Oh dear, women from Team Alpha are spilling on what Ben was really like on Outlast: The Jungle

In Outlast: The Jungle, the toughest thing to endure isn’t the actual wilderness, but the patronising behaviour of men. Many Netflix viewers have called out the way Ben Orndoff treats the rest of Team Alpha, and in particular the three women – Halle, Maddy and Nikki. For example, Ben asked the women to “glaze” (excessively praise) him for making a stick into a spear. The women who were stuck with Ben on Team Alpha are opening up about what he was like to actually be around on Outlast: The Jungle.

When asked about Ben Orndorff, Nikki Hru told TV Guide: “I felt like a lot of my ideas, and a lot of things I wanted to do or try in terms of gameplay or making things like bushcraft or anything else … kept getting shut down by Ben. It wasn’t so much a team decision, right? It wasn’t like, ‘No, we don’t really like that.’ It was more of him being like, ‘No, we’re not doing that.’

“And then I noticed it starting to happen to other people on the team, and that I think really started to wear on me, because it felt like a little bit more of ‘The Ben Show’ versus Alpha team trying to accomplish things.”

Maddy Jones was ever-so-slightly less negative about Ben. She told TV Guide: “Ben wasn’t all bad. He could have been worse, you know? There [were] definitely worse guys we could have been paired up with. Like, did Ben bring a lot of bushcraft skills to the beginning? Did he help us on our shelter? Did he do all those things? Yeah. Did we all pitch in and do all those things? Yeah.”

She continued: “I think there came a point where, I don’t think Ben wanted to show it, but he was starting to give up. And it was almost like you can only put on your brave face for so long. As to where, I think Nikki and Halle and me were all still doing good, I could tell Ben would just start to break.

“Like, the scene where he kind of gives up on the raft, and Halle’s out there grinding and getting beat by the waves, and is Ben out there helping her? No. He’s just like, ‘I’m here for a swim.’ And it’s like, tell me that you’re ready to be done without telling me you’re ready to be done.”

Ben has also lifted the lid on his feelings towards the women on Outlast: The Jungle. In a Q&A session on Instagram, a Netflix viewer asked Ben, “Why were the girls so mean to you?”

Ben responded: “They weren’t really that mean to me! They were mean in the confessionals, but I didn’t even realise they were saying this stuff. It was very passive-aggressive, because at camp, I had no idea they felt that way, because they never really brought it to my attention, which is kind of sh*tty.

“I mean, I gave my soul for that team. I gave everything I had to make sure we had enough food and the shelter was good. And I was always just the workhorse trying to make sure everybody was fed. And I asked Halle, and she was like, ‘Yeah man, you’re great!’ So, I guess Nikki didn’t really dig my energy, maybe, it sounds like, but never really brought it to my attention in a constructive way.”

Well, hopefully he’s got the hint now.

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