S42 Chanelle Howell

[Whimsy]

CBS bio  

Name: Chanelle Howell
Age: 29
Hometown: Hamden, CT
Current Residence: New York, NY
Occupation: Executive Recruiter

Favorite Hobbies: Exploring new countries, trying new cuisines and blogging about them.

3 Words to Describe You: Cunning, competitive, cultured.

Pet Peeve: Slow walkers. It’s the New Yorker in me.

What is the accomplishment you are most proud of? Utilizing my recruiting skills to create
a mentorship program to help young women get into professional spaces.

What is something we would never know from looking at you? I’m good at crunching numbers
in my head!

Who is your hero and why? My parents! They’ve worked so hard to build a life for my siblings and I
and set us up for success. I can never fully repay them, although I intend to try through winning the million!

Which past Survivor will you play the game most like? Kim Spradlin played a perfect game, so just trying
to keep that same energy.

Why do you believe you can be the Sole Survivor? I’m truly a student of the game. I’ve watched all the seasons,
I’ve studied the greats, and I’ve learned the nuances. I am a subject matter expert in SURVIVOR. Aside from
having the “toolbelt” to win, my motivations will push me through the cold nights and hungry days.
I want to show Black and brown girls that this game was made for us, too!

 

[LadyChatts]

Maybe she’ll annoy me less once the show starts, but from interview clips I’ve seen and read she can be out first.  

[LadyChatts]

Exit interviews with Chanelle:

https://ew.com/tv/survivor-42-chanelle-howell-interview/

-As to why she risked her vote (she does admit her biggest mistake her was not communicating more clearly with Omar):

Quote

 

The conversation that Omar and I had was like, "Hey, I really need my vote, and an advantage could do well for me 'cause I don't know where I stand and I'm going to Tribal." And I think we landed at, "Listen, if it hurts both of us, neither of us will take it. But if it helps both of us, both of us will take it." That gray area that we didn't really talk about was, what if it hurts one and helps the other. And so when I went to the ship wheel and I had to decide, I was like, "Well, Omar and I both just decided that if it hurts both of us, neither of us will take it. So he's not gonna take it. Great! I'm gonna take it."

And my logic behind that was if there's ever a time in Survivor to take a risk, it is when you are most safe. And I knew that I was the most safe. And I see a lot of people saying I didn't protect my alliance. I didn't really have an alliance. I was smack in the middle and Daniel was my plus one and I was aligned with Hai and Lydia and I was aligned with Mike and Jenny. So in any situation, someone from my alliance was always gonna go home.

 

Other highlights from EW:

-She feels like she was vilified for risking her vote at shipwheel island, and for the Mike vote.  She also feels like she got blamed for Omar losing his vote, and says it's a double standard when men and women make the same move in the game, but women get blamed if it goes wrong.

-She said at the merge that Ika wanted to target Taku, and Taku wanted to target Ika, so Vati was in a good position if they stuck together.  But the other members said they were fractured and wanted to do their own thing (she blames Mike more on this)

-She didn't realize how emotionally Mike and Hai were playing the game and didn't expect Mike to take the vote against him so personally

-She also said they left out that she was a challenge beast and was carrying her tribe in the challenges.

-She said she felt ostracized not just socially, but also strategically

Like Swati, I kind of feel like Chanelle doesn't really think she did anything wrong or that anything was wrong with her gameplay.  I will say that I like Mike less after reading this

 

And here's a second interview (not much new information here):

https://parade.com/1371391/mikebloom/chanelle-howell-survivor-42-interview/

-in this one, she claims that Hai was mouthing to her at TC to vote Lydia, but she didn't get it and voted Jonathan.  That's why she was so upset.

-she wasn't entirely blindsided by the vote, but says Romeo was unraveling even worse than we saw on TV, so she really thought it was going to be him

-she says she got the chess and checkers thing mixed up when she said she was the one playing chess

 

Here's another Youtube interview with Gordon Holmes.  Chanelle plays word association where he names a castaway and she says the first thing that comes to mind.  Sounds like she wasn't a Jonathan fan lol

https://youtu.be/7u0socOEW34

Tori: Queen of Hearts, so sweet

Daniel: Chaotic

Omar: Puppet Master

MaryAnne: Relentlessly Authentic

Lindsey: Level

Hai: Short sighted

Mike: Emotional

Jonathan: (she originally skipped him), unnecessarily beloved, doesn't deserve his edit

Drea: standoffish

Jenny: Queen

Rocksroy: Candid, what you see is what you get

Romeo: Underrated

Lydia: Go with the flow

Edited April 21, 2022 by LadyChatts

[Guest]

Aw, this kind of makes me miss her even more. The Jonathan comments are very interesting.

2 hours ago, LadyChatts said:

-She didn't realize how emotionally Mike and Hai were playing the game and didn't expect Mike to take the vote against him so personally

Can't really blame her for that. Mike was way over the top about that.

2 hours ago, LadyChatts said:

-She also said they left out that she was a challenge beast and was carrying her tribe in the challenges.

This sounds a little self-serving, but I can buy it. Her fitness level wasn't as obvious as Jonathan or even Lindsay because she wasn't showing off her abs, but you could still tell she was quite in shape. This has nothing to do with why I was a fan, of course.

2 hours ago, LadyChatts said:

-she says she got the chess and checkers thing mixed up when she said she was the one playing chess

This is a relief to know. Shades of Swati mixing up Boston Rob and Rob C. on her way out.

So yeah, Chanelle probably wasn't All-Star material, but I appreciated her generally lowkey way of being. Another fun personality type in this great stew we've got going this season.

"Mm-hmm!" 🥰

[LadyChatts]

Chanelle wasn't my favorite, but Mike wanting her out for personal reasons was stupid.  I do think what happened at shipwheel island was her downfall in this game.  I don't know what she was thinking risking her vote, other than she was trying to gain an advantage and thought Omar would go along with it.  She said in the EW interview that she was as safe as anyone could be up until that point, so she should have protected her vote.  I also feel like in either Jenny or Daniel's interview, they said it was discussed what happened at the island, so Chanelle should have known to protect her vote.  But she says here she didn't expect shipwheel island to be more than a one time thing, so she claims she didn't know what she was getting into.  Anyway, she also said that Mike dug his heels in about not staying together at the merge, and we saw last night he was dead set on getting Chanelle out when they approached him about voting Romeo instead.  I happen to like Romeo, so I'd enjoy it if he somehow leads to Mike being voted out.  Being stubborn isn't a good trait to have in this game.

In the video I posted, the word association starts at the 7 minute mark, and she first gets to Jonathan at the 8 minute mark.  You can tell she's trying to be careful what she says.  I kind of feel like Chanelle still feels like she played a better game than she really did.  She mentioned being ostracized, but she did that to herself.  I will admit I'd like to see Chanelle play again, only to see if she actually learned anything about what she did wrong.  If she did, I think she'd be really good at the game. 

Edited April 21, 2022 by LadyChatts

[peachmangosteen]

I liked her mostly because she obviously didn't like Jonathon ('I don't think he's that golden' lol) so I'm loving her comments post-show about him.

[ProfCrash]

I read the EW interview and she says that it is not fair that people blame her when Mike didn't have a vote. What she is missing is that Mike had lost his vote because of the beware advantage. You could argue that he could have put it back and he wouldn't have lost his vote but he had no clue what was in the package.

Chanelle knew what the risk was and choose to risk her vote. She tries to claim that Omar should of known that she needed the advantage at that Tribal and he should not have risked his vote because of their agreement. She tried to twist that conversation in a way that allowed her to take that risk. She lost her vote because she choose poorly.

So yes, both Mike and Chanelle were without a vote but one had more advance knowledge. That is why Chanelle is blamed and Mike isn't.

Not sure why she doesn't like Jonathon. Have we had any insight from other players that Jonathan is somehow being misrepresented?

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, ProfCrash said:

I read the EW interview and she says that it is not fair that people blame her when Mike didn't have a vote. What she is missing is that Mike had lost his vote because of the beware advantage. You could argue that he could have put it back and he wouldn't have lost his vote but he had no clue what was in the package.

Chanelle knew what the risk was and choose to risk her vote. She tries to claim that Omar should of known that she needed the advantage at that Tribal and he should not have risked his vote because of their agreement. She tried to twist that conversation in a way that allowed her to take that risk. She lost her vote because she choose poorly.

So yes, both Mike and Chanelle were without a vote but one had more advance knowledge. That is why Chanelle is blamed and Mike isn't.

Not sure why she doesn't like Jonathon. Have we had any insight from other players that Jonathan is somehow being misrepresented?

She's not saying that it's not fair that people blame her when Mike didn't have a vote. She's saying that people give her grief for making the same moves that Mike did. He lost his vote and didn't tell her, just like she lost her vote and didn't tell him. It's the not telling part that she's talking about, not the actual losing of the vote. She goes on to compare him getting mad about her voting for him when he also voted for her.

From the interview:

And the thing that I underestimated again was how emotional Mike was, because honestly, Mike and I made the exact same move for the exact same reason, more than once! Mike and I both lost our vote. He didn't tell me that he lost his vote. I didn't tell him I lost my vote. Mike voted for me in case of Daniel's shot in the dark. I voted for him in case of Daniel's shot in the dark. We made the exact same moves.

She says it again in the Parade interview, a little more clearly, I think:

I think that highlights a lot of double standards in this game. You can see a woman make the same exact moves that a man makes over and over. But we’re not given the grace and the leeway that men players are given. And I’m just going to give you a few examples. Mike loses his vote and finds an idol. He doesn’t tell me. I lose my vote. I don’t tell him. We’re even. But I’m a snake. I write your name down at Tribal Council in case of Daniel’s Shot in the Dark. But you also write my name down at Tribal Council in case of Daniel’s Shot in the Dark. But I’m a snake.

tl;dr: She's comparing the differing reactions to her and Mike keeping secrets from each other and voting for each other. Not that they both lost a vote.

[ProfCrash]

I don’t see people comparing her and Mike not telling each other about not having a vote. I have not seen anyone compare that. I have seen people say that she should never had lost her vote because she was not in a place to take that risk. So I guess I don’t see the double standard because that has not been an argument that I have seen. 

She made some questionable moves and it burned her. She totally misread Mike and Hai and assumed that they would be the let bygones be bygones player that she was. I am not sure how she missed that they were both really upset with her given that they were both miffed after the Jenny mess. Either they were really great actors and held up for 4-8 days or she missed a lot of cues. 

I don’t dislike Chanelle but the areas she is calling out are not scenarios that I have seen people mentioned. 

[LadyChatts]

1 hour ago, ProfCrash said:

Not sure why she doesn't like Jonathon. Have we had any insight from other players that Jonathan is somehow being misrepresented?

FWIW, Lydia's word association was:

Lindsey: Strong

Hai: Inconsistent

Drea: Confusing

Jenny: Queen

Jonathan: chill (she also kind of hesitated when coming up with something)

Chanelle: Guarded

Rocks: Cryptic

Tori: Kind

Mike: King

Romeo: Panicked

MaryAnne: Wonderful

Omar: Daddy

Daniel: Ridiculous

I also remember Daniel said in his post-show interviews Chanelle was getting all this hate for her gameplay.  Which, I hadn't seen anywhere.  At worst, people said she was selfish for trying to get Omar to make sure her vote was both safe and she got the advantage.  Other people have just said she's basically a crappy Survivor player.  Not sure if she's getting hate elsewhere, privately, or if that's it.  I feel like Chanelle is kind of bitter with her edit.  I won't say she's playing revisionist history, but it seems like she really isn't understanding what went wrong on her end besides shipwheel idol, or how to read a room.  And she's supposed to be so good at the social game.

[Guest]

I'm sure she's talking about reaction in places other than here and I haven't ventured beyond here to see fan opinion, so I can't verify that one way or another. But I doubt she'd be making that up, so I believe her when she says she's seen that reaction. Maybe she's getting it directly in that charming way that Twitter users have. I do think it's true that even in game she got a reputation as a sneaky, untrustworthy player, and her point is that she didn't really do anything that others (Mike and Omar specifically, but also Daniel) didn't do as well.

And in these interviews, she is at least partly owning her missteps. She acknowledges that she should have been clearer with Omar at the summit and they didn't anticipate the specific scenario they were given. She acknowledges that she misread Mike and Hai - not that they weren't happy with the way the Jenny vote went down, but more so how very unhappy they were, and for how long.

She's not totally blameless in her downfall (nor do I think she's claiming to be), but neither is she totally to blame.

Not sure how or why I ended up defending Chanelle so much, so I'm gonna give it up, eat some Easter candy, and go back to my comfort zone of stanning for Tori. 🐰

[LadyChatts]

It was interesting that both Chanelle and Lydia had good things to say about Tori in their word associations.  Some of their comments were similar (Hai) and others very different (Romeo).  Chanelle was the one to really see him unravel, yet Lydia was the one who described him as panicked.  

And I'm not saying she's lying about getting hate.  I mostly post here and lurk at Sucks and Reddit, but I haven't seen anything too offensive on those sites.  Social media, to use Jeff's favorite word, is the real "monster" when it comes to hate.  I just thought it was interesting that Daniel made the same remarks.  She also said she got blamed for Omar losing his vote, which is really just as much on Omar, so I do agree with her that there is a double standard there.

Edited April 22, 2022 by LadyChatts

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, LadyChatts said:

It was interesting that both Chanelle and Lydia had good things to say about Tori in their word associations.  Some of their comments were similar (Hai) and others very different (Romeo).  Chanelle was the one to really see him unravel, yet Lydia was the one who described him as panicked.  

And I'm not saying she's lying about getting hate.  I mostly post here and lurk at Sucks and Reddit, but I haven't seen anything too offensive on those sites.  Social media, to use Jeff's favorite word, is the real "monster" when it comes to hate.  I just thought it was interesting that Daniel made the same remarks.  She also said she got blamed for Omar losing his vote, which is really just as much on Omar, so I do agree with her that there is a double standard there.

Didn't mean to imply you said she was lying! We're just interpreting her interviews differently is all.

Chanelle and Lydia also both called Jenny "Queen", which is just making her seem like more and more of a missed opportunity.

[ProfCrash]

I think she is blamed for the Omar vote loss because she told Omar she had to protect her vote for tribal which Omar, and most other people, took to mean she wouldn’t risk her vote. She did the opposite of what Omar thought she would do in that situation.

[peachmangosteen]

12 hours ago, LadyChatts said:

It was interesting that both Chanelle and Lydia had good things to say about Tori in their word associations.  

I love Tori but she doesn't at all come across in the edit as 'kind' or 'so sweet' so it just goes to show how one-sided the edits are, which we already knew but's it's always fun (and maddening) to get confirmation lol.

[Guest]

57 minutes ago, peachmangosteen said:

13 hours ago, LadyChatts said:

It was interesting that both Chanelle and Lydia had good things to say about Tori in their word associations.  

I love Tori but she doesn't at all come across in the edit as 'kind' or 'so sweet' so it just goes to show how one-sided the edits are, which we already knew but's it's always fun (and maddening) to get confirmation lol.

Replying in Tori's thread! (it's not as exciting as the exclamation point makes it sound...I'm just being extra in honor of my girl)