S36: Stephanie Johnson

[Whimsy]

Stephanie Johnson (Malolo Tribe)

Age: 34
Hometown: Boise, Idaho
Current residence: Chicago, Illinois
Occupation: Yoga Instructor

Three words to describe you: Wild, determined, and passionate.

Why do you think you'll "survive" Survivor?
Because every day for the past 10 years, I have looked at a sticker on my mirror: "Outwit, Outlast, Outplay. Survivor." I never once have stopped believing that this dream would come true. I can have all the strategy in the world and I will! But if I have learned anything from watching the show, participating in endurance events, raising children, working in a fast-paced finance position, studying in an ashram, being an entrepreneur, or all my other adventures is that nothing turns out like you expect.

I am really good at adapting to circumstances, to people, and to unlikely situations. Plan A quickly becomes Plan C and it doesn't shake me up. I can endure pain both mental and physical with a smile on my face. Adaptation. A sense of humor. Dreaming big. That embodies who I am and why I will win!

Stephanie Johnson’s Full Bio

[LanceM]

Gordon Holmes interview

https://my.xfinity.com/blogs/tv/2018/02/06/survivor-castaway-stephanie-id-love-get-solid-group-girls-expletive-deleted-rule-game/

[LanceM]

Josh Wigler interview

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/survivor-ghost-island-stephanie-johnson-preseason-interview-1079650

 

So it is pretty much a consensus among the cast that she is a huge ball of energy, very bubbly, life of the party, off her rocker, etc.  I am all in. She is one of my favorites going into the season, though admittedly this could change depending on just how crazy she is one she hits the beach. I think she will be fun but we shall see.

[LadyChatts]

I don't like her because of her queen of chaos comment she made in an interview about Domenick.  Another one whose trying too hard, though I do appreciate people who wear loud, colorful clothing.  Even if TPTB pick the clothes out so who knows how much of that was her decision in the first place.

[EllenB]

On 2/27/2018 at 5:14 PM, Winston9-DT3 said:

She goes by Stephanie Rae on social media and as a writer.  I wonder why she’s using Johnson here.   

Rae might be her middle name.

[kikaha]

She easily gets people to trust her, to open up to her.  She has no problem lying and stabbing in the back.  She's good at strategizing, flexible in her relationships, definitely not a liability at challenges. 

I guess the question is, is she trying too hard as LC says, or can she do all that without drawing too much attention?  (I hope the latter because she's one of my favorites at the beginning of the game.)

[Lamb18]

I figured out why I don't really like her and it's nothing to do with her and how she's playing the game. She reminds me of the woman I was dumped for some 40 years ago. Same dark wiry hair, although Stephanie's is longer, pale skin, same type of facial features, even the same type of person who would go in for thick horizontal striped multicolored legwarmers if those had been in style 40 years ago.

[LanceM]

She was one of my pre-season favorites so I am glad to see her play as well as she did the first episode. I do worry that she might be getting the "powerful strategic player" who gets voted out at the merge edit. I hope I am wrong with that. I don't think she is playing too hard too fast and I base that on the fact that she went with the "safe" vote last week with Jacob rather than flipping and blindsiding Michael. But again, we shall see what she does going forward.

[LanceM]

Just reading through her interviews today. This cracks me up.

https://my.xfinity.com/blogs/tv/2018/03/22/survivor-castaway-stephanie-i-feel-like-my-best-friend-backstabbed-me/

 

Holmes: Just to clarify; when you say you were going to poison Bradley, you meant figuratively poisoning the tribe against him, not literally poisoning him, correct?
Johnson: Oh no, we wanted to poison him. (Laughs)
Holmes: (Laughs)
Johnson: We were picking berries and leaves and we were thinking of all the ways we could get him med-evac’d and then we wouldn’t have to deal with him anymore.
Holmes: That’s terrible.
Johnson: You know, he came over and just (expletive deleted) all over our camp. He was arrogant, I did not like him those first days. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
Holmes: OK, but he was figuratively (expletive deleted) all over camp. Unlike you literally wanting to poisoning him.
Johnson: Yes. He didn’t literally (expletive deleted) all over everything. But we did want to poison him.

 

She was also apparently really close to Kellyn.

Johnson: We really did. They didn’t show Kellyn and I, but we had a lot of conversations. Our life storylines are very similar. We really bonded. We got really close out there. And I didn’t know that she was crying at my Tribal. I was in a complete daze. I didn’t know Jenna or her were crying.
Holmes: Last week Brendan said that he caught Kellyn tearing up when he was talking about going home before his birthday. It seems like she doesn’t have a poker face.
Johnson: She really doesn’t. She’s an amazing woman, but she has no poker face at all. You can read her like a book.

Edited March 22, 2018 by LanceM

[SVNBob]

On 2/28/2018 at 11:09 PM, Winston9-DT3 said:

 I think Shambo, Dreamz and Fabio we’re adopted after the pre-stuff.  Maybe Troyzan?  

Fabio was given to him by the other contestants that season.  And he, real name Jud, was Survivor-savvy enough to just roll with it.

Troy gave himself that stupid nickname, apparently long before Survivor.  And the others also seemed to have had their nicknames prior to the game.

As for Stephanie this season, she was in a weird spot name-wise.  There was another Stephanie, Gonzales, and also another Johnson, Laurel.  And both were on her starting tribe.

 

Given that this is the season of curses, it turns out that there's another curse not broken here.  Other than StephaME (from Palau, Guatemala, and HvV), practically all other Stephanies on Survivor are the 5th person eliminated from their season.  One was voted out 6th, but on an RI season and she did not win the challenge, so she was the 5th person out.

[Guest]

3 hours ago, SVNBob said:

Fabio was given to him by the other contestants that season.  And he, real name Jud, was Survivor-savvy enough to just roll with it.

Troy gave himself that stupid nickname, apparently long before Survivor.  And the others also seemed to have had their nicknames prior to the game

Right.  But my point was that the show switched to using the nicknames after the marooning.   

[Nashville]

9 hours ago, SVNBob said:

Troy gave himself that stupid nickname, apparently long before Survivor.  And the others also seemed to have had their nicknames prior to the game.

If I’m not mistaken... Troy Robertson’s pre-Survivor nickname - given him by friends(?) was actually “Tarzan”; in Troy’s inaugural Survivor:One World appearance another contestant (Greg Smith) had already claimed the “Tarzan” moniker, though, so Troy went with the altered nickname to avoid confusion.

[Jobiska]

9 hours ago, SVNBob said:

Given that this is the season of curses, it turns out that there's another curse not broken here.  Other than StephaME (from Palau, Guatemala, and HvV), practically all other Stephanies on Survivor are the 5th person eliminated from their season.  One was voted out 6th, but on an RI season and she did not win the challenge, so she was the 5th person out.

And S. LaGrossa is actually StephEnie, so all the Stephan[n]ies with an A were 5th out.

[LadyChatts]

I didn’t care for her and can’t say I’m sad she’s gone, but she isn’t someone I’d be opposed to seeing again.  I think she’s probably be less annoying and have a very different approach to the game.  

Edited March 24, 2018 by LadyChatts

[marys1000]

Well I am sad to see her go.  Applied for Survivor at least 15 times, big fan.  Hikes alone in he wilderness for days on end makes her an interesting person in my book.  She took a huge step leaving the Church, divorcing and moving to Chicago.  Seemed to think strategically. 

I did read in that interview above that she said she was glad they showed her looking for HII.  I must have missed that because one of the things that bothered me was it didn't seem like she was.  I don't understand how, if she was looking that hard, she didn't find one when they make it look so easy for others.  There was one out there in play the couple of days before she was booted right?  

It does bug me that she didn't try to leverage the romance between Jenna and Sea Bass.  And that Jenna and Michael just caved and voted for her.  

Um, don't know what happened why the above comment was suddenly restored. 

 

Wondering why she wasn't at the reunion?  A comment on reddit mentioned that she said something on social media about "orange is cursed forever" and theorized she might have gotten in trouble with production, but no one knew anything about why she was missing or going on.  People were wondering if that would affect her ability to come back on the show or be on other reality shows. 

I follwed her on twitter under runtrimom but then somehow all of a sudden I started getting instagram posts under her new account name stephanierae (she closed out all her old accounts). 

One of her recent instagram posts was paragraphs about what a dark and horrible place she has been in.  the previous post was a pic with her mom thanking her.

Anyone know what the story is?  I'm not looking for personal details, just wonder if it is show related or personal.  

Edited May 26, 2018 by marys1000

[peachmangosteen]

Someone in the reunion thread said that she posted on Instagram that she wasn't there for 'personal reasons.'

[marys1000]

Which could be show related, but she isn't going to say so we probably won't ever know.  I mean if she did get in trouble for leaking something and they went after her financially, banned from Survivor events, that would put you in a dark bad place for sure. 

[peachmangosteen]

She apparently said she didn't break any rules and then added that it was 'personal reasons.' So obviously she had heard the talk that maybe her 'yellow is cursed' post was the reason she wasn't there and wanted to clear that up. 

Edited May 26, 2018 by peachmangosteen

[LadyChatts]

Stephanie seems like a big enough fan that she wouldn't do something as stupid as ruin her chances of ever returning (for a pre-merger I think she could) and lose out on a reunion show appearance, even if she would have been ignored.  I was kidding when I said she was the leak, but it did have me curious why it was all crickets.  I get why no one in the cast would feel it was their place to say anything, especially if it was a personal issue.