Sugar’s father had just passed away and as she told me “she just needed to do something for her well-being!” So she went on Survivor: Gabon and made it all the way to the “final three”. She may have backstabbed almost everyone along the way, but after they all “killed” her best friend on the game, Ace, she “was out for blood!” Sugar discussed all of that and more when I talked to her the other day. Here is what she had to say…
Josh Clinton: Hi Sugar, how are you doing?
Jessica “Sugar” Kiper: Hey Josh. I’m pretty good. A little hungover. (Laughs).
JC: (Laughs). I understand. It seemed like at times you were playing brilliantly, but then at other times
SK: I was playing with my heart a lot. Pretty much all the good moves that people liked I was just trying to be entertaining because I am in the Screen Actor’s Guild and we kinda do that. I was just trying to be entertaining and not be mean, but a lot of the times I was playing with my heart.
JC: Okay. Did you think your “look”, the blonde hair and kinda model looks, affected the way people saw you?
SK: That was the whole game plan. I wasn’t going to go in and say I was an actor. I went in thinking they would look at me and say “okay, she is going to be one of the first people voted off.” The only shot in hell that I had, and I told Jeff and them in the beginning, I need to find an alpha male who can help me through the first half of the game. And then once he doesn’t need to protect me anymore, I can actually start playing for myself. I couldn’t have written it any better, and I can’t believe it played at that what. You know what, I could have written it better. I wouldn’t have got rid of my best friend for no reason. Ace and I have been on a road trip together. We jumped out of a helicopter together, and we are totally fine now.
JC: Cool. What was the reason for voting Matty out over Bob? Did you think you could beat Bob easier in the end?
SK: Like I just said, I had been playing with my heart the whole time. I knew that Matty or Bob would keep winning immunities. I was very partial to both Matty and Bob. And Susie won the final one, so I had to vote for one of my two favorite boys. Like I said, it was like choosing between my brother and my dad. I had already saved Bob once and I had already saved Matty once. So it wouldn’t be fair to save them both twice. Plus, that was the most entertaining last thing to do right before the final three. So I was like leave it up to the fire Gods, so I wouldn’t have to make the decision and have that on my conscience. Literally that would have been choosing between the two. It didn’t matter who was in the final three with me. I would have rather had breakfast with my two boys in the morning, but Susie was pretty good company too.
JC: Yeah. You set a record for most times sent to Exile Island. It seemed to be both beneficial, in that you didn’t starve, and detrimental, since you weren’t socializing with everyone. But did you think it helped you get further in the game?
SK: It definitely helped me do what I wanted to do with healing up with my dad. So that was beneficial for me there. In the game, it helped me realize I wasn’t with anyone and I was on my own team. So I think it was more beneficial than not, for sure. I got to do what I wanted to do, which was go out there and have some peace and deal with my father’s death. Also, it helped me build up my “Team Sugar”.
JC: Right. Did it seem like the former Kota alliance members were hell bent on voting for Bob, no matter what you did?
SK: Oh yeah. I would have voted for Bob too. I love Bob obviously. I think if Matty would have been the in the final three, it would have been more of a landslide with him winning.
JC: Gotcha. You got rid of Ace early in the game…
SK: Not too early. I would have loved for him to be on the jury, but for my game it wasn’t too early.
JC: Okay, so it was planned to get rid of them at that time then?
SK: No, not at all. It would have been cool if Ace was in the whole game. I honestly got duped by Kenny. But it was way too easy for me to throw Ace under the bus, because I knew we were pretty much halfway through the game. But what I should have done..well let me tell you one thing. Ace should have talked to me. If he was trying to get the idol from me to prove to Matty that they could trust me or not to worry about me and we can all work together, then he should have told me that if that was what he was really trying to do. Otherwise, it seemed like he didn’t trust me because I was always the swingvote. So if he didn’t trust me, why would I give him the idol. But Kenny told me literally two seconds before Ace asked me for that idol, and the way he asked me, I could tell he was lying about something. So he wasn’t totally honest with me. If he had been honest with me, the game would have been completely different. If he was doing that to show Matty he could have gotten the idol from me, we could have worked together. But when he did that, it seemed dishonest and Kenny had just warned me about him, so I was like alright. I really truly believed he was doing that.
JC: Okay. I understand now.
SK: Yeah, I mean there is a lot of stuff they don’t show. They film 24/7 and you only see a hour a week.
JC: Yeah, exactly. What was it like living with Randy?
SK: Luckily, there was only three days where me and Matty had to live with Randy, Corrine, and Charlie before the merge. When it was just us five, it was a miserable experience. I don’t think I could explain it to you guys. Me and Matty were already feeling miserable, but we were trying to be happy and looking at the bright side of things. Then, Charlie just laughed at everything, which is guilt by association. But these two bastards just talked crap about everyone in the game. They complained about everything. When things are bad, you don’t need negative people around you. You need to try to be positive to make things happy. Matty and I were just so miserable then, but then we merged again and it was all good.
JC: Yeah. Were you surprised by anything that any of the jury members said to you in the final tribal council?
SK: No. Jeff called them “bitter betties”, and they were. The ones that I actually liked and were my friends, they were the last ones to go, and I had just been there best friend right before stabbing them in the back. So I knew that everyone was mad at me, but I wasn’t playing for them. I know it sounds stupid, but I was never playing for a million dollars. They make you say that in the beginning. You have to say “oh, I’m going to win a million dollars!” I never thought I had a chance in hell of getting to the final three. So I was proud of myself for that. And the fact that I gave Ace the idol in the beginning was because I really didn’t think I deserved to be led through the game so easily. I was so happy to be there at that point. It hadn’t kicked in yet, but once they killed my best friend I was out for blood.
JC: Definitely. Who did you along with best during the game and who did you get along with the least?
SK: I think you know the answer to that second part. I got along best..well I didn’t have any time with Kelly or Paloma. They were very sweet girls. But I didn’t have any time with Gillian, but I talked to Gillian through e-mail now. I didn’t really get to talk to Michelle. I am friends with Kenny, Matty, Crystal, Ace, and Jacquie. Pretty much the only one I don’t talked to is Corrine. I talk to Charlie sometimes, but Corrine is the only one I don’t talk to. I talk to Bob too. I took a road trip with Ace. We jumped out of a plane together.
JC: Yeah, that’s cool. If you got the opportunity to do Survivor again, would you do it?
SK: I don’t know. The only reason I did it then was because my dad had passed and I was like “I need to do something right now for my well-being and get myself together!” I don’t think I would actually. It depends. If it was an All-Star with Rupert and Fairly and all of them, hell yeah. But if they told me that Corrine and Randy would be there again, hell no.
JC: I understand that. Did you learn anything about yourself from this experience that you didn’t know before?
SK: I have more faith in my improv and ad-lib ability. I learned that..I don’t know. I wish I could have some profound thing to tell you, but I really just came to grips with my father’s death. Now I have thicker skin from these people. I learned that I was the same person I have always been, and I really like me. So I guess I didn’t really learn that. So I guess I don’t have a good quote for you about that.
JC: Alright, no problem. Thanks for your time and good luck with everything.
SK: Alright, thank you.
