“I Had No Clue It Was Coming” – An Interview with Survivor: Fiji’s Jessica

Jessica was sent packing after only three days on Fiji. What was her strategy? Why did it fail? What could she have done differently? Jessica answers these questions and many others.

RealityNewsOnline: Hello, Jessica, and thanks for taking the time to talk to us here at RealityNewsOnline.

Jessica: Thank you!

RNO: What was your strategy going into the game?

Jessica: Once I got on the plane, my strategy was to align myself with Papa Smurf (Gary) or Lisi, which I never did. I wasn’t even near either one of them.

RNO: How did it change?

Jessica: Good question, I don’t know. When you get there with 19 people, alliances just seem so far away. How many people are you going to have to get? It wasn’t happening, I don’t think for any of us. We knew we were going to be split up.

RNO: What did you do, either physically or mentally, to prepare yourself for Survivor?

Jessica: A lot. I would go to a restaurant in Santa Monica that serves insects. I ate like raw water bugs, which was really gross; took some swimming lessons at the Y; took some scuba lessons; watched a ton of Survivor, I think I saw every episode ever aired.

RNO: Were you happy with the way Sylvia divided the tribes?

Jessica: I was happy because she split up Rocky and Dreamz, that was great. And she also put Liliana and Erica on opposite teams. Some people complained because she was friends with Cassandra and they thought if they weren’t on her team they [could get the shaft]. But I think she did it in a fair way, because she didn’t know what team she was going to be on, she kind of had to do it fair.

RNO: It looked to us like you did the right things in terms of forming an early alliance. What do you think you could have done differently from a strategic standpoint?

Jessica: When I realized that we were going to be split into two tribes, the women were outnumbered. What I should have done was snagged Rocky and said let’s go meet with the ladies and vote out one of weak guys. I could have saved myself, but it must have been too late because I had no clue it was coming.

RNO: So Rocky and Erica didn’t give you any hints before Tribal Council that you might be going?

Jessica: No, they didn’t and I don’t fault them at all, because if they would have it would have drawn attention. You don’t want to be aligned with a sinking ship. If I was going to be voted out, I would hope that they would save themselves and try to keep going.

RNO: Did you talk to many of your tribemates to get a feel for the vote, or did you mostly leave that to Rocky and Erica?

Jessica: You saw I talked to Earl. I thought Earl had an ear to the ground. I don’t know if it was Rocky or Early who suggested Rita, and I basically trusted Rocky and Earl.

RNO: Why did you seem to trust Rocky so thoroughly, so soon?

Jessica: I have no idea. Maybe it’s that I have Italian in me, maybe it made sense to me, his personality made sense even though it was really passionate – I don’t think there was ever a dull moment around Rocky.

RNO: In your final words, you said you didn’t know where you went wrong. But earlier, you pointed out yourself that you were worried you might be targeted because of your performance in the challenge. Do you think that was a legitimate reason to vote you out?

Jessica: Well, yeah! (laughing) Me and my mom were killing ourselves laughing seeing me [on TV]. I can hardly find my keys in the morning, that part of the game was going to be a challenge for me the whole way around.

RNO: Who was responsible for which parts of the puzzle portion of the challenge?

Jessica: I was definitely responsible for the third puzzle. When it got down to it and it wasn’t solved, everybody jumped in, which could have been great or to our detriment. It was, ultimately, my responsibility.

RNO: What went wrong with the challenge?

Jessica: Goodness, I don’t know, maybe it was – I’m going to blame it on Jeff [Probst]. He gives voice to that really awful voice in your head that says “Ahhhhh!” [If you had it every day, it would be like,] “Jessica is late getting on the subway!” It just makes it worse. All around it sucks, if I had to hear his voice going through my daily life, I think I’d kill myself.

RNO: Jonathan last season talked back to him because of some of his commentary.

Jessica: That’s great, I wish more people would do that.

RNO: Were people really getting along as well as it appeared, with the exception maybe of Dreamz and Rocky?

Jessica: Yeah, they were. We were sad to be split up.

RNO: Is there anything else you’d like to tell us about your time on Survivor?

Jessica: I really had a lot of respect for Sylvia because she could have been a tyrant. We needed her and she was very relaxed with us. There was a point where half of us ran off to explore and if I had been Sylvia I would have been screaming, but she never did that. She had a lot of self-control, very classy.

RNO: The editing made it look otherwise.

Jessica: I know. Maybe there’s no escaping that. But the experience was not that way. She was very benevolent with the knowledge she had to offer.

RNO: Thanks again, Jessica!

If you haven’t already, be sure to check out these other recent Survivor: Cook Islands articles here on RealityNewsOnline:

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