A day late and $50,000 short - she’s giving it to charity.
What a way to taint an amazing experience…
Maybe she does “suck at life?”
Yes, she did outright mislead people with her hard luck story, but she did finally do the right thing by apologizing and declining the cash. That’s a noble thing even if her crisis was a product of her own making.
Personally, I think Burnett ought to offer the administrator $50k for the unfair hit to her reputation. I can’t imagine how she reacted when she watched Denise paint her as some sort of demon for giving her a promotion and significant pay raise.
I agree that the popularity contests at the reunion shows and awarding a favorite contestant a cash prize is just a crappy practice. It detracts from the real winner and rewards people for no other reason than because the editors made them look good. I have no doubt in my mind that had the editors wanted James to look like a jerk and Jean-Robert to look like a saint, they could have done it.
Amen. No more popularity prizes please! If you want a popularity prize, go on Big Brother.
I think you’re exactly right. If I’ve learned one thing from watching reality shows, it’s that I would never, ever want to go on one. I think about the little squabbles my husband and I have when we do things together, and what it would sound like if the Amazing Race editors decided that we were going to be the Horrible Arguing Couple on the Brink of a Divorce. No thanks.
It really bothers me when people attribute noble motives to others based solely on their looks or status in life. Jerks seem to me to be equally distributed across socio-economic ranges.
Yes, Amanda won the genetic lottery, but she seems to be a nice woman. James wasn’t born with that body, he got it digging holes. Denise got hers when she decided to make a living shovelling tater tots into pimply high school kids.
My guess is that Denise and James came from at best equal economic status, but I’ll bet James ends up far ahead, and he deserves it. He works harder, is smarter and better prepared, and isn’t the kind of guy to fall back onto a “woe is me” excuse when things go against him.
I swear if you put a puppy on the show, you’d have a significant group of people seriously arguing that the dog deserves to win.
Hold on, not that I am a fan of Denise but there is a huge difference between being 30 years old and single and 40 years old and with a family. James and Denise may have similar economic backgrounds, but they are at different stages in life. James at 40 may be no better off economically than Denise is now.
At one time Denise was single too, and she made the decisions that led to being a lunch lady at 40. James may dead by an OD by 40, but I’m betting he isn’t. He seems to me to have all the characteristics of someone who is sucessful in life. Denise could be sucessful and wealthy at 45, but I’m betting against it.
Being a gravedigger at 30 counts as successful?
According to his Survivor Bio, he “owns a burial service” which is a family business he is carrying on. I don’t know exactly what that entails, but it sounds like he prepares the graves and makes arrangements for graveside services. Not too glamourous, but I don’t think it equates to being unskilled labor, like the title “gravedigger” makes it sound.
Check back in five years. I’m betting on the guy who works hard, reads books about how to survive in the wild before put out to survive in the wild, and doesn’t give up.
A person who’s first reaction after starring on a top rated TV show for 4 months is “I want my old job back” doesn’t strike me as a winner.
I think Denise’s poor me stuff was strategy – really stupid, poorly enacted strategy, but still…
In the episode with the family member’s she started to talk about being worried that the jury wouldn’t vote for her to win, because they’d feel like she was too lucky, with her nice family and good life and all. It was after that that she started playing up the poor-me-$7-an-hour thing. I wish she hadn’t done it – I liked her and I hate that poor-me jive.
I’d bet anything that it was the show that wanted to bill her as The Lunch Lady – similar to several other contestants who’ve been billed as stuff they used to be. What-his-name last season who was billed as Former Model, or the guy who was a Retired Astronaut. Then she dug a nice little hole for herself on the reunion show. She should have said, “I got a promotion! I’m a custodian now – full time position, nice benefits and a $10 raise!” Of course, then she wouldn’t have gotten the $50,000 – but she wouldn’t have looked like a lying idiot on national TV and torked off the boss who was nice enough to give her a raise (and a leave of absence to paly the game) in the first place. Badly played.
I don’t get the super-fan thing. What criteria does the use to select a super-fan? Just the application? There are a lot of websites out there talking about each season of Survivor (including us, of course). Did they go online for potential super-fans? I guess no Dopers got the call.