‘Survivor: Kaoh Rong’ exclusive: Jennifer Lanzetti on crazy tribal council, Jason vs. Alecia, horrible conditions

This season, “Survivor” has a very different meaning to it thanks to the conditions in Cambodia. It was hot, humid, miserable, and it caused a wide array of injuries. Jennifer Lanzetti is already famous thanks to having a bug crawl inside of her ear in the premiere, but as she told us today in our exit interview with her, it all stemmed far beyond that.

Below, you can see the second eliminated person from the Brawn tribe discuss being voted out during an absolutely insane tribal council, Jason’s treatment of Alecia, how she feels listening to Jeff Probst hurt her, and also how she would be happy to return to the game again, provided that it’s held in a different part of the world.

CarterMatt – So did watching the show bring up all of these memories again? It’s been almost a year, so I’m sure you had some time to decompress.

Jennifer Lanzetti – Yeah, just a little bit of ‘forget it ever happened’ time. (Laughs.)

Let’s talk about what happened last night. Going into tribal council did you think there was even a chance you would be voted out?

No. What they didn’t show you was that I knew that they knew I had pursued an alliance. They don’t show you the fact that Jason and Scot were well aware that I had talked to Cydney and Alecia about a girls’ alliance. But I seriously thought that we were going to be logical about this. I was like ‘you know what, people talk about ideas all of the time so I’m just going to be honest with them and say hey, I did it. I talked to her for five minutes about it — okay, maybe a little longer. We talked about it, and literally not only did they betray me, but I realized that [I wouldn’t] have a women’s alliance of really strong girls. This was not going to work.’

I knew logically that I could redeem myself by being honest, because in my real life, being honest works a lot. Well, ‘Survivor’ is not exactly the microcosm of my macrocosm. In many ways, it’s the exact opposite. My plan didn’t work.

Was it just the wording of how it came out at tribal council, then, that got you into trouble, or was it that hyper-paranoid environment where everyone is just looking for a reason to vote someone out?

I think it’s the hyper-paranoid environment to validate their feelings. We were all very, very hyper-sensitive. The thing about Jeff [Probst], I’ve seen every season, is that you have to give him something or he will dig and make something up and destroy everything. Well, I gave him something and he still destroyed me. (Laughs.) Jeff was asking me at tribal ‘what was camp like,’ and I was like ‘it’s up in the air,’ because again I’m on the honest track. I’m not a very good liar. So I just thought ‘I’ll just be honest and appeal to their logic.’

[Following that] Jason looked at me funny and Scot looked at me funny, and what they didn’t show was that I looked at the two of them and was like ‘oh you two, don’t even pretend like you don’t know. Let’s not go there. Let’s just vote Alecia off and be done with it.’ And, what happened next is the slowest train wreck I’ve ever seen in my life. It was like one cable car after another. Boom, boom, boom. I kept getting buried under each cable car like ‘no!!! This isn’t happening!’. I never went in there thinking I would get voted out. I was SO shocked. I was like ‘why aren’t you being rational; what’s wrong with you people?’.

I want to act like this question is more clever than it probably is, but what was more painful: Being voted out, or having that bug creature in your ear?

It was definitely getting voted out. That was permanent. The worm was temporary. It was very painful, it pretty much scarred me for life, but getting voted out was [worse].

Jeff always likes to talk about the ‘people on the street’ at the reunion shows. What has the reaction been like to that scene last week? It was terrifying, so I have to think people are asking you about it everywhere you go.

When I was going to go out for ‘Survivor,’ somebody came up to me and said ‘you’re going to be just like a football coach, everywhere that football coach goes, he’s going to talk about football. You’re going to talk about ‘Survivor.’ That’s me! Everywhere I go. People are always like ‘tell me about the worm,’ and of course [eventually] I’m just like ‘I don’t want to talk about it anymore.’

The best part is when people who have never even watched the show before ask me questions. I just shut them right down. ‘Watch the show and get back to me. I can’t explain how the show works.’ You can’t explain it. You have to watch it!

For you, I know you’re friends with Jonas [from ‘Survivor: One World] in real life. Did it help you to have someone who you could maybe talk to after the season to help decompress?

Not so much! It was his recommendation that I try out and I was all for it, but he didn’t give me any advice going in other than the terrible advice Jeff gave me, which was ‘play like you’ve played before and go big.’ Eh. I’m probably going to ignore that next time, but when I got home [Jonas] was like ‘don’t tell me anything. We’ll see you at the premiere.’ That was no problem. I really didn’t have anyone to share or commiserate with over the past ten months. I feel like I got voted out twice!

What was it like for you out there with Jason and Alecia? Was what they showed of his treatment of her accurate, was it worse, or were they only just showing the bad things that he did?

It was way worse than that, which still to this day baffles me that she sided with him more than the all-girl alliance. Everyone treated her so badly but me. I was just like ‘what is wrong with you? Are you sick in the head? What sort of upbringing did you have that you go against the one person that treats you well? All right, I guess that’s the way the show is going to go.’

I’ve tried to think about if there was anything you could have done to keep things from going so badly for you at tribal council. Did you consider telling Alecia that you were going to act like you were voting her out at tribal, but not to think anything of it as a way to lure the guys in?

I did that with Alecia. We talked for a good hour about it and how we were going to act at tribal. We worked through what I thought was everything. Like I said I’m a logical person, but smart and logical don’t always go hand in hand, by the way, people don’t always make logical decisions. [During that conversation] I was like ‘hey, let’s talk through this, and I’ll go back to Jason and tell him that ‘this is what Alecia’s doing, blah blah blah’.’ But unfortunately, it turns out they were never on board to begin with. So, my bad!

Looking back at the course of the whole game, do you think about decisions you could have made differently, or just are at peace that you went with your gut and trusted people who you thought you could work with?

There’s gonna be a lot of ‘coulda woulda shouldas’ out there, and I even I have some. The easiest one is not listen to Jeff when he says ‘play like you’ve played twice,’ and the second easiest one is ‘stick with your original alliance, just trust them.’ There are so many different angles of what could have happened. I could have stuck with Cydney and Darnell, and gone with them. There’s way too many angles [to determine] which one would’ve been the right one.

What was your experience like with Scot Pollard? Was there talk about him getting him out because he had a successful career, or was he too big of an asset in challenges?

He was a great physical asset, and really just a great help at camp. He was always my favorite at camp. He worked hard, and it was easy to keep him around because no one would give him a million dollars, and what a great physical asset he was to have in the challenges! If it wasn’t for him, who knows what would’ve happened?

In terms of the idol we saw in next week’s preview some people hunting for it on the Brawn tribe. Did that really happen while you were there?

No, I was too busy babysitting Alecia. I didn’t see anybody looking for it, actually. (Laughs.)

I’d love to see a season at some point with earlier boots getting a chance to play again. Would you want to go back out there, or have you had this itch to play taken care of? Where’s your head at?

It’s painful, but my religion is reality. I had a lot of injuries out there, way more than just the worm in my ear. I think the universe got me voted out, because every day something happened to me. You saw my face at tribal. Hello! I had mosquito bites, I had third-degree burns on my eyelids, I ate a poisonous plant that day. It was not going well for me, so I think [another] run would be awesome. I’m not going to pray every night for it, but if they would ask me back, I’d do it in a heartbeat. There’s something about fighting for your life every day that brings a lot of fulfillment and joy, for me at least.

I’m still going to be honest! I just going to win every challenge so I don’t have to go to tribal.

I’m sure it’d be even better if it wasn’t in Cambodia again. (Laughs.)

Oh, I’m not going to Cambodia. No. Not going back there.

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Thanks to Jennifer for all of her honesty and for a really great chat! You can head over here as always to view our other “Survivor” coverage, and you can also sign up here to get some other news on everything we cover, sent right over to you via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: CBS.)