Shows been over a year but I found this from one of the contestants ( Nessa ) from this Pirate Master--talks about the show, good & bad--mostly bad!
Why did I do it, you might ask? Well, it came along like this, "Hey, there's this new reality show by the producers of Survivor, that's pirate-themed.. They've basically cast the entire show, but they are looking for a brunette, a latina, but I mean, your Lebanese, right, its close enough... And I think you'd be perfect for the part. They are looking for a fun, flirty, athletic, hot, girl.. You want me to at least send your picture to the casting directors?" Wait, did I hear you correctly?! Do I want to go to the Caribbean for a free six-week-all-expenses-paid trip, and run around pretending to be a pirate?!! For the chance to win... A MILLION DOLLARS??! (turns out it was only half a mill, but I mean, come on, thats only one of the MANY lies they told us...) Am I the only one who went to Disneyland as a child??!! Ummm... HELL YEAH, where do I sign up...?
Less than a month later, I was on my way...Oh, wait, that's after I signed my life away with the CBS contract (which I'm sure I'm violating right now by speaking my mind...What would George Orwell say?)... Oh, which, by the way, your ENTIRE family has to sign, which means, underage half-siblings and father's live-in girlfriend.. Or else you don't go on the show. (and I'm sure my mom isn't the only one that took issue with the 'in the event of death, CBS and Mark Burnett prod. are not liable...' etc. etc.)
But whatever, I wanted to be a pirate.. RIGHT?
Gosh... There's alot of blanks that need to be filled in, and its 5am and I'm an insomniac and I'm too tired to cover all the bases right now, but ask me sometime. Things like how they told us "Its not Survivor, you'll get plenty of food", and then removed all the food from the galley after the first expedition and played dumb when we asked for food. Or the next day, when we asked for food. Or the next. Or the next. You get the point. And then they made us elect a captain and they FORBADE him to share his food OR money with us. Oh, you thought JD was just an asshole? (well he does have his moments, haha.)
All jokes aside though, JD was one of the most straight-forward, honest people we had on the ship... But you know, they needed a tyrant, right? Just like they needed the loveable guy (Louie), the nerd (Kendra), the bitch (Alexis), etc, etc. So the poor guy got reamed in the editing process.
Okay.. skip ahead to afterwards. Let me first tell you that they FILLED our heads with nonsense, like about how HUGE the show was going to be, and how it was slated to replace Survivor (yes, they really told us that), and how they were contracted to do 13 seasons, etc. etc.Oh, and wait, how we were all gonna be famous and how life would never be the same. The last thing Cheryl wrote in my journal - after we solved our differences post game - was 'I can't wait to be famous with the likes of you'.
I don't think any of us was looking for real fame, just... well, we worked really hard on our show. We brought an incredible amount of collective enthusiasm. We put up with things most of you never would... They deprived us of sleep, of food, of dignity, they treated us like children- but with none of the playtime. They wouldn't even let us leave the ship. (Even to forage for food..No, they wanted us to be without) Often they wouldn't let us SPEAK to each other for hours on end. HOURS. And by hours I mean 5-8 hours. Of silence. With no music, no books, nothing. This is when they weren't filming.. which was alot more often than you would think.
But they kept on drilling into our heads... there are THOUSANDS of people who would give ANYTHING to be in your shoes.
Nessa
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