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Home / Entertainment

Survivor villain Jeff Varner's workplace tribe has spoken

news.com.au
18 Apr, 2017 02:30 AM2 mins to read

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Source: Survivor / CBS

His workplace tribe has spoken.

Kicked off Survivor for the "worst act in 34 seasons" of the show, Jeff Varner has now been booted from his job.

The Survivor contestant, who outed fellow competitor Zeke Smith as transgender on last Wednesday's episode of the CBS reality competition, has been fired from his real estate job.

The Greensboro News & Record reports Varner was fired on Thursday from Allen Tate Realtors because he was "in the middle of a news story that we don't want anything to do with".

Just one week earlier, Varner took to Twitter where he appeared to be just starting out on the job, ENews reports.

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"Hitting SEND on my first active listing with @AllenTate," he shared from his office. "#Realtors, send me buyers #Realtorlife."

In another tweet he said "New firm, New start. New life."

Varner made accusations of "a deception" before revealing that Smith is transgender on the Survivor episode last week. Varner was immediately criticised by other players.

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He repeatedly apologised, but was booted out of the competition.

Smith explained that he didn't mention that he was transgender because he didn't want to be known as "the trans Survivor player."

He writes in The Hollywood Reporter that by calling him deceptive, Varner invoked "one of the most odious stereotypes of transgender people".

Varner, 50, had appeared on Survivor twice before this season, but he had not made it anywhere close to the end of the game and its $1 million grand prize. His chances this season looked similarly bleak in the episode that aired Wednesday, leading Varner to try to cast suspicion on other players. That's when he asked Smith, a 29-year-old asset manager from New York: "Why haven't you told anyone here you're transgender?"

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Varner said waiting the nearly 10 months for the episode to air, after knowing the damage of what he had done, was tough. He said Survivor producers had been supportive and had provided continued psychological counselling for Smith and himself since the filming.

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