Survivor 50 claimed its first two sacrifices in the Wednesday, February 25 premiere. Jenna Lewis-Dougherty became the first castaway voted off the island after the Cila tribe failed to secure an Immunity Challenge win. Later in the episode, Survivor 49 winner Kyle Fraser left the game, following a medical emergency during a challenge.
Jenna spoke about her early departure in an interview with Page Six. She told the outlet longstanding social relationships led to her demise.
Survivor OG Jenna Lewis-Dougherty calls out her Season 50 exit
Jenna appeared on the first season of Survivor over 20 years ago. In her interview with Page Six, she admitted she felt out of the loop on her tribe, saying it was hard to compete with established connections.
“I was worried about being late the party, and the other people were going, ‘She’s invited to the party?'” she said. “They had all these connections …I do know for a fact all of them were chatting [before the show].”
“I was at a detriment,” she continued. “That’s where the 20 years really was against me…You’ve got Cirie [Fields] that was put with Ozzy [Lusth]. I mean, they’ve played together twice…Christian [Hubicki] says in his pre-game interview, ‘I consider Emily [Flippen] a very good friend.’ I was thinking, wow, it must be nice to go into a social game with a very good friend.”
Jenna was not the only name floating around camp after Cila’s loss. The tribe considered voting out Cirie, who performed poorly in the Immunity Challenge. But in the end, the group decided it was Jenna’s time to leave.
In an exit interview with Entertainment Weekly, Jenna pushed back against her tribe’s claim that she was “playing too hard.”
“When they say I am playing too hard, you watch the episode and all the other people on the other islands, literally they’re getting bamboo on the first day, which is like probably an hour in, and they’ve got their alliances to the end and they’re already talking about who they’re voting off,” she said.
Survivor Season 50 airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on CBS. It streams the next day on Paramount+.
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