Jenna Lewis-Dougherty on Being the First Person Voted Off ‘Survivor 50’: ‘At Least I Got a Good Face Card’

Jenna Lewis-Dougherty’s time on Survivor 50 didn’t end the way she had hoped. 

On Wednesday, Jenna became the first person voted off the island in the landmark 50th season of the CBS competition series. It was a difficult moment for the mom of four, who was marking her return to the competition more than 25 years after participating in the very first season of Survivor back in 2000, where she finished eighth. (She also appeared in the show’s first all-star season in 2004.) 

Jenna Lewis-Dougherty jokes about her ‘Survivor 50’ experience

Jenna reacted to her brief run on Survivor 50 in a series of social media posts. In several, she jokingly drowned her feelings by eating cake. In another, she highlighted one of the silver linings of the experience. 

“Well at least I got a good face card out of this!” she captioned a screenshot of herself during the season 50 opening credits. 

“TERRIBLE ENDING!! 2 [stars],” she quipped in another tongue-in-cheek update. “Don’t know if anyone [caught] this little known show, #Survivor #Survivor50 Starts out great, but terrible ending. But worth a star or two, for the cute host.”

‘Survivor’ alum says she was at a disadvantage heading into season 50 

Jenna, who was part of the Cila Tribe during her brief stay on the island, weighed in on her early Survivor exit in an interview with EW. She said she was at a disadvantage going into the competition because she’d been out of the Survivor universe so long. 

“[O]n my tribe there were definitely groups that had a lot of pregame connections that I felt like the second I landed, it was off and I was like, ‘Ugh!’” she said.  

Jenna was the only season 1 player to return for season 50. With her last Survivor season 20 years behind her and one of just a handful of people from the first 10 seasons competing this time around, Jenna said she just didn’t have the relationships with other players than some people had. 

“All the OGs except for me had somebody. I was really upset about that … they know that I don’t know anyone. They know I haven’t been in the verse,” she said. “And I was thrown in there. I feel like I was kind of sacrificed.”

With her elimination, Jenna says it’s the end of a Survivor era. She thinks the winner of Survivor 50 will likely be someone from one of the more recent seasons, who are more heavily represented in the cast. 

“I think actually this was kind of put together a little bit heavy with the new schoolers because I really think they wanted a new schooler to take the reins and pass the torch, so to speak,” she said. “So we’ll see if that happens. But I truly think that that’s why it was really heavy on the new side and a little bit lighter on the older side with the OGs.”

Survivor 50 airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CBS. Episodes stream on Paramount+. 

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