There are two kinds of villains on “Survivor.” On one hand you have the people who play the game in a questionable fashion like Richard Hatch and Evil Russell Hantz. On the other you have players whose personalities rub people the wrong way like Sue Hawk and “Survivor: Samoa’s” recent castaway Ben Browning. We spoke with Samoa’s resident “Outlaw” the day after his booting to get the dirt on his tribal council debate with Jaison and why some members of Foa Foa are actually quite fond of him…
Gordon Holmes: Last night at tribal council it got pretty ugly between you and Jaison. He felt some of the comments you’d made toward Yasmin such as calling her “Ghetto Trash” were racist.
Ben Browning: I just have to laugh cause it’s so far from the truth. I’m not a racist. I’d say I’m a personality-ist. If you have a bad personality and come at me with something like that, hell yeah I’m going to call you out. It had nothing to do with race whatsoever. Yasmin said she was from the hood and she was from the ghetto and whatever. If you’re going to pull that and then I call you on it and call you “Ghetto Trash” that has nothing to do with the color of your skin. If Jaison wants to think that, then c’mon.
Gordon: He ended up turning that around saying that if you can’t see that as being able to be misconstrued as being racist then you’re ignorant.
Ben: He turned it one way or another, so maybe he’s a better lawyer than I thought in the beginning. (Laughs) Jaison is a really smart guy, but at the same time he overthinks things and I think he’s way too sensitive. And, if that’s his way to make people think I’m racist and they need to get rid of me, then props to him because he worked his magic and I was gone.
Gordon: Were you shocked at all when you were voted out?
Ben: No, I kind of had a feeling.
Gordon: What tipped you off?
Ben: Well, I was wearing the flint around my neck and it caused quite a big stir. And Mick ended up after me for the flint, and Russell came over. It just made me suspicious right off the bat.
Gordon: You’re the only one who knows how to use it, so what difference does it make?
Ben: (Laughs) I guess we’ll see.
Gordon: We’ve been shown all of these negative things about you, but when I spoke to Betsy and Mike last week, they seemed to really enjoy you. So, what aren’t we seeing in the show that makes you a likable guy?
Ben: I took care of the girls a lot. I went and got crabs, I caught a chicken, and all kinds of stuff that you didn’t see. I made sure the girls were well watered and well fed. I gave the girls my jeans at night so they could snuggle up.
Gordon: Wait, you caught a chicken?
Ben: Yeah, I did with my bare hands. There’s a lot of things you didn’t see…like Jaison throwing temper tantrums in the middle of the night.
Gordon: Now apparently you and Jeff Probst had it out at tribal council a few episodes ago, but we didn’t get to see much of it. What happened there?
Ben: You know what? I really like Probst because basically his job is calling people out. And, I just kind of gave him a taste of his own medicine. I’d like to have beers with him, but at the same time there was a lot of shady stuff going on in that challenge (Episode 2’s Schmergen’s Brawl challenge) and what I did was just smart play. Why would I try to tackle Russell (Swan)? He’s just a muscle machine. But if I kick this guy’s legs out from under him he’s going to eat dirt. Jeff wanted to single me out, so I singled him out right back.
Gordon: Jeff does a recap of every episode where he said you could probably take him in a fight. You think you could take him?
Ben: (Laughs) Probably not. That’s so not me. It’s funny.
Gordon: Cause I would think he has a low center of gravity, and he seems to be in decent shape. He could shoot in and snag a leg like a wrestler.
Ben: (Laughs) I’m not going to have the “Fighting Jeff Probst conversation.” I’m a lot bigger than Jeff, I’m younger, I fight kind of dirty. Do I worry about myself in an altercation? Absolutely not. Would I fight Jeff Probst? No, he’s actually a pretty cool dude.
Gordon: What were your impressions of Mick?
Ben: I think Mick was not a leader at all. I thought he was going to be very athletic, but in the Schmergen Brawl challenge he got his (expletive deleted) kicked by Erik. What they didn’t show was that he was down and out for a whole round pretty much. He and Erik ran into each other and butted heads and Mick was seeing stars for quite a while.
Gordon: We haven’t seen much from Natalie, what do you think of her?
Ben: Natalie is probably one of the biggest sweethearts you’ll ever meet. She’s just a little southern belle and I don’t have anything bad to say about her.
Gordon: And Liz?
Ben: Liz is very intelligent. She’s a really smart girl, I thought she was cool. Some of the other girls started ganging up on her and I warned her.
Gordon: Marisa didn’t have the nicest things to say about you when I spoke to her. Where did all that stem from?
Ben: Basically laziness. When you’re camping, there are certain things you need to do. When you’re on “Survivor” you need shelter, food, and water. I was just tired of her being so lackadaisical about stuff. And sometimes you have to be in a hurry, you don’t know when you’re going to be called off to a challenge. It really sucked that she was being so slow. I’m someone if you mouth off to me, I’ll turn it around and make you look stupid.
Gordon: I’m doing my best to not mouth off to you.
Ben: (Laughs) A lot of that comes from working behind a bar and having to work with drunk people.
Gordon: Going into the show, you had to know it was a social game. Did it occur to you to tone those kinds of tendencies down?
Ben: You just kind of have to go along with it once you get there. You can’t make a game plan. Did I have any hard feelings and do I give a (expletive deleted) what people think? Absolutely not.
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