In the clip, Cody and Jesse of the Vesi Tribe are seemingly bonding over their tattoos. But during their conversation, Jesse reveals that he used to have tattoos on the back of his head and his face, “three dots,” which signified his involvement in a gang.
The clip then dives into Jesse’s backstory as he narrates how he grew up in Los Angeles and went from being a juvenile delinquent to graduating from the prestigious UC Berkeley.
"My family didn't have college degrees, they had addictions. Nobody went to college, they went to prison,” he explains. Jesse reveals that he was involved in a gang in the Los Angeles area and ended up in juvenile hall at 17 years old.
However, Jesse's life took a turn when he was “lucky enough to be in an educational program” after receiving one of the highest GED scores while in the detention center.
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Jesse decided to better his situation and was accepted to UC Berkeley, and then Duke, receiving his PhD in political science.
“You can go from sitting in juvenile hall with a tattoo on your face and the back of your head to sitting out here in Fiji with a PhD,” he says.
With Jesse's strong mental fortitude, we're sure he'll be a great contestant on Survivor!
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