Jeff Varner, Who Outed Fellow ‘Survivor’ Contestant as Trans, Fired From Job
One Survivor contestant's been issued tough evidence that reality TV has bearings on real life — Jeff Varner's been fired from his job after ruthlessly outing a fellow contestant as trans during an especially heated elimination ceremony.
On the CBS show's April 12 episode, Varner tried to spare himself likely elimination by outing Zeke Smith as transgender, and making the case that Smith's withholding of his gender identity was evidence of deceit. Varner was almost immediately voted out of the game and, according to Entertainment Tonight, has since been fired from his position with Allen Tate Real Estate, where he was an employee for only a short time.
"The Allen Tate Companies were built on core values of honesty, integrity and respect," company CEO Pat Riley said in a statement. "Those fundamental beliefs led us to end our relationship with Mr. Varner, a real estate agent who had become affiliated with our firm just 17 days earlier."
"To be clear, at no time before the airing of the Survivor episode on Wednesday evening was our management aware of his actions on that episode," Riley added. "We make all decisions such as this one with careful consideration of our clients, employees and our agents."
Varner, who said he's been in therapy for the past 10 months to deal with the "traumatic" situation, claims he "wasn't even given the chance to explain or right the wrong," and found out about his own termination while doing Survivor press. He said his firing was handled "in an ugly, knee-jerk reaction kind of way."
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