|
'I'm always going to be a Survivor'
Lake Forest resident back at real estate career
BY MIKE THOMAS Staff Reporter
Jenny Guzon-Bae is a big fat liar. OK, was a big fat liar
-- minus the big and fat.
When the 36-year-old Lake Forest resident and
real estate agent was chosen this summer to join CBS' hit
reality show "Survivor" on some godforsaken island in
the South Pacific, she couldn't tell anyone the truth about her
45-day absence.
Had to fib to colleagues
"Because it was so quick, I needed to come
up with something they believed," she said of fibbing to
colleagues at Prudential Preferred Properties in Highland Park.
"So I told them that I had a sick
grandmother that I was going back to the Philippines to visit.
Then, after I said that, I felt bad.
"I'm like, 'Oh, God, I really hate
lying.' "
Before leaving, Guzon-Bae packed on 15 pounds
in two weeks with the help of a personal trainer. Unfortunately
for her, the athletic mother of one -- who had never been
camping before this trek -- returned stateside without the
coveted $1 million prize.
Voted off the island
In a last-minute twist of cruel fate on
Thursday's episode, she was voted off per a message in a bottle
that instructed her teammates to boot an additional person from
the tribe.
"The resentment's over," she said,
"but if you want my reaction right after the fact, I was
livid. I think everybody could see there was smoke coming out of
my ears."
Still, the experience made a lasting
impression, and it has been good for business. "Despite the
slump in the market, I've been able to sell," she said.
How long will the TV effect last?
"You know the whole 15-minutes-of-fame
thing," she said. "You kind of milk it as long as you
can. But you know what? I'm always going to be a 'Survivor.'
I'll always have that."
|
