Surviving the Early Show: Brad’s Interview

We are introduced to the segment by Julie Chen saying Raro was wary of Jonathan, but Brad had said too much – referencing his statement that it’s every man for himself. She welcomes Brad and asks if the others had a right to call Brad “Slim Shady.” Brad says no, he played a fair game from the minute he got there.

Did he speak in truth too much? He says he tells it like it is and doesn’t like to candy-coat things like a lot of other people on the tribe. He reiterates that he played a fair game and tried to tell the truth from the get-go.

Was he surprised? Yup, totally shocked (pssst, Julie, those of us who were watching knew that because he said that in his final words). He thought it was Jonathan. Julie points out that Jonathan doesn’t seem to be very well-liked on either tribe, and Brad agrees. But Brad says he is a likeable person off the island. Hmmm. I do believe he just gave us a clue that Jonathan spent some time in the jury with Brad and thus will not be in the final two. OK, so it’s not that big a clue, since I wouldn’t have picked Jonathan to make it to the final two now anyway, but still.

Anyway, Brad continues that on the island, Jonathan was the one who should have been considered “Slim Shady.”

Julie asks if Brad takes it as a compliment that maybe they voted him off because he was a threat. Brad says Nate did put it clear in telling Adam he thought after the merge Brad would go back to his original Puka alliance, Yul and Becky. So, yes, they thought Brad would be that kind of threat after the merge.

Was Brad shocked by the mutiny? He was totally shocked by it happening, and even more so by Candice and Jonathan stepping off the mat. That took a lot of guts, he says, because you have the rest of your old tribe going after you at the merge.

Julie wants to know if he considered it. He says it crossed his mind because he had a really tight alliance with Yul and Becky from day two. But he didn’t because the entire Raro tribe would have had it out for him. He needed to look long-term.

When they’re out there, Julie says, it’s constant strategizing, and Probst only gave them ten seconds to make a decision about mutinying. Brad agrees that it’s constant strategizing, but for him he just went to challenge himself. After all was said and done, he made a bunch of really great friends.

Time for the secret scene! We see Jonathan climbing a tree to get coconuts as Brad voices over that Jonathan seems to be a personable guy who is making himself useful. Jonathan gets to the top of the tree and realizes that a machete would help, so he asks Brad to toss it up. Good thing Jonathan’s former Aitu members weren’t there – I bet they would have liked to throw a machete at him! But Brad tosses it up handle-first and Jonathan catches it without a problem. Brad continues his voiceover by saying Jonathan is contributing a lot, but unfortunately it’s come too late in the game, so he will be the one voted out.

As the scene fades back to the studio, Julie asks if Brad tried to get people to vote against Jonathan instead of himself. Brad says he thought everyone was going to vote that way. Nate had mentioned it two or three times and Adam didn’t really get along with him.

Julie points out that Brad is the first member of the jury and was caught off-guard. Brad agrees and says he’s “totally stoked” about that. It usually doesn’t happen yet. It’s good to get to see it all play out.

When Brad is not vying for a million dollars on an island, Julie says, he works in the fashion industry. Which is more cutthroat? He says definitely the fashion industry. It’s sink or swim. He works for Lucky jeans as the director of men’s merchandising. It’s a fantastic company to work for, but the industry is all about juggling and babysitting and people’s personalities, especially when it comes to people on the island or designers.

With that we say goodbye to Brad. But then he talked to me in the RealityNewsOnline interview, which you can read right here!

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David Bloomberg is the Editor of RealityNewsOnline and can be reached at RNO@pobox.com.

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