Sigh.

Hello jury, the writing is on the wall and it's my fault for not being a better competitor in the challenges. I accept that. If you have any questions about the game, feel free to ask. I feel like I have a pretty good grasp on how the game went, but I don't promise to know everything and I'm open to hearing anyone else's version of events.

Lexie, thank you for your trust in making that final 2 with me. I'm sorry I couldn't help push you to that final round.

Also, can I say this is the first time I wasn't taken out of the game for being a threat to win :p It's weird to finally have my Tasha Fox story arc after four seasons lol.

And let's not get cute about it either cause I've never been the type to play nice for a vote.

Hello jury!

I want to start this off by saying that this has been the most tumultuous, draining, exciting, and emotional experience in a group game that I have ever played. I honestly believe that everyone here was playing their hardest, and I want to thank you all for the incredibly positive and fun, although sometimes stressful, experience that I had in this game. I almost didn't accept this invitation, but ultimately I am glad that I was able to be a part of this season with all of you. I know many of you may be having mixed feelings about either myself or my game play, but I hope that you keep an open mind going into this Jury Questioning process. I hope that through my speech and your jury questions, I will be able to provide you all with more insight into the way that this game played out from my perspective.

-ORIGINAL TRIBES-

Coming into this game I knew from the Cast Reveal that I was in a very, very, very bad position in this game. More specifically, Cole, Julian, and LeQuisha were three players on Ikongo who I had been on opposite sides of in prior games, and who ultimately played a role in me getting voted out. Combined with the fact that I am a past winner of this series, I knew that early on I was going to have a huge bullseye on my back. Thus, I worked my ass off from the start to try to form strategic alliances and relationships with other members of the Ikongo tribe, specifically AJ, Livingston, Julian, Tris, and Brien. Going into the first vote, the tribe's original target was LeQuisha, but then multiple people informed me that Cody was trying to flip the vote on to me. I immediately reversed course, reconciled with LeQuisha, and begin campaigning like a lunatic to everyone on the tribe for Cody to leave. When the Tribal Council votes were read, I was incredibly nervous, but thankfully Cody was blindsided and left unanimously. The second Ikongo tribe was much more calm, with everyone collectively agreeing to send Cole packing.

Part 1 of 3
So this game has been a wild ride. I started out as a measly white level with basically no connections, someone who was probably seen as a nonthreat who would probably get voted out before the merge. Apparently that wasn’t the case, as I outlasted 16 people where a majority of them had pregame connections. I was able to find a strong alliance that I knew I could trust and get to the end with and made (or at least attempted to make) social connections with almost everyone in the merge in some form. I pushed for things to happen that otherwise would’ve been put off, but also knew when to stay in my lane even if I wanted to make something happen. I knew when to get my hands dirty and when to stay out of stuff. While some of you may not respect how I played, I think I played intelligently and ultimately it got me to the end.

The first thing that I really pushed for that wouldn’t have happened otherwise was the second merge vote, where Tris went home. Originally the vote was Kevin, who I had a connection with. I pushed for us to go for a failure, Tris, who I knew I didn’t have a relationship with and knew that we needed to keep the numbers for the fans. This proved to lead to the overall downfall of the failures, as they were then put into a minority where there was a stark division between the fans and the failures.

Part 2 of 3
The second thing that I think changed my game as a whole was voting out LeQuisha. While I genuinely enjoyed talking to her, I knew that based on what I had heard from different people, her loyalties seemed to lie outside of the alliance of 6 that existed between myself, Ken, Ashanti, Sagar, AJ, and her. Those worries became a reality as she, in the same vote that we flipped on her, flipped on our alliance and tried to vote out AJ. I honestly think that without making that move, I wouldn’t have made it to the end.

Throughout my time with my core alliance of 4 (Ken, Sagar, Ashanti, and I), I truly believe that I was pushing a lot of what was happening. While we made decisions together, I was a major proponent in bringing up ideas for votes based on what would be best for my game. On top of that, I was able to rope AJ into our alliance and give us the majority within the tribe, which even though he ended up getting voted out, still pushed my alliance further into the game. While there were some hiccups along the way, I truly believe that through solid strategic planning I was able to make my way to the end.

For the entire duration of this game, I was extremely honest to everyone that I talked to. I was upfront with people when they confronted me about flipping. I told them the honest truth - I was staying true to my alliance, and that’s what I did. I stayed true to my word, and while I know some people may read that as naivety, I read that as a sign of strength. This proved to work out, as I was able to outlast Ashanti and Sagar, both of whom were perceived to be in control of our alliance. Mike himself even told me that within that alliance, I was not making it to the end. I proved him, and everyone else who thought I was being carried to the end, that I was taking control of my own fate and would bring myself to the end.

Part 3 of 3
I feel like the honest social connections I created with people is majorly what got me here. While I did strategize to get to this point, I feel like without the strong bonds I created with people, it would have been moot. Overall, I feel like I had a true conversation and created a real connection with everyone that I’ve messaged. I almost never just messaged people “what’re you thinking for vote?”. I hardly did that in the first place. I thought that talking to people and trying to know them on a personal level is far more valuable.

In the end, I hope that you all can recognize that I tried to connect with you all as human beings, and that I can get your vote because of both that and my strategic game. Thank you to everyone who ends up voting for me, I genuinely hope that you’ve all enjoyed playing with me, and I look forward to your questions.

- SWAPPED TRIBES -

After the swap, I was placed on the Soalala tribe with Kenneth, Livingston, Tris, Kevin, and Myself. After the swap I felt that I was in a solid position as I had a good relationship with my former tribe mates Livingston and Tris, and had a friendship with Kenneth from playing games with and hosting him over the years. Kevin was the only person that I had never met on this tribe, but I still reached out and tried to make an effort to form a relationship with him. Tris immediately tried to start an alliance of myself, him, and Kevin, which Kevin quickly leaked to Livingston, who then leaked that it had been leaked to me. At this point I became very weary of Kevin, and then made an effort to reach out to Kenneth and inform of the Tris/Kevin/Me alliance. I also planted seeds of doubt by saying that Kevin was the actual one who had made the Me/Tris/Kevin alliance, and that he was playing both sides. I feel that by doing this, I was able to establish a lot of trust with Kenneth very quickly that was able to benefit me greatly in the upcoming rounds.

Oh are we doing all this

I’m gonna drag all three of you, so be prepared

Between the three of you, I thought I had my mind made up. But after reading an opening statement, I’ve decided to be more open in regards to my vote.

Ken: I’m sorry, but you will most likely not be getting my vote this evening. Quite frankly, I feel like you didn’t do anything of not in this game other than cast a vote and exist. You never made a move. You never brought up targets. In fact, the only thing I think you did was discuss whether or not to tell Mike about a plan of ours. Now, on a personal level, I think you’re a good dude. But you played the worst of these three in my eyes. My question to you is who played the worst game on the Jury in your opinion?

Mike: Dude, I’m conflicted. You forgot to mention a lot more about what when down at the Cody vote. And I don’t feel like we had a good relationship up until Tris got voted out. That’s part of the reason I flipped, I knew damn good and well you, Livingston, Tris and Julian were at the top of the Failures, and I wasn’t content with somewhere between 7th and 5th place for sticking with you all. I was an outcast on the tribe, and I know that because Livingston told Cole that I was the vote when he got voted out. Now, here’s my question for you. When I told you I was never writing your name down to vote you out, I meant it. You and Lexie were my goal F3. So why on Earth did you try to vote me out twice when I never went after you in this game with my actions?

Lexie: Oh hun, you had my vote until I read your opening. I was leverage for you? I felt like we had a deep personal connection, and that we were fucking endgame together this season. By confirming that I was 5th in your pecking order too, you managed to lump yourself in with Mike. And that’s not a position you want to be in. My question for you is: How much of our conversation at F8 did you mean? Were you actually gonna flip?

Finally, I’ll say this. I think that you are all good people, so I’m happy about that, but you need to address what you did in this game. It’s the only way you win. So I want you to insult every member of the Jury, and don’t hold back either. And don’t just say “Oh uh Ben smells” No, like call out their gameplay flaws.

Also, one more question for each of you.

What was my dogs name? First to answer that will get some extra points in my heart.

Cool so let’s do a cliff notes and y’all can ask me to expound if you want.

I started the game automatically being in a group with Sagar and Ashanti. I never try to play these games solely with people I know, but I just wasn’t gonna turn on them like that lol. I was also pretty quickly put into an alliance with Kevin and Mac, as well as one with Kevin, Kyle, and Mac. Now while I did like Kevin (at the time) and Kyle, Mac pretty quickly told me that he thinks I’m close with Ashanti. Around this time Lexie also reached out to me and told me a secret, one that she’s shared with some of you but idk how many so I won’t say it here. Through that secret, we bonded and I immediately attached myself to her. She was my compromise. I was gonna work with Sagar and Ashanti, but above all she was my ally.

So yeah Sagar Ashanti Lexie and I eventually pull in Jay and we blindside Mac because he told me he didn’t trust me lol. LQ told myself and Ashanti that Mike was trying to target her, so I started formulating a plan to get all the first gen players to the end, because I knew LeQuisha Sagar Ashanti and probably Julian would look out for me in the late game.

Ben swaps us and I’m the only one who got swap fucked. Kevin immediately tells me that I’m on the outs of an alliance of him Mike and Tris and I tell him to make sure Livingston is the vote before me. Luckily Mike and I pulled us through that segment of the game, but I was fully ready for Kevin to try and flip Livingston and we both vote out Tris. It would be the first time I looked out for Mike because Kevin wanted him gone. I also found an idol and passed it to Julian even though I could’ve given it to Sagar to make sure he knew I wanted him to work with me (and to potentially take out Sagar)

We merge and I pretty much help run shit from this point forward. Mike immediately tells me he wants Lexie our, and it won’t be the first time. I can’t have that so I just do my best to fortify my group and keep people at ends (Julian v Sagar, LQ v Mike) so she doesn’t get targeted.. I don’t vote Kyle because I still like Kyle, but it’s no big deal if he leaves for my personal game. Tris I don’t talk to. Kevin by this point had annoyed nearly everyone and is a unified vote so I can keep my group of Julian, LQ, Mike, Sagar, Lexie, Ashanti, and AJ all intact. So please understand that I was pretty much positioned great from this point on, so I just had my fun from this point. LQ I threw my vote because I wasn’t gonna vote for her or Zorbo, and I wanted to go to rocks so they’d both be safe. But Mike didn’t want to go to rocks for LQ so she left, even though risking it would’ve led to him possibly being in a better position where he didn’t have to win out. Livingston was just the product of Mike/Julian/Livingston not playing actively, but I gave Julian warning that it was happening and instead of taking a chance he kept his idol. Zorbo I only had recently really talked to about their dog passing so as sweet as they seemed I didn’t have real allegiance to them and when I found out that all three idols were coming out, I sent a blind vote to him just in case it would be the only one to stick. Julian got voted out because Mike told me he trusted Zorbo with the info that he wanted Ashanti gone more than he trusted me with it, and also because Mike and Julian both staying to f6 wouldn’t work out for the group that I decided to stay loyal to because they were the only ones playing. Plus I figured they’d be looking for that idol. Felipe just had to go. And then when it came to it, I cut my friends to make sure Lexie and I would stand here together, even though Mike tried to get Ashanti and I to vote Lexie our at F4 so he wouldn’t have to and would still have a chance at her jury vote.

Your dogs name was Duke but because you were a kid it was spelled Dooke I wanna say

Yup that’s 100% correct Ken.