied for this.”
Nation’s Dumbest, which is streaming on Hulu, features 12 celebrities competing against each other in classroom challenges to prove they are not the “nation’s dumbest” and “graduate” as early as possible.
For Hudson, revisiting his time in school wasn’t always positive.
“When I was a student, I was definitely, like, all over the place. I’m super ADHD, and I think that that plays a role in all of this as well,” he told Us. “One of the things my mom pointed out — because she’s also ADHD — is it’s a lot easier for someone with ADHD to understand what the question is if it’s written out in front of them and they can read it. That’s something that we didn’t have on the TV show.”
The actor recalled feeling “underestimated” by others.
“I could have studied a lot harder, but I think that that just wasn’t where my brain was at. I had always been sort of, like, a visionary and more of a creative person. One thing that the show really showed me and the world is where my knowledge had lied,” he continued. “For me, that was always music and fashion and culture and art. Being able to showcase that for everybody, it’s nice to show people who think that I wouldn’t know a lot about those things that I do care about it. Some people think that people in our industry are half-ass caring about these things that they really care about and really pay attention to.”
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Since wrapping up his time on Nation’s Dumbest, Hudson has had a lot more to celebrate — including the Friday, September 18, release of his Somebody to Hate album.
“It is just about growing up feeling like people had something against me. Whether it was on social media where they didn’t like me or they didn’t like my music or I felt like they had been trying to find a reason to not like me,” he explained of the record’s concept. “So I think this was sort of taking that power back. There’s a story line to all of it as well. Things that I’ve gone through throughout my life living in L.A. that have made me into the person that I am today. I wanted to open up and be vulnerable with people about my journey in a way that feels striking. When you see it at first, I think a lot of people saw the title and were like, ‘What? This is crazy.’ And I’m just like, ‘No, it’s not me being defensive that I am somebody to hate.’”
Hudson concluded: “If people want to put that label onto me, I’ll wear it. I want not to convince you that I’m not somebody to hate but to show you an introspective look into who I am.”
Looking ahead, Hudson has plans to keep challenging himself — but not always in reality TV form.
“I’ve been developing a jewelry brand, which is really cool. I’ve been working on a lot of new music,” he shared. “I might do a tour for this album, and I’ve been auditioning for a lot of really cool stuff. So maybe we’ll keep the acting ball rolling too.”
Nation’s Dumbest is streaming on Hulu.
