Survivor Quitter Osten Furthers His Legacy of Shame

Osten Taylor has already been inducted into the Reality TV Hall of Shame for his behavior on Survivor: Pearl Islands, and also for his behavior afterwards in interviews. Unfortunately, that behavior continued when he had his interview with RealityNewsOnline, sister site to the Hall of Shame.

The questions we had for Osten were open-ended and intended to leave him plenty of room to explain his actions, look back and talk about what he learned, and overall to give him a chance to set the record straight. Instead, he was snide, provided short answers which sometimes didn’t even address the question, and in general showed how much he truly did deserve to be in the Hall of Shame. His interview answers were posted on RealityNewsOnline without commentary. Starting just minutes after they were posted, readers wrote in to comment on how disgusted they were with the way he acted. Now the Hall of Shame is following up on his original induction.

The first question asked him if he was unprepared for the rigors of Survivor or if he thought he would be less affected by the elements than previous contestants, who have gone through much worse in some cases. He replied that he never said he’d be unaffected, which doesn’t make a lot of sense and really doesn’t answer the question.

The second question gave him the opportunity to fully explain why he quit. Instead of taking that opportunity, he chose to just continue making the same claim he’d been making – that risking his health wasn’t worth the money. Unfortunately, he later shot himself in the foot because of his answer to the fourth question, saying that risking his health would be in vain because the Outcasts were being allowed back into the game. First of all, this statement is completely illogical – one has nothing to do with the other. Second, it sounds rather more like he quit because he was upset about the turn of events rather than because he was truly concerned about his own health. In other words, he had a tantrum.

Then, in the ninth response, he further hurt his own cause. When we asked him what it would have taken to keep him in the game, he said food or the Outcasts not being allowed back. Well, if he had waited a few more days, he would have had plenty of food – but of course he couldn’t know that at the time. However, his answer once again seems to contradict his previous claims. Was he really concerned that a lack of food was going to seriously impact on his health? More than Andrew or Ryan or Tijuana or Darrah? Or, for that matter, those who have been on Survivor before him and who faced much worse conditions yet still managed to live through it? Or was it really the second part of his answer – because he was upset that the Outcasts were coming back? If I had to guess, I would say his mention of it twice indicates that we have the real reason.

Going back to the third question, we asked how he feels to see how he came off to the viewing audience. He snidely responded, “It feels great!” And later, in response to our question about public reaction, he claimed there has been “tons of support.” Yet throughout this interview, he is clearly extremely defensive, which indicates that perhaps the reaction is not quite as good as he is making it out. Certainly there hasn’t been an outpouring of people complaining about Osten having been inducted into the Hall of Shame.

Osten continued his snide and unresponsive answers when asked what he would tell future Survivor contestants to consider that he over- or under-estimated by saying, “Have a good time!”

In the final question, yet another opportunity to talk about the situation from his viewpoint, he was asked what the world doesn’t know about him. His answer? That he’s really not lazy. Well, maybe that’s true, but he sure didn’t work hard at answering these questions. And since all the interviews I’ve seen have been along the same lines, he’s certainly not going to change any minds.

Viewers understand that sometimes what we see on Survivor and other reality shows might not be exactly all of the pertinent information. But considering the way Osten has reacted after his stint on the show, he has done nothing to improve public perception of him. Rather than making use of his opportunities to be honest and try to get people to understand what he went through, he has been snide, sarcastic, called people (like Jeff Probst) names, and just overall acted in a shameful manner.

So yes, if there was ever any doubt, it’s been erased. Osten definitely deserves to be in the Reality TV Hall of Shame.

David Bloomberg is the Editor of the Reality TV Hall of Shame, and can be reached at RNO@pobox.com.

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