Justine Brennan 'blacked out' during Survivor 43 vote

Dalton Ross
·11 min read
21

Justine Brennan is in cyber security sales for a living. And that career somehow became a liability on Survivor when a fellow salesperson, Cody Assenmacher, decided to target her because he distrusted other people in sales. Whether that makes sense or not doesn't really matter, because Justine is out of Survivor 43 because of it.

Justine also lost the game when she lost her special bead — giving it to Cody, which enabled him to retain his deciding vote at Tribal Council, which he used along with Nneka Ejere and Jesse Lopez to vote Justine out of the Vesi tribe and out of the game.

How did it all go so wrong so fast for Justine? We spoke to the 29-year-old Californian about why she was targeted, giving Cody her bead, and what we didn't see on TV. You can watch the interview above or read it below. Also make sure to watch an exclusive deleted scene from the episode below and read our full episode recap.

Survivor
Survivor

Robert Voets/CBS Justine Brennan on 'Survivor' 43

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: So Cody the sales person wanted to get sales people out of the game. What do you make of that?

JUSTINE BRENNAN: I honestly don't know what to make of it. I don't know if it's him projecting, or if it was something deeper than just me being in sales, but he obviously made his decision about me just like that based off of my title. So I honestly don't know what to make of it. I don't know if it's really because I was in sales or that's maybe the image that he wanted himself to be was this threatening salesperson. I guess we'll see.

So why are you here talking to me now?

Obviously I was initially targeted for being in sales. It gave me some solace for Jesse to admit last night when he was like, "Justine is scary. She's a threat to my game." And it was, because — and you don't really see this in the edit — but Jesse was actively playing both sides. So what they show on screen is that he's kind of more so in the alliance with Cody and Nneka. But what they didn't show is Jesse was also coming to me and coming to Noelle and saying, "Okay, Cody and Nneka are saying this. What should I go back to them with?" And he was really strategizing with us to a point where I thought I was safe.

They kind of left that out of the edit, which is bummer because I think people are probably confused about "Why is Justine even thinking that she can trust Jesse at this point?" So I was targeted initially because I was in sales. And then I wanted to trust Jesse. I knew in the back of my mind that I couldn't, and you can kind of see that in internal battle with me in my confessional last night.

In the end, I decided to not be paranoid about it and I decided, "You know what? Just trust Jesse, Noelle is trusting Jesse, Dwight says we're good with Jesse. Just trust." And that obviously worked against me.

How do you feel you performed in the challenges, because I couldn't really tell watching it?

I know. That's another thing. Me and Cody were the first two people to dive into the water and swim to that wall. I wish they showed more of that. But the challenges were so much fun. Honestly, going into them, I was definitely feeling the starvation and the sleep deprivation. And I thought like, "Wow, I might pass out on national television during this." But then once the challenges start, the adrenaline is just rushing through your body.

And so, for me, you don't even think about being hungry. You don't think about anything else. You're just in it. But I thought I did pretty well in the challenges. My biggest regret with them is probably not volunteering to do the puzzle on last night's challenge because I underestimate myself a lot. And Elie had a confessional about this last night too, where she was like, "Holy s---, I did that puzzle. That came from my brain." I went into Survivor thinking, just don't sign up for the puzzles. But when it comes down to it, I could have done that puzzle. And I know that I am a lot better than I give myself credit for when it comes to stuff like that.

SURVIVOR 43
SURVIVOR 43

Robert Voets/CBS The Vesi tribe on 'Survivor' 43

How much did it sting on a personal level to be the first person voted out of the tribe? How did that feel after you got your torch snuffed and how did you process that?

Honestly, I blacked out when Jeff read that third vote that said Justine. And so I just remember my body instinctively getting up, grabbing my torch — which was like 40 pounds by the way; I was like battling to get it out of its holder — walking up to Jeff, and there is a little thought in the back of my head. I was like, "Maybe they'll take me to the Edge." It was similar to Mariah! [Laughs] We both kind of thought, "Like, there's no way this is the end!" And then of course it's the end.

But yeah, it's a bummer. Obviously you don't plan for leaving early — but something I didn't really think about is how the emotions can definitely come in waves, and the mental toll it can take on people. So for the last four months, I've had friends reach out to me being like, "I hope you win!" or "I hope you don't suck out of the gates! Ha Ha!" But they don't really understand how much of a mental toll that it takes on us, and how much those little innocent comments can actually affect us if you are an early boot.

And then it's like you have to live it twice, right? You have to live it out there, and then you to live it all over again when it airs. So were you looking forward to watching it play out last night, or were you kind of dreading watching the episode?

It was a mixture of both. It's funny because the show has a therapist that you talk to, which is great. And I was talking to one of them leading up to the premiere and I was like, "Oh, I'm kind of bummed that I'm only gonna be on two episodes." And she was like, "Honestly, a lot of people breathe a sigh of relief after their vote out."

And I was like, that's actually an interesting way of looking at it. But now that I've lived it out, I completely agree. For a couple of days leading up to last night's episode, I couldn't really sleep. I was anxious. It's not fun and it's also not normal to watch people conspiring against you on TV. [Laughs] So it is a, a very highly stressful situation. And yes, I have breathed a sigh of relief now that it's done. And honestly, I thought it was a great episode. I thought that there were some really funny bits in it, so I'm walking away just happy that I did it.

You talked about Jesse and how he was playing both sides. We had that clip of him on last night's episode where he was sort of rolling his eyes at you. What was your relationship with him out there and did that surprise you to see that?

It hurts a little bit. It stung a little bit to see Jesse say that the person he least jived with on our tribe was me. And again, you don't really see this in the edit, but Noelle and Dwight were completely in my circle of trust. We all trusted each other and that started pretty early, and we knew that we needed numbers. Cody and Nneka never really spoke to me, honestly. I was the only person Cody never spoke game with. I could tell that I was a target for them, and I said that in my confessionals.

And so Jesse was a really endearing and sweet person out there and I was like, "You know what? I actually like this guy. I can see myself building trust for him. I'm just not completely there yet." And so yeah, it stung a little bit that he didn't feel the same way with me, but I liked Jesse out there.

On the flip side of that, you and Noelle immediately hit it off. How did you two bond so quickly?

It was summed up pretty well in the first episode where Noelle was talking about how we're similar in age. We just got along really well and she seemed like someone that would be on one of my sporting teams growing up. Those were the bulk of my friends growing up in middle school and high school were the girls that I played sports with. So we just hit it off immediately. We were both really competitive. Again, we're similar in age. And obviously her story and her vulnerability made it easy to connect with her.

Survivor
Survivor

Robert Voets/CBS The Vesi tribe of 'Survivor' 43

Let's talk about the infamous bead. Any suspicion at all when Cody asked for your bead that something might be up?

I had no suspicions at all. And honestly, I kind of look like a dumb ass up there because I'm like, "Oh yeah, Cody, take my bead! Sure! Here it is!" And even at Tribal, I'm like, "Ha Ha Ha! He made this funny hat! I want one!" I was always nice to Cody, and I'm fine being memorialized in that way. I just thought he was funny and amusing and so I was all for giving him my beads so that he can make his little hat. Obviously, hindsight is 20-20, but I had no suspicion whatsoever.

You ere playing the social game. You were doing exactly what you're supposed to be doing!

I will also say like there's confusion about why we split our votes between Cody and Nneka. And it's because you don't see all these scenes where Jesse is also very much strategizing with us and building trust with us, making us feel like, "Okay, Jesse's on our side." And so that was the reason behind splitting votes because we thought Nekka absolutely knew that she was going home tonight to a point where she might play her Shot in the Dark. And in that case we didn't want to have to fall back on me going home. We wanted that to be Cody.

And if I had known that I was really being targeted and that Jesse was swaying more in the direction of voting against me, I absolutely would've played my Shot in the Dark. But I was so confident that Jesse was with us, which is why I didn't.

What's up with you and spiders? Is this a spider-specific fear or just any creepy crawlies in general?

Hey, who likes spiders? [Laughs] Like, that's a better question. People are like, "Oh my God, Justine is on the wrong show!" And it's like, no one goes on Survivor for the spiders. And also everyone else on my tribe was equally like, "Oh, spiders!" Of course, they only show a montage of me doing that. [Laughs] But yes, I hate spiders. I'm terrified of them. I don't like spiders here, or there, or anywhere. I'll shout it from the rooftops. I'm not ashamed of that.

Anything else we didn't see out there that you wish had made it on TV?

When I got voted off, I wrote down a list of things that I should still be proud of. Because obviously I was bummed about leaving early, but I had to constantly remind myself: Your goal was to be on Survivor and you did that. And one of the things on my bucket list was to make fire. And I'm just glad that they showed that. And I need to stop going through the Reddit threads and the Twitter stuff, but people were like, "Oh, Justine, you showed your cards too early." But you don't see Sami and Gabler getting that same reaction from people being like, "Oh, you guys made fire, you showed your cards too early."

I won't get into this too deep, but there definitely is a gender bias on Survivor, and I think everyone knows that. If a woman comes out of the gates too strong and is doing things like making fire or is good at challenges or making herself useful around camp, then it's like, "Oh, you're showing your hand too early." But if men do it, then it's like, "Oh good, they're useful around camp. We need to keep them for strength. They'll probably make merge." And so I'm glad that they showed the fire, but obviously it was received differently from people than other people on other tribes making fire, which is bummer.

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