Survivor Live Internet Talk Show with Brad Virata
Episode 8 Survivor: Cook Islands  Cast-Off 
Segment 2 Transcript

JM = Jenna Morasca     DR = Dalton Ross     Brad = Brad Virata

DR:  Brad, we just saw that graphic up there.  You do a lot of work with the community.

Brad:  I'm all about giving back.  I'm at the point in my life where I can give back.  There's nothing to me more fulfilling than being able to make a difference in someone else's life.  It's exciting.

DR:  You had this huge twist where you were divided by ethnicity.  You guys were basically told the night before the game started so you didn't have a whole lot of time to process it.  What were your thoughts when that happened, when you were told of the twist, when the game started and when they reshuffled the deck?

Brad:  That's a lot of thoughts there.  Let me think about that for a second.  Initially when I heard that we were going to be divided by race it was a complete and total shock and I thought, what the hell am I going to be a part of.  It's going to be crazy, crazy controversial.  But I thought it was an amazing marketing move.  When we were actually on the Asian tribe it was kind of kewl because you had a lot of similar experiences with growing up, some of the racial stereotypes that Yul and I shared and Becky and I shared.  It was kind of kewl with that regards.  Like I said, I really don't look at race.  I kind of just see all of us as a human race.  It sounds so freakin' cliché but it's true.  And at the end of the day you just kind of look past color. 

DR:  It seems like strictly competitively, if they had kept it a little longer you guys were just the tribe to be reckoned with.

Brad:  Yeah, we were rock stars.  We rocked and rolled.  We were physically an amazing team.  Strategically we communicated well together.  We won.  We won like pretty much every single challenge when I was part of Puka.  It was exciting and had we stayed the Asian tribe I think I would have went a lot further. 

Caller:  If Jonathan would have been voted out and you would have stayed do you think in the merge that you would have tried to get back together with Yul and Becky?  And another question, when the two tribes went to Tribal Council, did you see Candice mouth "I love you" to Adam? 

Brad:  Yeah, Yul, Becky and I formed a really strong alliance 72 hours after...three days into Puka.  We made a promise to one another.  Like I said, hindsight is 20/20 and maybe I should have stepped off the mat to go a little bit further.  And I think we would have eventually got back together at the end of day.  And the second part of the question, I did see Candice mouth to Adam that she loved him and I thought, 'she's a young girl, she has a lot to learn.'

<laughter>

JM:  I think she's been throwing around those I love you's a lot.  You mentioned Yul and Becky had an alliance.  Who else was on your tribe?  Jenny.

DR:  Cao Boi.

Brad:  Jenny and Cao Boi.

JM:  Jenny wasn't in on that group?

Brad:  No.  Jenny, in my book, was never really in. 

JM:  She disappeared, too.  Where has she been?

DR:  There was one controversial moment with Jenny.  When she voted out Cristina and she drew the gun.  Can you shed any light on that?

Brad:  That really pissed me off when I saw that and I didn't know why someone would do that.  I don't think she did it intentionally to hurt her.  I think she was just trying to play off the whole, "I'm not going to write her name down and it's going to look like I'm writing a longer name down."  I don't think it was any type of ill intentions but looking back it would have really made a lot of people angry. 

JM:  I know a lot of people started catching on about how long it takes to write people's names down.  If you turn around in two seconds obviously it was a short name. 

DR:  Sekou told me when he was here, "yeah counting the strokes".  You just count how many strokes for how many letters.  That's how he figured out it was himself or Sundra that went first. 

JM:  I always took awhile back there anyway.  A couple of seconds to think about what I was doing and then pick up the pen and wrote and double, triple checked that it was the right name. 

DR:  Brad thought he was safe.  He was told he was safe.  We talked a lot about Nathan.  Let's see what Nathan was telling Brad before they went to Tribal Council. 

<video clip of Adam and Nate strategizing, Nate BSing Brad>

DR:  Morasca you talked a little bit about that, is that necessary?

JM:  No!  Absolutely not.

DR:  What do you think?

Brad:  It pisses me off, to see someone talk crap about you, definitely.  You mentioned earlier that you don't need to go out of your way to prove a point.  If you're going to freaking vote me off then just vote me off.  You don't have to lie to my face and make it seem like we're all good.  It's just unnecessary.  Some things are better left unsaid. 

DR:  If you came up to him and said, "What's up?  Is Jonathan going?"  And I'm him, I say, "Yeah, Jonathan's going."  But he came up to you and initiated it.

JM:  It was almost like he was having fun with it, which is rude.

DR:  Do you think somebody was looking for a little airtime?

JM:  Maybe, just a little bit.  He's making all these funny jokes on camera.  Maybe he is up for the airtime.

Brad:  Yeah, he's totally up for the airtime.

JM:  Him and Adam...Adam is almost like turning into the fratboy mentality.  He's just kind of sitting back and like, "who's next?" 

Caller:  If when the mutiny was offered, if the entire tribe jumped it would have forced  an early merge. 

DR:  That's what I said earlier. 

JM:  I can't see Yul and Ozzy ever following what Jonathan does.  I think everybody is anti-Jonathan at this point. 

Brad:  Yeah.  At this point I feel that everyone is anti-Jonathan as well. 

JM:  He's just very, very abrasive.  Even when he was talking, "I did a jump, I made a jump, I made a risky move."  I'm sitting there going, "Shut up."  And that's probably only a small bit of the talking that he did at your camp.

Brad:  That's the only thing he did was talk and try to be a leader. Which is fine but you can't come in guns blazing when you're on this new tribe. 

JM:  He talked smack to Jeff. [at the Immunity Challenge]

DR:  Oh, he did get all mad.

JM:  And now you know that Jeff is going to torture him

DR:  So Penner has got everyone mad at him, both tribes and the host.

JM:  It's funny cause Jeff was like, "What was that?"  He's like "Oh, I'm irritating Jonathan."  It's day 21.  You know he's going to lay into him for the rest of the show.  I'm going to have so much fun watching that interaction.

Caller:  Brad, what do you think you did or didn't do to get voted off?

Brad:  I think it all started from that swimming challenge. 

JM:  That's so silly.

Brad:  Yeah, at the end of the day it was silly because I'm really good with puzzles and that's what I told the team.  Rebecca stepped up and said, "Let me swim."   She's a fantastic girl but not a good swimmer.   So that initially started the downfall of me.  That and the fact that I said, "every man for himself" which was blown completely out of proportion.

JM:  It almost seems like maybe Adam or Parvati had a personal beef with you or were maybe afraid of you so they just started that rumor rampant through the group.  Because it seems like whatever they say might go.

Brad:  Yeah, Adam from a physical standpoint.

<Probst's Thoughts>

Jeff Probst:  Brad, right now, let me guess, Brad is wearing plaid.  We had a few conversations about how I could use some more plaid in my Survivor wardrobe.  Maybe you can give me some fashion tips for the next season, I don't know.  The thing I first think of though with Brad is one of the most amazing things I saw and that was in the first few days.  Cao Boi rubbed that headache out of you and that red dot appeared.  That was fascinating.  I'm judging by watching you that the headache really did disappear.  Anyway, it was very fun to have you on the show.  The thing I most appreciated about Brad was, he had his own opinion and he wasn't easily swayed.  If it meant he wouldn't get the million dollars that was something he was willing to risk if he believed in something otherwise.  That's the kind of people that we like to have on the show, who will hold firm in their own conviction. 

DR:  Tell us about some of the advice that you gave or would give to Jeff Probst.

Brad:  I told him that he really needs to start getting into more vintage dressing.  The thing that would look amazing on him is a plaid vintage western shirt with some denim and some distressed boots and that little cowboy hat that he's got going on. 

DR:  He said that you would hold onto your convictions for a million dollars.  Is that true?

Brad:  Totally true.  I would rather be seen as an honest, truthful human being rather than a manipulative conniving jerk.  Living with that for the rest of my life would be difficult. 

Caller:  Brad, how did you feel when they told you that you're going to be the first person on the jury?

Brad:  I was totally stoked.  I didn't know and one of my goals going out of the gate into the game was to just make it to the jury.  Thankfully I did.  It's a completely thrilling feeling because you're still part of the game.  Your decision is heavily influenced on who's going to win the million dollars.  It's going to be interesting to see how the game is played out.  Who's going to be conniving.  Who's going to be deceitful.  And then who, at the end of the day, is going to be an honest person and that's ultimately who my vote is going to go to. 

DR:  Okay, Brad's gotta zip his lip for a little bit because Morasca and I have to figure out some jury stuff.  He can't say anything because he knows.  I'm not a great mathematician but I did some math.  There are 12 contestants left.  Brad is the first member on the jury.  You assume there is going to be a final two.  So that means that you are looking at a 10 person jury. 

JM:  Which would mean that there could possibly be a tie. 

DR:  Right.  Which doesn't work.  Would there be a tie-breaker if that is the case? 

JM:  Would there be fire?

DR:  Would there be a tie-breaker, could it be fire making?

JM:  That would be lame for a million dollars. 

DR:  What if they did like a final three?  But then you take one other person from the jury so with 9 jury members you could still have a 3 way tie.  That's not going to work.  Could it be that somebody has to be voted onto the jury?  Could someone potentially be voted off of the jury? 

JM:  I don't think off.  Maybe on but then that's not fair because the only people that could be voted on are people that are way gone who really might have never had any interaction.

DR:  Here's another question.  Brad's on the jury.  What if you have a final two of Ozzy and Sundra, two people that he never spent...

JM:  He's gonna vote for Ozzy because he's so cute!

Brad:  Oh, Jesus Christ. 

JM:  I understand what you're saying because he would have never had any interaction with them.

DR:  How do you decide who played the better game?

JM:  You vote for the one who you think... I don't know!

Brad:  Has a better fashion sense. 

JM:  I don't know how that's going to work.  You run the risk of having people you don't know make it to the final two.  I think that there might be either three people in the finals and then they're just going to hope they don't have a tie.  I don't think it will be a tie. 

DR:  We're going to take the entire commercial break to ponder this.

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