Survivor Live Internet Talk Show with Becky Lee
Episode 14 Survivor: Cook Islands  Cast-Offs 
Segment 3 Transcript

Probst's Thoughts:  Becky.  Going in, my big question with Becky was really based on what she does for a living.  She works with women's rights and that ethical dilemma that Survivor can impose in terms of can I lie, how do I justify it if I'm gonna lie?  All of those things.  I was really curious about Becky because she's so principled in her world outside of the game.  Becky, I had a hard time getting to know in the game.  She knows this and I think that was her plan, to make it difficult from day one to learn anything about her.  And Becky, you were very successful. 

DR:  We're bringing Becky in.  Hey Becky.

Becky:  How are you guys doing?

DR:  What do you think of what Jeff Probst just had to say there?

Becky:  I would always get slack from him the challenges because he was always wondering what was going on and he was always asking questions.  I always had my game face on so I knew that he would always try to irk me.  I know he was always trying to probe to get emotions out.  I know he was always looking for something from me. 

DR:  We were just talking about how great Sundra looked.  Look at Becky Lee right there. 

JM:  You clean up pretty well.

DR:  When I was talking to you out there in Cook Islands before the game started you were telling me that you're Bossy Becky and you might grate on people's nerves and my thought was, she might have to tone it down.  Then out on the island, the edit we saw, you made a conscious decision to pull back.  What is the deal, there?

Becky:  I just didn't want to sort of scare people into thinking I was this aggressive very manipulative person right off the bat.  You can tell if you're going to get along with the personalities or not.  So from the very beginning I knew that I had to sort of tone it down.  On the raft when we first jumped off the ship I remember I was yelling out some orders and Yul and Brad were like, "who is this person."  I knew I had to from the very start be very careful.  When you're upset, excited, emotions fly out.  For example, after winning one of the challenges with Cao Boi, it's not shown but he was cheering, very blatantly cheering for everybody and I got really nervous because I didn't want the target to be on our tribe since we'd been winning.  I remember telling him like, "be quiet".  I was trying at all times in the game to be more like toned down. 

DR:  It's interesting you brought up Cao Boi because that seemed to be the one person that you had a little drama with early on.  Tell me about that and tell me how you and Cao Boi are today.

Becky:  Oh, Cao Boi is a great guy.  I respect him in so many different ways.  He's gone through so much in his life and I'm only 29.  He's one of the older gentlemen that were on the show.  The things he's gone through and experienced I can't even conceive of going through.  So I think in that situation we're very strong personalities and so it was a lot of times, my way or the highway.  So I knew that he liked Yul and the way that Yul dealt with things so I tended to micromanage and tell Yul, "You go talk to him because he won't talk to me."  He wouldn't even listen to me when I talked to him and it would only make him more angry.  In that episode where my neck was on the line versus Cecilia's I knew that by talking to him it would only make him more mad. It's shown that I'm sitting back and not doing anything but actually I was running around trying to see if Sundra would come to my side.  I also knew that the three people we needed were Ozzy and also at the time, Cao Boi and Flica.  We knew Cao Boi and Flica were like close and they would vote whichever way the other person voted.  So I let Yul do the talking for that one.

JM:  Becky, this is the first time we've had a final three instead of a final two.  Going into the final three against Ozzy and Yul did you go, "This is going to be a disaster for me because of how strong they were."  Or did you think, maybe I can outshine them in the final questions and I have a chance.

Becky:  I guess even from the very beginning of this game, along the road you saw these two powerhouses.  The physical guy with the challenges and also the brain, the strategist.  We knew it would come to this time where we had the Aitu four that it would come to the situation where we would have to be fighting against each other.  At the same time I was still happy for Yul.  We both wanted to go as far as we could together.  It was just a blessing for me that CBS had made it into the final three.  I was just grateful to be in that position.  So I didn't really see it as, "I'm giving up now, this sucks."  At the very beginning of the game I was always using my social game as my skills to get myself far in the game. 

Caller:  I was looking at the pictures on CBS.com and it showed a picture of Yul and Adam in the mud challenge racing while everyone else was watching.  I was wondering if maybe it was closer than they showed it and they had to have a race-off or something?  And I wanted to make a comment that Becky reminds me of Julie Chen from The Early Show.

Becky:  This season I've been very interested in the whole aspect of editing because being a lawyer in D.C. I've never been involved in this kind of production and that's just one of the examples where they don't show that clip...they actually did tie with the amount of mud in the buckets.  There was a tie-breaker when they had to go again and see who would actually win.  That was a clip that wasn't shown.  Same thing where Jonathan asked me a question about my sister a few episodes ago and I ignore him and then in the wilderness when the birds were chirping.  I didn't ignore him that time, either.  I just wanted to say that because I was really upset.  That's not the way that decisions went down.  The way the editing went down it looked like I was ignoring him but I didn't. 

DR:  Yeah but it's funnier that way.

Caller:  Last night when they interviewed Yul, when he first heard about the division by races he was concerned that there were going to be stereotypes.  When you instantly heard about it what were your feelings?  Did you think that you were going to be stereotyped?  Did you look at it as a chance to promote your race?

Becky:  Part of the reason why I wanted to do this show in the very beginning is because I was excited to show more Asians in the media.  Then when we heard about the race wars and the split, Yul and I had the same reaction.  We were very nervous because the whole reason we both wanted to do this show was because the stereotypes of Asian Americans is not a positive one.  We both were upset but then we were like, well why don't we use this opportunity and be able to gain from this and be able to talk about issues that might not be talked about in a normal TV show.  Also, with our tribe, we were so different, I think it was a great opportunity to bring up the issue that not all Asians are the same.  It was a real great opportunity overall. 

JM:  Can you give us an update on what you're going to do now.  What's next for you?

Becky:   I want to bring more publicity to the issue of women's rights, specifically battered women's rights.  I'm a battered women's rights attorney in D.C. and I just incorporated a nonprofit.  It's a fund for battered women.  It's called Becky Lee Women's Support Fund.  I want to put a lot of the proceeds from this show, whatever money I made, into this to allow battered women to leave their abusers. Whether it's due to issues of housing or child care or problems with education, getting a better job.  I'm starting up the website right now and trying to maybe design some jewelry for a fund raiser. 

JM:  That's great.

DR:  I'm still a little upset with Becky.  I was trying out there to get her to be a Redskins fan but she's sticking with her Steelers.

JM:  You and Ozzy were in the final three and were runners up, does that mean you both get the same amount of money?

Becky:  No, he's considered, he's the runner up, second place.  So we get different amounts.

DR:  Becky thanks for joining us.  I enjoyed the way you played, very underrated. 

Becky:  Thanks.

More Survivor Live Interviews:

Adam>>      Sundra>>     Becky >>     Ozzy >>