Survivor: The Amazon – Daniel Lue Discusses His Amazon Time… and Roger

Opinion about Survivor: The Amazon contestant Daniel Lue has been mixed among both viewers and writers. RealityNewsOnline had the opportunity to ask him a few questions about his time on the show and, of course, Roger:

RealityNewsOnline: The first time RealityNewsOnline talked to you a while back, it was because of your appearance in "WWE Tough Enough." Are you still interested in a wrestling career or are you looking for another reality show?

Daniel Lue: I am a big fan of reality TV and WWE wrestling, and Survivor is the biggest and in my opinion still the best reality show. It would be great if I could combine WWE wrestling with reality TV... WWE could put Roger and me in a Hell in the Cell match at Wrestlemania! Haha... just kidding!

RNO: It's obvious that Roger had it in for you for a while; when did the problem with Roger begin and how did he manage to convince people like Butch (who seemed like a nicer guy) to join him?

Daniel: Starting from Day 1, I became friends with Ryan almost immediately. For whatever reason it might have been, Ryan and Roger did not get along at all, and that's putting it lightly. It seems that Roger was thinking, "the friend of my enemy is my enemy," which was me, and soon after Ryan was voted out his burdens became mine and I was forced to deal with an angry Roger hounding me all the time.

I don't think Butch had a hard time siding up with Roger because they are both similar in age and felt a little threatened by the fact that everyone else was so much younger. I would hate to be the 6th grader sent to Butch's office to face a stinging lecture of, "You're a good boy, but the problem is son, you're still a boy." (That is, if he could even remember my name in the first place.) LOL. You would think this was a matter of age, but Roger somehow got Dave and Alex onto his side as well.

RNO: What do you REALLY think of Roger? (Be as blunt as you want.)

Daniel: I'm sure many people expected Roger to be this season’s sweet Kentucky Joe – you know, the kindly southern gentleman Rodger Bingham from Survivor: The Australian Outback. Their appearances are unmistakably alike too, so what went wrong? This guy is as unfriendly as they come; ordering people around is apparently his favorite pastime. He's very opinionated and won't hesitate to tell people what he thinks. It's hot, we're tired and starving, and throw a cranky old man into the mix and you've got the ingredients for a tribal war. His accusations of me and Ryan being lazy were quite inaccurate as well, and Roger's statement about us not "not contributing" roughly translates to, "I don't like those young guys and I need someone to take the boot if we ever go to tribal council." Roger was really the only person to say that Ryan and I were lazy. But when it's all said and done, I don't hold want to hold any grudges and I would gladly shake Roger's hand and forget about the past.

RNO: What else do you have to say about Roger's characterization that you (and Ryan) were lazy?

Daniel: If there's one thing the viewers should have learned by now, it's that you can't trust everything that comes from this man's mouth! He has expressed his disgust for losing to women, all while claiming not to be a chauvinist. Does that sound hypocritical? It should, and his claim that Ryan and me were not pulling our weights around camp is simply false. On the contrary, I think if they wanted some nice shots of a sloth in the Amazon they only needed to turn the camera over to Roger, who pretty much sat around all the time telling people what to do. Maybe the fact that he's a Vice President of a construction company has made him more used to ordering people around, but it sure didn't work for us. I can only imagine what kind of horror his employees have to go through everyday. Roger is a smart guy, and giving someone the "lazy" label is a powerful tool in the game of Survivor. But if people want to believe that I'm lazy after seeing a quick clip of Ryan and I away from the group, then they are probably the same people that believe Michael Jackson's claim that he only had two nose jobs in his entire life. And if you remember what happened with the "water incident," Roger asked me to get the water, and I said yes. He condescendingly asked me if I can handle it all by myself, and I said yes. He was still standing there so I asked him if he wanted to come along. If that's Roger's idea of being lazy, then call me lazy. LOL