'Survivor 43's' Justine Brennan Calls Out Gender Bias in Her Boot

The cybersecurity salesperson reacts to Jesse targeting her as a threat, as well as Cody's bead shenanigans.

At long last, Survivor 43 has arrived! Every week, Parade.com's Mike Bloom will bring you interviews with the castaway most recently voted off of the island.

In the preseason, Justine Brennan said she didn't know how she would be perceived. After all, as she vocalized, her usual external primping masked a history full of dirtbike racing and general outdoorsiness. And indeed, that statement carried over to her five days on Survivor. To some, she was a loyal ally and a solid asset to the tribe. But to others, she looked like nothing but trouble. And after an eventful day of strategizing and bead-based scrambling, the latter perception bore out, leading to Justine's blindside.

Justine started the season strong, becoming the first person to make fire for Vesi. And while she gave life to the tribe, she also found life in the game by joining up with Noelle Lambert early on. Little did Justine realize that the flames were already being stoked against her, though, as fellow salesperson Cody Assenmacher used their shared vocation to paint her as sketchy. Indeed, her openness seemed to be the thing used against her the most. Jesse Lopez was particularly unnerved when she showcased her ability to lie. When Vesi lost immunity, Justine was confident Nneka Egere's neck would be on the chopping block for her performance. But there was so, so much more going behind the scenes. Jesse, Nneka, and Cody planned to take Justine out, fearing she was already too big a threat. However, Cody put that plan in jeopardy when he found a "Beware Advantage" that put his vote on the line. Luckily for the majority, Cody's new hat served as an excuse to get the jewelry the advantage required. And as a result, Justine went from bead to beat as the trio's votes prevailed.

Now out of the game, Justine talks with Parade.com about how blindsided she was by Jesse's betrayal, how she got so close to Noelle so quickly, and her reaction to everything that was said about her in confessionals.

Related: Read our Survivor 43 pre-game interview with Justine Brennan

So Cody said at Tribal Council that he would make one of those palm frond hats for anyone who wanted one. I have to ask, did you end up getting one when all was said and done?
No, he never made me a hat. And now that you bring it up, I'm kind of pissed about it!

Considering how you went out, would you have wanted one if he offered it to you?
Honestly, maybe I would say I wanted one. And then, as he handed it to me, I would just swat it out of his hand. No, I'm kidding. (Laughs.)

So I'm sure you have a lot of thoughts watching these past couple of episodes. Especially since I'm sure there were a lot of things said about you that you didn't realize were observations on the island. What's been your reaction to seeing that?
It is wild and unnatural and wildly unnatural to see people conspiring against you and to have that televised. So it's a very weird feeling. You're not used to seeing people talk about you. But to see it on the big screen, initially, it's hard not to take it personally. But then you remember, "Okay, it was probably a good strategic move on Jesse's part." He was the swing vote. He said that I was obviously scary and threatening. So I will 1,000% take going out because of that reason over anything else. I'm not too pissed about that. 

Let's talk about Jesse. You mention in your Final Words how he was playing both sides. How confident were you until the votes were read that he would be voting alongside you and Noelle?
I mean, he was really good at playing both sides. I will give him that. Noelle and I could see that. He was obviously going to Cody and Nneka, and they were having private conversations. But then he would immediately come back to us and report back and be like, "Okay, so they're thinking of Justine. What should we do? What should I go back to them with? They're confused about why you're looking so comfortable. I think we should say that X, Y, and Z."

So he was really strategizing with us. And that's something that doesn't show up in the edit, which is kind of a bummer. There wasn't any one moment where I was like, "I don't trust Jesse." Otherwise, I wouldn't have been so comfortable going into Tribal Council. But it's more like I should have stuck with my gut. Because you could hear me in one of the confessionals last night say, "I want to get there with Jesse. But there's that little inkling in the back of my mind where I don't know if I can trust him." And I sort of stuck with that.

In retrospect, is there a moment or conversation where you should have listened to that inkling more?
It was the back and forth. As much as we loved having someone that was giving us all the juicy details about what Cody and Nneka were saying, we were like, "Well, are we the ones getting played?" And it turns out we were. Also, I noticed before we left for Tribal Council, he couldn't really make eye contact with me. And so for me, I was just like, "Alright, I think that that means I'm going home tonight." I was trying to kind of suppress that feeling and not get paranoid about it, because we've seen in the past how paranoia can end up screwing you even more. So I wasn't trying to work the crowd.

In the premiere, we see you tell your tribe that you work in cybersecurity sales. Which Cody, a salesperson himself, uses to paint a target on you as persuasive and untrustworthy. Did you ever debate before the season lying about your job as he did?
Not really. And I could be completely wrong, but I don't think sales has ever been a death sentence for someone on Survivor. I did think, "Okay, should I just say I work in cybersecurity?" And honestly, I didn't think that saying I worked in software sales was going to be a huge threat to anyone. And I do think that if I were in any other tribe where there wasn't a salesperson, I wouldn't have had that target on my back from the sales-on-sales violence that happened.

What's your reaction to now finding out that Cody is a salesperson as well?
My initial reaction was that some men are just threatened by strong women. And I stand by that.

In this episode, we see two key moments that seem to turn Jesse on you. In one, you tell him that you have a very good lying face. In another, you approach him worried about the vote and tell him he's the swing vote. Talk to me through your side on both of these conversations.
I mean, you're also only seeing two moments in a span of five days. So, of course, they're going to look for, "Okay, where are the most vulnerable moments for Justine?" And those two are them. The first one where we're by the water basin, and I'm saying how I have a good lying face, that was in one of our conversations where Jesse came up to me, and I think that was the one where he was like, "Okay, Cody and Nneka are confused about why you're feeling so comfortable, because they think that you're going home tonight." And that's what the conversation was about.

I was very much on the mindset of trusting Jessie. I brought it up to Noelle multiple times. And she was like, "No, Jesse's good. We trust Jesse." I brought it up to Dwight. And Dwight was like, "No, Jesse's 100% good. He's with us. We're cool." And so we thought that Jesse was with us at this point. So, yes, I'm going to open up a little bit more. Obviously, that ended up not working in my favor. But when I walked up to Jesse and I was like, "What's the deal? How can we trust that you're voting with us?" By that time, he had already decided that he was going to be voting against me. So obviously, it didn't work in my favor. But he had already made his decision about me. It didn't do me any help to go up to him and say that, but he had already made his mind up.

What was your reaction to seeing him target you because he felt you were such a threat to his game and that he connected the least with you?
I mean, it was surprising. Aside from Noelle and Dwight, I think Jesse was a close third of who I felt the most connected with out there. And I guess that's an easy close third for him to have, considering Nneka and Cody weren't really talking to me. But I definitely did feel some sort of connection with Jesse out there. He is really endearing in person. He's really introverted, and he comes off as very sweet. And so for me, it was like, "Okay, I really like this guy. I can see myself building a connection here." And so it did sting a little bit to see him say that I was the person he least jived with on our tribe.

You say you didn't really speak with Nneka and Cody. Was that happening from the jump, or only really when you and Nneka were targeting each other?
I think I could sense from even Day Two that I had a target on my back for them. I didn't know that it was Cody that generated the whole "we should watch out for Justine, she's in sales" thing. I didn't know that he did that. And that started early on, like Day One or Two. And I could just tell that they were predators eyeing their prey around camp. Because they weren't talking to me. They weren't trying to get to know me the same way you see Cody getting to know Noelle, asking questions about her leg. They made their mind up about me initially in the first couple of days.

They were the spiders, and you were the fly.
Yes, that's a great analogy.

Where did that Spider Queen title come from? Did you have any major moments with spiders outside of what we saw?
I don't know! After the first episode, I'm Fire Queen. And now I'm Spider Queen. And to be fair, everyone else out there was also equally afraid and disgusted by the spiders. But they only chose to show a montage of me being terrified of them. I'm a loud and proud hater of spiders. I don't care. But yeah, I thought that entire thing was hilarious.

You speak about Noelle. How did you two end up becoming such tight allies so early on?
So Noel says this in her confessionals from the first episode, "Justine and I are similar in age. We're both athletic and competitive." And that was exactly it. Obviously, being similar in age, that helps a lot. She reminded me of someone that would be on my sports teams growing up. I played field hockey, and I was a big diver throughout middle school and high school before I started rowing. And the girls that I did those activities with were my friends. And so I think that we just hit it off immediately, being both athletic and super competitive. We wanted to win challenges; we both hated losing. And so we found that we had some of the initial things coming into Survivor in common.

How do you look back on how visual of a pair you became, which ended up being yet another reason why you were targeted?
I think that it's completely on the tribe dynamic. I think in some seasons, it does help to have one really strong alliance and being able to trust each other fully. But I think a common theme you're seeing in the last two episodes of season 43 is that the people in the middle, like Jesse and Karla, are actually faring well in their tribes. That hasn't historically always been the case. If you're not part of an alliance, that hasn't always like worked out for someone. I think it completely depends on the tribe dynamics. And obviously, in Vesi, it didn't work out in our favor.

We saw a mad scramble in the minutes leading up to Tribal Council as Cody asked everyone for beads. What's your reaction now that you know it was all to fight the Beware Advantage so he could vote you out?
Yeah, I mean, people watching it are like, "Oh, how can you be so stupid?" But when you're out there and they've never had that as a Beware Advantage in the past, you're just like, "Yeah, take my beads. I don't care." And I was always nice to Cody out there. I was more than willing to give him my bead so that he could make a silly hat. And so I'm fine with how it went down. Obviously, hindsight is 20/20.

You mentioned the "Fire Queen" title, and last week we saw you make the fire for Vesi. The show highlighted your outdoor skills and how you always want to finish what you started. How do you look back on accomplishing something like that in the game?
I think that the first few episodes of this season definitely painted me as someone who maybe showed their cards a little too soon because I was able to make fire. And obviously, they made an entire storyline out of me making fire. And I wanted to do well in the challenges. I was super competitive. Maybe I was too trusting with Jesse.

But I think that there's definitely a gender bias. Because they also show on Baka Gabler and Sami making fire. And you don't see people reacting to them being like, "Oh, you guys showed your cards too early." But that's the reaction that it has been for me. Or they're like, "Oh, why do you make fire?" Someone has to make fire, or else we're not going to have fire out here! I think that the edit painted me as someone that maybe came too strong out of the gates. And it's a bummer that, in the game of Survivor, for a woman specifically, that can be the death sentence for you.

Next, read our interview with Morriah Young, who was voted out in the Survivor 43 premiere.