The Deadbolt Interview - Post Celebrity Jungle Chat with Sanjaya and Patti of I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here!

Post Celebrity Jungle Chat with Sanjaya and Patti of I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here!
by Troy Rogers

I`m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! After rising to awkward but lovable fame on American Idol, it looked as though the phenomenon that was Sanjaya Malakar had faded into the 15-minute celebrity sunset. But the entertainment world has a thing for life cycles and bringing people back into the limelight and it was the reality folks at NBC who brought Sanjaya back into the celebrity spotlight to be a cast member of I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! Interestingly, although no one gave Sanjaya a fair shake at surviving the Costa Rican jungle with a cast of celebrities, Sanjaya proved everyone wrong and turned out to be one of the toughest competitors as he held his own to outlast the likes of Heidi and Spencer from The Hills, one half of Frangela, and actor Stephen Baldwin, all of whom couldn't take the heat of celebrity jungle survival.

After Patti Blagojevich became a last minute fill-in for her husband Rod, the former Governor of Illinois, the wife of the ex-Windy City chief also became one of the strongest survivors in the I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! competition, as Patti kept her cool and became the voice of reason for her tribe. With the stress of an investigation surrounding her husband Rod always in the back of her mind, Patti found spiritual solace in ex-NBA Great John Salley who helped Patti stay strong not only for her family but also for the heat of celebrity survival. Although Sanjaya Malakar and Patti Blagojevich had a good run in the Costa Rican jungle, fans eliminated both to narrow down the field to Lou Diamond Phillips, John Salley, and Torrie Wilson.

The next morning after Sanjaya and Patti were eliminated from I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here!, we joined a conference call to talk post celebrity survival chat and get their thoughts on how they played the game, their time in the jungle, and the unexpected friendships they made while living among celebrities.

THE DEADBOLT: A lot of people looked at you as the underdog. When I was talking to Stephen and Janice, she thought you would do awesome while Stephen didn’t think you’d last. I made him eat his words yesterday, but how does it feel for you to be taken lightly and then do so well. Were you surprised?

SANJAYA MALAKAR: Oh, awesome. I wasn’t surprised because I didn’t know what to expect, so I wasn’t expecting anything. But it obviously feels good. I’m incredibly proud of the fact that I made it as far as I did. I mean, in a certain sense, like I said before, it all kind of brought a bunch of half experiences together in a weird way. Obviously jungle living and camping. I had a lot of that in my life, so that was easy for me. And then little aspects of the challenges and the people kind of reminded me of events and experience that I’ve had in the past.

So it kind of made it easier when I looked at it that way. When I looked at it as the whole picture and as a show, it definitely threw me off a little bit. But at this point I’m just happy with everything that happened and I’m proud of myself and everyone there. I’m incredibly proud of Patti and she definitely surprised a lot of us and I’m happy for that.

PATTI BLAGOJEVICH: Thanks you, Sanjaya.

THE DEADBOLT: I noticed that your attitude changed as soon as Holly arrived. Angela told me that all you needed was a 19 year-old friend to play with. Was that the case?

MALAKAR: I definitely think that Holly being close to my age made it a lot easier for me to be comfortable and value the last year of teenage-hood for me, because for me I'm using this as a way to kind of mature and come into my manhood. And at certain points I forgot that I was still a teenager and I need to be able to get out the youthful energy that I still have before I try to mature myself too fast. So Holly definitely helped me to capture that and stay true to that.

THE DEADBOLT: How much of a strain was it on you not to be able to sing?

MALAKAR: Not being able to sing was the hardest part, because when Heidi and Spencer left was the first time I was actually told. I mean I’m using that as a reference for timing, but it was the first time that I was told I absolutely could not sing anything, because any time I sang they couldn’t use a lot of the footage. So my entire energy fell because singing is my outlet. Like if I’m sad I’ll sing a sad song and become happy. If I’m happy I sing a sad song so I don’t blow up with excitement.

I`m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! So not being able to sing really threw off my whole energetic flow and I had to find ways, either to do it quietly or be by myself to do it. I mean I felt like it was a drug and I was kind of hiding it from everyone. Luckily, it’s a safe drug. It’s not anything that anyone can get hurt from, but I was definitely affected by it. But I found ways to kind of get around it.

THE DEADBOLT: Patti, how surprised were you that you actually became closest with John Salley?

BLAGOJEVICH: Yeah, it’s kind of an odd couple I think. But we come from so many different worlds that I think we found out that we have a lot in common. He’s got three girls and the two younger daughters are at the exact same age as my daughters. As a matter of fact, all four of them were born in the same month. His six year old was born in April, my six year old was born in April. His twelve year old was born in August, my twelve year old was born in August. And he’s been married a long time, I’ve been married a long time.

I`m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! He played basketball in Chicago. So it was really kind of nice for me to have someone familiar with my hometown, because initially on the show so many of my camp mates were from L.A. and they’d be talking about places and people and restaurants and I had no idea what they were talking about. So it was a nice Chicago connection to have somebody that actually played basketball in Chicago for a year and knew his way around town. And then I found out that John was a really smart person and very optimistic and has a great outlook on life. I really drew on a lot of that for strength throughout our time here.

THE DEADBOLT: When you guys were sitting in the water talking about your worries of how this is going to play out after you get back to the States, I'm curious now if you’re still worried about that?

BLAGOJEVICH: Well, I talked to my husband and he says that the response has been really great. He says he can’t go travel in a car without stopping at a stop light and people recognize him and start waving and saying nice things about me. So this is certainly a very unexpected, but welcome side effect. I came on the show for a lot of reasons. To raise money for charity, to help earn money for my family, and if it’s done anything to help our family situation and dispel perceptions out there that are untrue, that’s a fantastic side effect.

-- Troy Rogers