Ben Exit Interview – Survivor Samoa (S19E03)

[cwalton]

http://samoa.survivor.com/wp-content/uploads/S19E03.mp3

I just got off the phone with Ben, talking about racism and justification in Samoa.

I asked him the all important question; if Russell burned Jaison’s socks, did Jaison have socks after that? He told us that everyone took two pair of socks, so Jaison was never without socks.

Another surprise that he said he was kicked out BEFORE Jeff warned everyone to calm down, not after. I asked “Was the edit wrong?”. He replied “Yes.”

He told us that he knew about Evil Russell’s hidden immunity idol, right after he found it. “Russell’s my buddy!” he said. “He’s probably the smartest character in the game right now. I hope he wins.”

Are you a racist? He said that was funny and that there was a lot that we didn’t see on TV. He had asked Jaison “If a person was from the ghetto, and had bad grammar, but they were white, if I call them ghetto trash, does that make me a racist?”. He said he was not a racist and everyone who knows him knows that about him.

About his confrontation with Yasmin, he said, “It wasn’t racial. It was just from what she was saying about me. She was really laying into me. What would you do if someone came into your house and started saying that stuff to you? I don’t let people talk to me like that.” He felt completely justified in everything he said to her.

How well did you play the social game? “Not well, obviously. My social game was not the smartest.” The hardest part of the game? Dealing with overly sensitive people. “I was living in a glass house and all I had a bunch of rocks.”

His relationship with Jaison today is chilly. “I don’t have any ill will towards him, but he’s not someone that I want to hang out with.” He hasn’t talked to him since the island and doesn’t have his contact information, with no plans to get it.

He said that what we didn’t see on the show was him providing everything for the camp, making the girls comfortable, starting all the fires, getting all of the food, including catching a wild chicken with his bare hands. It sounds like they really will all die without him out there.

He has no regrets about Tribal Council. “My points were all valid.”

Any response to people who think you are racist? “If people want to judge me based on a little snippet of what they see on a reality TV show, then that’s their downfall, not mine.”

If you want to find out how people treat him on the street now, listen to the whole interview.

24 minutes long. 8.6MB. Download it here.

[pawpaw]

Reality News Online - Survivor “I’m Sure as Hell Not Going to Apologize to People Who Use the Race Card”

Ben was voted out of Survivor last night after a fiery Tribal Council. What does he have to say in defense of himself? Does it make any sense? How does he respond to the charge that he was useless in challenges? What did we not see in that regard? Read on for Ben’s first post-Survivor interview and his take on life, Survivor, and how to make friends and influence people.

Interviewing contestants after they’ve been voted off can be very interesting. Sometimes, the players are very different once the game is over. Sometimes they just don’t make a whole lot of sense. Ben seems to fall somewhere in the middle, leaning towards the latter. I have to admit, I still don’t follow his logic in a number of his statements, as you’ll see below. There are several times when he says something and I try to get to the heart of how this answers the question, but he never really gets there. I suspect this has something to do with me being the first person to interview him after his elimination from the game, so we get more of the real, raw answers rather than answers he’s practiced giving several times over. Read on to see what I mean.

RealityNewsOnline: Hello, Ben, and thanks for taking the time to talk to us here at RealityNewsOnline!

Ben: Thank for having me.

RNO: You looked surprised to be voted out. Despite the arguing, were you pretty certain you’d survive the vote?

Ben: No, I kind of had a feeling I might get voted out.

RNO: Why?

Ben: Just at camp, a couple things that happened – a couple conversations that we had between some of the guys. I just kind of had a feeling – I knew there was a chance I was going home.

RNO: You made the claim at Tribal Council that calling Yasmin “ghetto trash” was not racist. Now that the game is over, can you explain how it could possibly not be taken that way?

Ben: I mean, people interpret things different ways. When emotions get into the whole game, people get kind of heated. I can see how it goes both ways. But like I said from the get-go, she was saying she was from the ghetto, she was from the ‘hood. She can say that but if I say it, it’s racist. It’s a bunch of crap.

RNO: In your bio on the CBS website, you were quoted as saying you “don’t like cry babies” or “whiners and wimps.” Did you have any plans as to how to deal with people on Survivor who you might have deemed to fit into one of these categories?

Ben: Yeah, vote ‘em off. (Laughs)

RNO: You kept saying that you didn’t start fights, you just responded to others – but why even participate to the extent we saw you doing so? Why keep up the yelling and disagreeing even if it wasn’t you who started it, given that Survivor is a social game?

Ben: Well I mean, you only see so much on TV, so I would have to say that if you’re not there, you just don’t know. It’s different. It’s not just what you see. There’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes between all the people. It’s a social game, it’s a game about backstabbing people. That’s just the way it goes.

To read More

[pawpaw]

Survivor: Samoa - Exclusive Interview with Ben Browning : RealityWanted.com:

On last night’s episode of Survivor: Samoa, Evil Russell did everything he could to turn his Foa Foa tribe against Ashley. The target on Ben’s back, however, was much bigger. Since showing up in Samoa, Ben has been kicked out of a tribe, yelled at his own tribe members, called an opposing tribe member “ghetto trash”, and was accused of being a racist. When he got into it with Jaison at tribal council, it became too much for his tribe and they voted him out of the game. Today, Ben spoke to RealityWanted in an exclusive interview about his experiences on Survivor.

Q. Gina, RealityWanted: What made you want to try out for Survivor this season?
A. Ben: I didn’t try out. I was found walking on the beach in Venice.

Q. Gina, RealityWanted: Did you do any physical training before heading out to Samoa?
A. Ben: I tried to fatten up as much as possible before going out there but actually, I was never without food at camp. I caught lots of crab. I found bananas, lime, papayas… I caught a chicken, which they didn’t show.

Q. Gina, RealityWanted: Well, you were obviously very strong around camp. Was it stupid for Foa Foa to vote you out so early?
A. Ben: You can’t really tell what people do or how they do it. Obviously, I didn’t wanna go but I had a feeling I was going to.

Q. Gina, RealityWanted: One of Jaison’s arguments against you was that you contributed nothing in challenges. Do you agree with that?
A. Ben: No, I think because I got kicked out of that one challenge, he used that as his tool. I blew out my knee on the challenge on the ramps. I’m getting ready to have surgery on my knee. I should be ready to go after a little while. I got a little piece of bone in my knee that’s floating around, some torn cartilage. It bothered me but I wasn’t gonna say anything. I didn’t want people to see me as weak.

Q. Gina, RealityWanted: Let’s talk about that challenge that you got kicked out of because Jeff Probst said repeatedly that you were the only person ever in the history of the show to be removed from a challenge. Did you intend to go after Russell or was it an impulsive decision?
A. Ben: I wasn’t like, singling Russell out by any means. I saw him there, he had the ball, he was running away, and my objective was to take him out. I wish Jeff had kept me in the game but after seeing how it played out, everybody that’s watching was like, “Man, that’s a bunch of BS. You shouldn’t have gotten kicked out.” I think Probst definitely singled me out. I’ve been in a few fights growing up and that was like a big red flag. Before every challenge, they would come up to me and tell me, “Don’t hit anybody.” It was ridiculous.


To Read More

[pawpaw]

Exclusive Interview: 'Outlaw' Ben Browning of 'Survivor: Samoa Buddy TV'

After lasting just three episodes 28 year old Ben Browning, the mixologist originally from Kirksville, Missouri, may be the most controversial Survivor contestant of all time. Or perhaps controversy would have required Ben to have a lot of fans defending him. So far I have yet to find one.

Ben became the first contestant ever ejected from a challenge after taking out Russell Swan's leg from behind, later remarking he didn't know he was playing by Jeff Probst's "sissy rules." The self-proclaimed 'outlaw' used derogatory language towards women on several occasions and called Yasmin "ghetto trash" on the verge of becoming a prostitute. But remember, he doesn't start arguments. He just 'reacts.' Whether or not he will be missed, Ben will be remembered.

In our interview, I asked Ben whether he had ever felt like someone had discriminated against him, how he would respond to Jeff Probst's recent blog claim of 'owning him' in Q&A, and whether he can truly say that no woman has ever rejected him.

While Ben was brief and not always to the point, he did reveal one bit of interesting information that's bound to leave some readers regretting their lunch decisions. The nature of his real victory over Marisa.

Q: Last night Jaison suggested perhaps you were naïve, that you didn't understand discrimination. Have you ever felt like someone discriminated against you - or looked at you with less respect - because of your background?
Jaison is overly sensitive. I've been discriminated against. Everyone has. I completely understand it. But it was interpreted incorrectly.

Q: Did you invite a lot of people over for the broadcasts knowing the stuff that was going to come up? If so, what was the mood like in the room during the controversial moments?
Everyone of my friends have laughed and said it was refreshing to see someone be REAL.

Q: Do you feel as though your experience with Survivor - overall - has had a positive or negative impact on your life? In what way?
Another chapter in my crazy life. Definitely a positive experience.

Q: Going back, in your CBS.com bio you say you've never been rejected by a woman. Do you stand by that?
Can you find one that's rejected me?

Q: You seemed really bothered by Marisa. Did we see the whole story there? Why were you upset with her?
She was really annoying. They didn't show all the moronic things she said and did. I let her have it because she sucked. Pre-game started she was trying to give me eyes. I was in no way interested and that's what originally started her campaign against me. Obviously I won that one.

Q: Jeff Probst said in his blog on Entertainment Weekly last week, "Ben and I went at it quite a bit [during the Episode 2 Tribal Council]. He may be able to beat me up, but in a game of Q and A, he's all mine." Is that your recollection?
Jeff's job is Q&A and he's good at that. Does he own me in that game? No way. I turned the tables on Probst and he was amused.

To Read More

[RussellHantzForever]

"Go back to the hood and eat your ketchup sandwiches and drink you Kool-Aid." LOL.