Genie Chen goes with her gut. In the literal sense, her love of cooking made her an early provider and staple on her tribe in Survivor 41. And there’s the metaphoric one, having lived a life so far of trusting her instincts even when things look bleak. Despite the hecticness of the game, it steadily got her through an increasingly shrinking tribe, even finding her an idol in the process. But just when she felt most comfortable, the dynamic duo of Shan Smith and Ricard Foye struck. As a result, Genie did not get her wish of making it another day in the game, sending the grocery clerk to the Survivor checkout line. Genie came into the game hoping to utilize a lifetime of customer service skills to charm her way into a power position. But in the early days of Ua, it was her work ethic that prevailed, getting her corraled in with rancher Brad Reese. But while she was putting in the effort to keep the fire going at camp, she could not translate to snuffing other people’s torches. After losing her closest ally, Genie survived due to her close relationship with Shan despite being on the bottom. With their tribe down to half its numbers, she was more committed to the group than ever. To that point, she not only told them about the re-hidden idol she found but even followed Shan’s recommendation not to open it (only to have the other two take the idol for themselves while she was away). After a tense challenge sent them to their fourth Tribal Council, Genie and Ricard both made their pitches to Shan about why the other should go. Genie was confident her loyalty would prevail over Ricard’s strategy, choosing not to play her “Shot in the Dark” advantage. But her TC blood pressure shot up when she saw that Shan had sided with Ricard, despite an intense tiff earlier that day over an extra vote. Now out of the game, Genie talks with Parade.com about why she felt safe at her final Tribal Council, responding to JD’s accusations that she wouldn’t play with him, and how she ended up becoming the “Ozzy of Ua.” You said in your final words that you should have followed your instincts and played your Shot in the Dark. What made you decide to go against your gut and not do that? At first, when I heard about the Shot in the Dark, I was like, “That’s a great idea!” But I think it’s actually a hateful addition! (Laughs.) It’s only a 16.66% chance that you draw safety. But I felt my chances of Shan picking me over Ricard were better than 16.66%. In my gut, I knew that she liked me better. This may just be me projecting, but I feel like if I truly like someone in my heart, I could never vote against you. I thought because she liked me so much, I would make it. I was so much more trustworthy than Ricard. Going into a merge, you want to pick the person you trust the most, especially when only two of you are left. My gut was that she would choose me, and my gut was completely wrong! (Laughs.) Talk to me more about that relationship with Shan. As you said, you seemed to trust her inherently. But she did lead the vote against your closest ally in Brad. How did you reconcile that fact into your dynamic? It was weird. Shan was pretty much everyone’s number one. First of all, she’s really great at connecting with people. She shared something with me very early on about her childhood. That made me really feel for her. I thought, “This is someone I want to succeed in this game with me.” She got me there. There were also moments not caught on camera. Little small moments, like her putting her head on my shoulder. She wasn’t like that with anybody else. I took these little personal cues to think, “This is someone I feel truly safe with. Why would she vote me out?” But I was wrong! (Laughs.) So, so wrong. Let’s talk about the third point of this Ua triangle with Ricard. You seemed to have a conflict that goes back to the premiere when you end up voting for him. In this episode, you talk about working together, but it’s clear you’re gunning for each other. What happened there in that first Tribal Council? That first Tribal was so crazy. First of all, I’m like a deer in the headlights. I heard some things, and I didn’t hear other things. From the beginning, nobody really quite trusted Ricard in the tribe. I didn’t trust him. Brad didn’t trust him. JD didn’t seem to connect with him as much either. The only people who worked with him were Shan and Sar. So when Tribal went live, it went crazy. The plan before that was always going to be Sara. But I never felt right that it was Sara. I didn’t think that she should have gone; she was very strong. Brad was saying, “Okay, if she plays the Shot in the Dark, and we have to go through a revote, we should vote Ricard.” If her Shot in the Dark succeeded, she wouldn’t have a vote. And if it went to a revote, we’d only need me, Brad, and JD to vote out Ricard. But then when Tribal blew up, and everything was craziness, it felt like it would be Brad. This wasn’t in the edit, but Brad says, “Why don’t we just put the hammer down on Ricard now? Just the three of us. We don’t even need to tell them anything.” Because Shan and Ricard were going to vote for Sara, and Sara was going to probably vote for Brad at that moment. But then JD says, “It should be Sara.” He had talked to Shan during this whole thing, and Shan whispered Sara. But I only heard to bring the hammer down on Ricard. So I was like, “Ricard, got it.” I didn’t even hear JD say Sara. I was just so happy because I was like, “Yes, it’s not going to be Sara. It’s going to be Ricard. Perfect.” Speaking of JD, he told me last week in my interview with him that he had approached you and Brad multiple times to turn on Shan and Ricard, but you two wouldn’t budge. What’s your side of the story? Oh, gosh, I don’t even know why he said. That completely didn’t even happen. I wrote Ricard’s name! I had to grovel to him afterward because it wasn’t him. So we were down to get Ricard out from the beginning. In fact, JD even had the chance to get out Ricard that first vote instead of Sara, and he didn’t because he was with Shan the whole time. And after that first Tribal, Brad and I realized, “Okay, JD is not in our alliance. JD is completely with Shan, and therefore probably with Shan and Ricard.” If he came up with a plan to get rid of Ricard, why would me and Brad, of all people, say no? He never came up to us with that at all. You have a big reaction after Brad’s blindside, telling the rest of the tribe that they can make their own fire and catch their own food. Talk to me about what you were going through at that moment, and how does that de-escalate to you talking about how much you love these people at the next Tribal Council? First of all, we had not had food in like seven days. We had one handful of coconut, and I had two earthworms. I remember coming back from Tribal, I was walking first, and everybody was behind me. I was just fuming and thinking, “I’m so pissed. But don’t say anything, Genie. This is how people get voted out.” But I tripped over a tree stump, and I just screamed the f-word. I just couldn’t bottle my emotions anymore. It was just so raw. So I was like, “You guys deal with making fire.” I mean, it was so much worse than what you guys even saw. You should have seen the three of them. They had not really worked on the fire at all. So they were trying to fan that fire and find the good sticks that I gathered as firewood. And I was just sitting in the shelter going, “Don’t you wish you kept Brad? ‘Cause he’s pretty good with fire!” I was just talking mad [expletive]. People I’ve known for years watched that, and they’re like, “Genie, we’ve never seen you so mad!” I was pretty damn mad. I told Ricard he could make his own effing papaya salad. Because I was making green papaya salad with lime juice and chili in it. I was trying to be like a restaurant. I was like, “I’m done. I’m not doing any of that for you guys.” But it was actually funny. They don’t show it in the edit. But that same night, after it was blown up and everything calmed down, we actually all started laughing at each other. Like, “Oh my god, did you really tell me to make my own effing papaya salad?” The emotions went from one to ten back down to one. It was a roller coaster. On that note of papaya salad, there was a secret scene from a couple of weeks ago that talked about you becoming the tribe cook, which stemmed from your grandmother’s story. Did that come up naturally for you? I mean, that’s just who I am. I work hard, and I’m such a team player. I would rather all of us be warm at night. And if that meant I had to gather all the wood, I would do it. Usually, I would ask for help, but a lot of people were lazy at that camp. Brad and I were the only ones that would do work. I knew I didn’t want to command people what to do. So I’m like, “I’m just gonna do it.” And it came very naturally to me. I work at a grocery store. I curtail to customer service. It’s just been a part of me all my life. And yeah, it is for my grandma. I saw how she ran a restaurant. She was the owner, but then she would do things like pick out broken fortune cookies in bags to give to customers. She’ll do the lowest of the low-end work to the highest of the high-end work. And I knew that that would be an asset because of that. I just didn’t know we would have no food! (Laughs.) I do think that that helped with me staying in the game for as long as I did. Speaking of that teamwork, you find the re-hidden idol that went out with Brad and decide to share it with Shan and Ricard. What made you choose to do that, considering how valuable that can be? I was there when Brad first found that Beware Idol. I knew what it looked like and its packaging, so I knew it was Brad’s idol when I saw it. And I knew what it said because he showed it to me later, all the phrases and blah, blah, blah. So But the main point is that I knew you would lose your vote. At three people left, I had to keep my vote because I knew I was on the bottom. But I also felt really good with Shan because we had that emotional connection to her. It’s very obvious I play with my heart. So if you’ve got my heart, and I really, really like you, and I connect with you, I’m totally loyal. It happened with Brad, and it happened with Shan. So I don’t want to lose my vote. And it was kind of in a very obvious place. I would rather know if somebody took it right there in front of me than not knowing which one had it. I was actually hoping Ricard would take it and lose his vote. I was 100% sure that Luvu would not find theirs. They were like the undefeated champions of the world at that point; they didn’t even need to look for this idol. So I just thought, “Okay, let me just point it out.” Shan is able to convince you to leave the idol be until confirmation that the idol was found on the other beaches. And while you’re away, they switch out the idol for a bracelet. How do you react to that, assuming you had no idea they did that at the moment? I really actually thought we were going to leave it there because we agreed to it. And once we figure out if Luvu has it, we’re going to come back and see what we will do with this idol. Now watching it, that was very naive of me to do. But that’s what I felt at the time. We needed to work as a team. It was completely the wrong call, of course. But how was I supposed to know Naseer would find it? I did know about the other phrases because I read them together with Brad. When Naseer said it, I thought, “Oh, cool. Now he thinks his idol is turned on. But it has no power, and Xander’s idol has no power. Because we agree we weren’t going to take that Beware Idol from our cap.” Even if you said the phrase, you had to have it in your possession to be turned on. Bu at this point, I did not know that Shan had already had it in her pocket and had already activated this idol for herself. In the preseason, you said you wanted to make the most of every moment you had out there. Even though it didn’t end the way you wanted, were you able to do that? I really truly did. Shan and Ricard and JD were so hyper-focused on game, game, game. I don’t really think that they actually took a moment once in a while and be like, “Wow, look at this place.” And I did that every single day. Because every single day, I was out there gathering freaking wood! (Laughs.) And I would just stop and be like, “Wow, look at me. I’m gathering wood in Fiji.” My favorite day was the day that I got voted out, actually. I had gone to get fish with our Hawaiian sling, and I didn’t think I was going to get anything. But I got three fish for me, Shan, and Ricard. And it just felt really good. I was the freaking Ozzy or Ua! I was providing food. And of course, while I was doing that, they were doing the whole stealing of the Beware Advantage! It’s like this what I’m doing for the group, and this is what they’re doing for me. (Laughs.) Next, check out our exit interview with JD Robinson, who was voted out in Survivor 41 Episode 4.
