Read on for my interview with Jenny, and make sure to check in with Parade.com every day for interviews with this season’s contestants and other tidbits. Survivor 42 premieres on March 9 with a special two-hour premiere on CBS.
Interview with Jenny from Survivor 42
Why are you here on Survivor? I’m here on Survivor for so many reasons. I’m at a place in my life where I’m really excited for some sort of change. I’m 42. I don’t know if I’m going through a midlife crisis or something. (Laughs.) But I really want to shake things up. I’ve been working so hard for so long for people I feel don’t really appreciate me and undervalue me a little bit. I also lost my job during COVID. I feel like that all offered me a pause button for me to reevaluate my life and what I’m doing with it. So I’m here for a huge adventure to shake things up for me and figure out what path I need to follow for the rest of my life. What’s your history with watching Survivor? I’m a super fan of Survivor. I started watching with Russell’s season, season 19. My husband, who was just my friend at the time, told me, “Have you watched Survivor? It’s the best show on TV.” And I thought, “This guy’s pretty smart. Let me see what he’s talking about.” Even though at that time, I had no idea it was still on the air. I started watching then, and I was hooked. I mean, Russell played a transformative season. I really could not stop watching. I could not take my eyes off the screen. And since then, I’ve gone back and watched all the seasons from the first one through multiple times. I watched them with such diligence. I look at the game plan and strategy and really analyze it from big picture to each individual player. Give me one Survivor winner and one non-winner who you identify with the most. A non-winner who I think I identify with the most is Cirie. And I know that’s talking pretty big because I think she’s actually the best player never to have won. But she’s amazing! She really understands people. She knows how to talk to people. She knows how to bring them into her fold and gain their confidence. And then she knows how to make the big move when she needs. People love her smile and warmth. And that’s something that I really bring to the table. People trust me when I meet them. Within a few minutes of meeting someone, people often tell me their life story, something that’s troubling them, and ask me for advice. So I feel like I will be comforting people in the way that Cirie does and be able to slit their throat when I need to. As far as a winner that I identify with the most, that’s really hard to say. I hesitate to say Parvati because I know that’s a very popular female answer. But I think Parvati! There’s an aspect of her where she really has so much fun in the game. She really throws herself into it. I think that a lot of women think about Parvati and her flirtation. But what I see with her is how much she enjoys the game. She never gives up when her back’s against the wall. She has fun with how she can figure out her way out of a hairy situation. What’s one life experience you feel has prepared you most for the game? Most recently, I was in a pretty corporate environment. I came into a workplace that had an established team. It was hard for me to come in and figure out my way into the team. I feel like that really prepared me for Survivor, coming into a team that’s established by someone else. I had to come in and take the reins and win the favor of a bunch of people who were a little bit skeptical of me at first. They already had a leader. And here I was coming in and telling them, “We have to do things differently now. I’m sorry, not everything you do is perfect, and we’re going to make it better.” That was hard for a lot of my team members to stomach, to hear that everything they had been doing for so long wasn’t perfect. Winning people over and telling them, “There’s a better way to do things,” and having them agree with me and work with me is something that I think really will help me in this game. That’s going to be a lot of what happens with strategy in Survivor. People will have their minds set on a certain way. And I’m going to have a different idea. And I will have to get them to see my point of view and see that it’s actually best for their game as well. What do you think people will perceive you as? So in my professional life, people often will see me come in as a leader, and they identify me as a shark early on. And that’s been interesting. But Survivor is a very social game. And socially, people often meet me and see my smile. And they just think, “Jenny, she’s so nice.” That’s about all they assume at first. So I think that the first assumption and the first impression people will have of me is that I’m just really nice. I’m not pushy. I sort of sit back and observe. I’m not demanding everyone to hear my point of view. I sit back, wait, listen, and hear the differing opinions. And I work to bring people to consensus. I think that people will actually underestimate me. They’ll think that I’m just this nice lady in the corner who isn’t very aggressive. So I hope to win them over in that way. They will think that I’m nice, and they’ll trust me, and they’ll see my warmth come through. And then I will be able to blindside them without them seeing it coming. What do you desire in an alliance partner? I really will be looking for someone that I can trust, someone who I think that I can predict what they’re going to do. Someone who is unpredictable is not someone that I want to align with because I won’t be able to count on them. Having said that, I also do want to make sure that I keep my enemies close. I will tell them that I’m in an alliance with them. But I think in the back of my mind, I’ll be waiting for the right time to cut them out. But generally, I think someone who really feels predictable to me and I understand their mindset well, those are the types of people that I will want to align with. When you’re at your lowest moment in the game, what’s one happy memory you’ll pull from in your time of need? Oh, you’re going to make me cry! (Laughs.) I think I’ll just think about my husband. And I’m already emotional thinking about it. I’ll think about the morning before I left and saying goodbye to him. I woke up, opened my eyes, and there he was just smiling, looking at me, and just telling me how beautiful I am and how I’m going to do amazing because of the amazing person I am. And I am the person I am because of him! Everything I am, everything that could possibly help me with this game, is because he made me that way. He helped me be that way. He helped me be the best version of me there is. That memory I hold close to my heart. Hopefully, it will just give me strength in the game and not bring tears to my eyes! (Laughs.) But that will be a very comforting thought, just feeling his love close to me. Next, check out our interview with Survivor 42 contestant Hai Giang.
