Jeff Varner, gay ‘Survivor’ contestant, loses job after transgender-outing controversy: Report

Jeff Varner, the openly gay “Survivor” contestant who was booted from the reality program after outing a fellow contestant as transgender, has reportedly lost his job as a result of the controversy.

Mr. Varner said he was told by his employer, Allen Tate Realtors, that he is “in the middle of a news story that we don’t want anything to do with,” the Greensboro News & Record reported Thursday.

A North Carolina resident, Mr. Varner joined the company as an agent out of one of its Greensboro offices in March, according to an April 4 press release. 

It’s unclear if Mr. Varner’s employer was aware of the potential controversy before Wednesday. Efforts by the News & Observer to reach the company for comment were unsuccessful.

The episode of “Survivor” was filmed 10 months ago, but Mr. Varner couldn’t discuss it publicly until it aired, the News & Observer reported.

For his part, Mr. Varner delivered a three-paragraph apology via his Facebook and Twitter accounts Wednesday and has said that he has been “educating [him]self and advocating even more so for the LGBTQ community,” reported the News & Record.

“I feel like I was able to do some really good work in that time that I hope to continue,” he said.

Mr. Varner has, however, expressed regret that CBS network officials have not opted to show viewers the fuller context of how his controversial remarks were made.

“It’s unfortunate that you can’t see the entire Tribal [council segment],” he told Entertainment Weekly in an interview published Thursday. “I wish there is some way they could put that as a secret scene or something because I was illustrating the deception that [fellow contestants] Ozzy and Zeke — and Andrea was in part of that — that they were illustrating.

“When I was talking about the deception of the secret alliance and trying to sway everybody else, there was a moment where Zeke looked at me — this was edited out of the show — but he looked at me and said ’There is no deception. I’m not deceiving anybody,’” Mr. Varner said. “And when he said that, my question just came out of my mouth to him.

“Let me just clarify: I make zero excuses,” he said. “There are no excuses for what I did. … I’m devastated that this is what happened and this is where we are.”