Jem Hussain-Adams Says Sharing Her Backstory with Her Tribe Led to Her 'Survivor 46' Blindside

Jemila "Jem" Hussain-Adams

Survivor 46 is here! Every week, Parade.com's Mike Bloom will bring you interviews with the castaway most recently voted off of the island.

Working over a decade in retail, Jemila "Jem" Hussain-Adams thought she had assembled the perfect Survivor wardrobe when she walked into Tribal Council on Day 11. While the Siga tribe was spending their time with song battles and salsa lessons, she was making her own fun, making a tight women's alliance and leading her competition on a wild goose chase. She even brandished her own accessory: A recently-acquired idol. Unfortunately, Jem's wardrobe had her dressed for a celebration of her first big move, only for her to find out she was instead attending her Survivor funeral, as she was stunningly blindsided with her idol in pocket.

Jem felt like a natural on the island, given her background growing up in the rainforests of Guyana. And so she took to the game quickly, forming an alliance with Moriah Gaynor and Maria Shrime-Gonzalez, bringing in Charlie Davis for a majority. After finding her tribe's Beware Advantage, she decided to throw them off the scent by replanting it in the wrong location, leading to a days-long excavation that yielded no results. She used the opportunity to accuse Tim Spicer of what she herself did, cementing him as the opposition. And as the two of them had an open, yet cagey dialogue, it also shored her up as the target of him and Ben Katzman. In the hours leading up to their first Tribal Council, Jem thought she had everything perfectly measured, talking to her target Ben quite bluntly (ironically, holding a machete while doing so). Little did Jem know, though, that after watching her tribe burrow for three days for nothing, it was she who had dug the biggest hole for herself, as Charlie and Maria sided with the men due to her overplaying.

Now out of the game, Jem talks with Parade.com about her approach with both Ben and Tim in her final days, the breakdown of the Charlie's Angels alliance, and how her sharing her personal story the day before her boot led to her blindside.

Related: Read our Survivor 46 pre-game interview with Jem Hussain-Adams

So excited to talk with you, Jem! You did a lot for someone who went to their first and only Tribal Council on Day 11.
I did. I wanted to play man! I was itching to play. I wish I was on Yanu.

Be careful what you wish for! So let's start with where things ended. Obviously, you didn't know you'd get the majority of votes, or else you would have played your idol. But did you get a sense that you'd be the target of Tim and Ben? Where did you think the votes were going?
So we had a thorough plan. What we heard is the boys are saying Mo. So we know that two votes are probably going to go Mo's way. But we had kind of an idea of what's going to happen. Mo and I are going to put our vote on Ben, [one of Maria's votes will go on Tim], and vote and Charlie vote will go on Tim, because I still wanted to play it off like one of them had the idol. And also I wanted to flush Maria's second vote. So that was the whole idea of her using the second vote. I was like, "Okay, let's just say we're gonna get rid of that so when we go into the merge, I'm the only person with an advantage, and nobody knows about it." So I had zero idea. When I saw my name the first time, I wanted to [expletive] scream. I wanted to turn around. I wish I had the machete then. [Laughs.] No, I'm kidding.

[Laughs.] I mean you could have walked off with it too! That would definitely be fast-tracking Siga to end up like Yanu and, for lack of a better term, put them deep in the hole.
[Laughs.] But, yeah. I didn't know it was gonna happen, man.

Your conversations with Tim and Ben in this episode were so interesting. Because you're very open with them, flat-out saying they're in an alliance together. But you're also simultaneously cagey, denying a women's alliance and that you had the Beware Advantage. Talk to me about your approach with those two.
So Tim and I, starting Day One, we said, "We're going to be an alliance together." And he was like, "What do you think of Maria?" And I was like, "Oh, she's cool." And he's like, "Oh, can we bring her in?" And I was like, "Sure." So Tim, Maria, and I had an alliance that Maria and I know that we weren't going to go with. We were like, "Let's just entertain him to make him feel comfortable." Because he has Ben. So he thinks it's  four.

I'm a little sassy in my real life. I could be a little bitchy too. But Tim and I always were really blunt. So the conversation that you see with me and Tim, that was not on the last day. That didn't happen then; that happened when we were digging. So when we were walking, he was like, "Dah dah dah, Tell me about this." And I was like, "I don't know." And then he goes, "If something happens, who do you want to vote for?" And then I said, "You tell me who to vote for." Because I don't want to give them any sort of ammunition.

But, in the last day, Charlie's Angels had a plan that we were just going to have conversations with the boys and kind of see where their heads were at. And so we were kind of doing like a round robin. Everybody was idol hunting, but somebody was coming to them to have a conversation. And the situation you saw with Ben and I, I was about to dig when Ben approached me. And my heart was in my hand. I thought he had seen, but he didn't. But that's why I was like, "Just tell me who you want to vote for. Let's get it over with. I'm not gonna flip on you. Just get the [expletive] over with it. Stop talking to me. Let's go. Let's keep the conversation going." Because, at that point, I had zero votes. 

Yeah, let's talk about that lead-up to Tribal Council. Because it did seem strange that everyone happened to be away from camp so you can do the measuring you needed to get your idol without being noticed. But it sounds like, from what you're saying, it was helped by everyone going to hunt for idols and have these one-on-one conversations.
Yeah. So, as you see, I said, "I think it's easier for everybody go find an idol, give everybody a fair chance." I only said that because, as you know, we do everything together. And then everybody agreed. And so we were like, "How are we going to do the one on ones?" And we're like, "Wherever you are, if somebody is in that area, they'll come." And that's how Ben approached me.

That's why I had the machete. But I had it down. I needed the machete for a reason. But he saw that I was with a machete. And I guess he felt some type of way. He started running around with a hammer. I looked at him and I was like, "Why are you sleeping with the hammer on your chest?" I think they show that. I was like, "All right, you're a little crazy. I guess I have a reason. But I don't know what's yours."

And then I did have another conversation with Tim during like that time. And he asked me some questions. And in that moment, I also kind of flamed out a little at him. I was like, "You're not giving me anybody at the end of the day." And he keeps pressuring. Who am I going to vote for? And I was like, "I'm not going to tell you your buddy Ben. Who are you gonna vote for?"

Talk to me about the structure of the Charlie's Angels alliance. Did you have a sense as we saw on the show that Charlie and Maria had their own thing going on?
So it's so weird that Charlie thought that Moriah and I were on one side, because that wasn't a thing. I don't know where that idea came from. Because I know I approached Maria at one point, and I said, "You and Moriah are like going off. I feel like you guys are the tightest." And I know I had a conversation with Charlie regarding that. I said, "Hey, I think we're the ones on the outs because I see Maria and Moriah having a lot of conversations." And so it wasn't like Mo and I were having a lot of conversations. But I think the way they see it was that we were tied because the two of them were that, and they were kind of having these thoughts in their head.

But Charlie's Angels started basically from Day Two. So you have an alliance on Day Two, and we made sure that every single day, we're checking in with each other to see if we're still okay, like one-on-ones as a group. And that's why I was so blindsided, because I never saw it coming. Because the idea was that we're still going to talk to the boys on the day of the vote out to reassure them. But I never really thought that they were going to think of going with the boys.

So we need to get into your choice to rehide your Beware Advantage and lead Siga in the wrong direction. While you had a lot of fun with it, it seemed from our perspective that it may have made Tim suspicious of you, and may be a reason why you're talking with me today. How do you look back on that decision?
I still stand by it. Because at the end of the day, nobody knew that I had the idol. They would have split their vote and do crazy stuff. They didn't know I had it. Nobody was on to me; there was no scent. So I pulled it off gracefully. I wanted to hide something there after. But I only had one scroll at that point that said that I have to wait until we lose an Immunity Challenge to come back in this area. So I couldn't hide just the scroll, because it wouldn't make sense. They'd have to have something ,and I didn't want to leave the box.

I contemplated leaving the box there for somebody to find so they could bring it to camp. Because we group idol hunt, so it's an easy access for me. So I've thought of like a lot of things. Like maybe I leave it there. They find the box. They'll bring it to camp. They can open it up; it says "wait until you lose." Once we lose, then they're gonna go dig at that spot when I know the original spot. So I'll go dig out the original spot and complete what I need to, open it, and take the idol out, put a fake one in. But I'm not gonna have that much time. So what was an idea fizzled out. And that's where you see we're digging for nothing. But I had so many plans up my sleeve. I thought we were gonna lose the next day. So, had we lost earlier,r you would have seen it all come together. But because it took us forever to lose, they were digging for three days. We didn't lose, so I couldn't do anything about it.

So you mention having all these plans up your sleeve. And we do hear from Tim, Ben, and Charlie last night about how you were overplaying, which contributed to why you were voted out. What do you make of that perception?
I was super surprised. Because I really laid low, way low. Because I don't think there was anything that we didn't do as a tribe, and nobody knew about what I was doing on the side. So I think that came about from the night before we went to Tribal Council. I told them my personal story, my backstory that didn't show. So I told them that, and everybody was crying, really emotional about it. And so I think they were thinking that, "Okay, somebody with a big backstory like this makes it to merge." There's other big backstories at merge, because we've heard it at the mat chat. And so they were like, "Okay, we can't let somebody like that get into the merge, because then it will be a problem." I shouldn't have done it. I wrote pre-Pondy, "Don't do it," and I still did it.

That's so interesting. So let's say you do survive this vote and make the merge. Would your intention be to stick with Charlie's Angels? To your point, are you wary of becoming a target possibly because of your backstory?
I was. I wanted to play a hardcore game. I wanted to play, I don't want to say old school Survivor, but ruthless Survivor of playing every single day and not "sur-vibing" and singing songs. That wasn't my vibe. Especially when I don't know any of the songs! [Laughs.] I wanted to get to the merge. And 'm a loyal person. So I would have continued with them if they kept playing, if they wanted to make big moves and do things. And then I wanted to get to the end with four people, including myself, who deserve it, who've done everything in the game, and then duke it out, I want to play a game like that, where the four best people that played the four greatest games get to the end. And now we really go back and forth between the four of us and then really let the people decide who played a game. But we've all made moves that are individual and separate. And so I was already prepping my resumé. And I already had a lot of things that I had up my sleeve that, hopefully, someday, I'll use.

Lastly, when we talked out in Fiji before the game started, you had said you were accustomed to the jungle from growing up in Guyana. But you didn't want to necessarily be a provider because you didn't want to be pigeonholed into anything. I couldn't help but notice the "Jungle Jem" nickname caught on pretty quick. So were you able to stick to that philosophy when the game started?
The first day I started, I became the provider of the tribe. Because they did not know anything. That's why my vote out impacted me more, because I've fed these people for their entire time before they make the merge. I fatten them up to give them great freaking energy for the merge. And I was like, "I should have let y'all starve!" But next time I know. But no, I couldn't let them starve, because it's just who I am. And I became the provider. I know I said I wouldn't do it. And I said a lot of things I wouldn't do, but I did them all.

Next, check out our interview with Bhanu Gopal, who was voted out in Survivor 46 Episode 4.