When WWE wrestler Ashley Massaro entered the game of Survivor, her fans had high hopes for her. Massaro could have been seen as both a physical and mental threat. Unfortunately, she became ill almost the minute she stepped foot in China, sidelining her from helping out around camp. Her weak performance around camp combined with her differences with Dave caused her to be voted out on last night’s episode. Though she is used to traveling, Massaro’s trip to China for Survivor was her first visit to the country. Today, she spoke to BuddyTV about her time on the show, why Chicken should have stayed, and how she couldn’t wait to get back to work.
Below, you will find the complete transcript and mp3 of the interview.
Hey, everyone. This is Gina from BuddyTV, and I’m talking to Ashley, the latest contestant to be eliminated from Survivor: China. Hey, Ashley.
Hi, Gina.
Can you tell me if you watched previous seasons of Survivor, and if you were a fan of the show?
Yes, I was watched the very first season with Richard Hatch. I enjoyed the show for sure. I think a lot of people watched that first season because it was awesome. And then, I watched Cook Islands. I’ve watched the one with Jonny Fairplay.
Pearl Islands.
Pearl Islands. Yeah, he’s a funny character.
Was the show something that you wanted to be a part of? Or, were you approached to be on the show?
That was sort of like a joint decision. I had expressed interest in doing it, and once there was an opportunity where there was actually casting for the show, I had to do a little bit of arm-twisting with WWE to get that to let me go because it meant being off TV for a while. But they finally said, you know, “Alright, if this is something that you want to do, for sure. Let’s do it.”
Had you ever been to China before filming?
No, actually. And we do tours all over. We have tours, you know, in Asia, Malaysia, Tokyo. And China was one place I had not been.
What was it like to be so far from home and in a country that’s so different from where we live?
Well, I’m used to being on the road because 300 days out of the year, I’m touring the entire world, you know, with WWE. But when I got to China, and by the time we got to the campsite, that’s when you feel like, “Wow, I’m far out now.” You’re in the middle of the woods, in the middle of nowhere. I have no idea where I am on the map because they don’t really tell you. You just get dropped off and then figure it out once you get off the show, once you go home. Like, “Oh, that’s where it was.” You know, you can put a dot on the map. But yeah, we felt pretty far out once we were there.
It looked like you got voted out because you had been sick the whole time and because you weren’t 100 percent pulling in your weight, but what was their reason for voting you out, then?
Definitely, it was the controversy with Dave. That’s what the issue was at hand.
Did you think that he might be the one to go, or were you surprised when it was you?
Well, it was pretty much, I had talked to Jaime, Sherea, Erik, and we had all, everybody had been just really just complaining about Dave all day long. Can’t take this anymore, he’s really…I mean, you can see when he’s, like, right before we went to that challenge, and everyone’s just standing under that overhang when it was raining, and our hearts were out of it. And he, this guy’s still barking at us and yelling at us, and honestly, if he weren’t the one who was starting the fire, doing this and doing that, then he would have definitely been the one to go. Because attitude meant a lot to those guys. Attitude meant a lot to the tribe, our tribe, Zhan Hu. And they let Chicken go because of it.
And honestly, Chicken, in my opinion, would have been more beneficial since he was building. He was strong. He was our only manpower when, you know, who’s gonna lift the big pieces of bamboo on the top of the structure. If you wanna ask Chicken to do that, you sit down and tell him exactly what you want him to do. I know he’s difficult, so get over it, you know? I mean, one thing that wasn’t shown that happened out there was where we were building. We built the structure, we got it together. Finally, when we laid on it, right before nightfall, it collapsed and we fell into the mud. And we just lay there because it’s dark. You can’t get up. There’s pretty much no way to start fixing this in the middle of the night. And we just literally had to sit there and wait for the morning. And it was hilarious because while we were building it, we were going, “This is going to blows Fei Long’s shelter out of the water.” We really were so confident that it was gonna come out great, but it was a really, I mean, complex design.
I’m sure that the WWE was happy to have you home. Have they been keeping you busy?
Oh my gosh, I’ve missed working for WWE. You know, I knew I was going to be away, but it’s hard. You know, this is my life and that’s my career, and I love them. I love working for them. I miss being in the ring and there’s so much that I miss. And when I first got home, of course you need to take some time to get your weight up, get used to being out of China. All I wanted to do was just go to work, and look after weight, you know, I just am so excited to get back in the ring.
Well, I just wanted to thank you for your time and wish you good luck. We liked watching you on the show, Ashley.
Oh, thanks so much. Bye.
– Gina Scarpa, BuddyTV Staff Writer
(Image courtesy of CBS)
Staff Writer, BuddyTV
