“I’m Sure as Hell Not Going to Apologize to People Who Use the Race Card” – RealityNewsOnline’s Exclusive Interview with Survivor: Samoa’s Ben

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.

RNO: So what didn’t we see?

Ben: You don’t see a lot of the little tiny conversations and the little alliances that people don’t see all the time. I was aligned with Little Russell and you don’t really see that so much.

RNO: Was there something we didn’t see regarding the arguments, though?

Ben: No, not really. Just who I was hanging out with the whole time I was there.

RNO: How did you expect to survive in the game if you kept rubbing people the wrong way?

Ben: Again, like I said, you see one aspect of it. So if I had to play it again would I play differently? Hell yeah, I’d try to win a million bucks for sure. But I went in there and my strategy didn’t work.

RNO: What was that strategy?

Ben: My strategy was to work hard around camp, which I was definitely the hardest worker without a doubt, and be direct and forward with people. I’m that way in my life. If I have a problem with somebody, I don’t talk behind their backs, I tell them. But every time I’d go up to somebody, they’d be like, “You’re attacking me,” even if I was just asking a question. It was funny how sensitive everybody was. It’s hard for somebody like me, I’m pretty raw, I give it to you straight.