Rob Cesternino and Josh Wigler got together to pay tribute to this Survivor pioneer and bring you an encore of Josh Wigler's 2017 interview with Sonja.[00:00:00] Hey everybody, Rob Cesternino here with a special edition of Rob Has a Podcast that we are here
[00:00:09] today because on Friday night the news broke that the first woman ever voted off of Survivor,
[00:00:18] Sonia Christopher had passed away.
[00:00:22] Liz Wilcox actually from this current season of Survivor was the first to break the news
[00:00:27] on Twitter and we have a special podcast for you here today.
[00:00:31] And with me is Josh Wiggler and Josh my long time collaborator is here.
[00:00:39] Josh, how are you?
[00:00:40] I'm doing, I was going to say I'm doing okay.
[00:00:42] I'm very sad, very sad to hear this.
[00:00:44] I'm on the other side of the world right now as you Rob.
[00:00:48] So this is how I woke up.
[00:00:50] I woke up to this news.
[00:00:51] So yeah, very, very sad to hear about Sonia.
[00:00:54] You were one of the first people that I thought of, of course, outside of Sonia's family because
[00:01:00] you and Sonia had a nice rapport that came about for the project that you did back in
[00:01:09] season 35 of Survivor on First One Out.
[00:01:12] Yeah, First One Out for those who are new to RHAP or don't remember it was a podcast
[00:01:18] series that I did for Rob in which I went out to location and I interviewed the cast members
[00:01:26] and it started with heroes, healers and hustlers.
[00:01:29] And the journey was to if Survivor is the exploration of the person who wins, First
[00:01:36] One Out was going to be the exploration of well, the first one out the first person
[00:01:40] voted out of the game and what their journey was like because coming out to Survivor
[00:01:43] is such a big deal for everybody who gets to play.
[00:01:48] The way it was structured was I had interviewed all the castmates.
[00:01:51] We had interviews with clearly the first person who would be voted out of that season, Katrina
[00:01:56] Radke, as well as various other people who had been voted out first on their respective
[00:02:01] seasons of Survivor.
[00:02:04] And I was so honored to get to sit down for about an hour with Sonia, with Sonia
[00:02:09] Christopher in which she was as wonderful as you would want to speak with Sonia.
[00:02:17] It was such a pleasure.
[00:02:18] You'd get a spontaneous ukulele from Sonia.
[00:02:22] She was still singing.
[00:02:23] She had a razor sharp memory of everything that went down in the audition process,
[00:02:28] leading up to Borneo, being on the beach, the immediate star power that came out of
[00:02:33] being on the first season of Survivor.
[00:02:35] And I think about that.
[00:02:37] I think about that conversation quite a bit and I'm thinking about it a lot today.
[00:02:40] Sonia Christopher did not know her particularly well, but I met her at a number
[00:02:46] of Survivor events over the years.
[00:02:49] She was so sweet when I first met her back in 2003, when I first went through all of this.
[00:02:57] She was an icon.
[00:02:58] She was a pioneer.
[00:02:59] She was a cancer survivor and such a great role model.
[00:03:04] I think that this interview that you have with her, Josh, really captures her spirit.
[00:03:09] And I am really glad that we are able to listen to this to have something to
[00:03:14] remember her by.
[00:03:16] Yeah, it's so strange.
[00:03:18] I just...
[00:03:20] So I haven't watched Survivor in a minute, Rob.
[00:03:22] It's been a little while for me and I've been having this itch to check out the
[00:03:27] new stuff, but you know me, I'm a weird person.
[00:03:30] So I have this sort of completionist attitude about myself.
[00:03:34] And I'd been thinking recently, as you and I have been working more
[00:03:38] together again recently, that I haven't gone back and watched the seasons
[00:03:44] that we covered those first 30 seasons for the evolution of strategy that we did
[00:03:47] once upon a time.
[00:03:49] I haven't watched those seasons since we hit record.
[00:03:52] And so that's about 10 years, if you can believe it.
[00:03:55] It's been about 10 years and these were seasons that I used to rewatch all the time.
[00:03:59] So as I said, I'm on the other side of the world right now.
[00:04:01] I'm on a trip in New Zealand.
[00:04:04] And I loaded my phone up with a couple of seasons of Survivor.
[00:04:09] And that included season one.
[00:04:11] And I started watching the first season of Survivor, the first episode of Survivor
[00:04:16] for the first time in a decade about a week or so ago now.
[00:04:21] And I was so struck by it and it was so wonderful seeing Sonia on my screen again.
[00:04:26] I posted it online of her serenading Richard and playing.
[00:04:32] I want to go back to my little grass shack on Pula Tiga.
[00:04:35] And I was just filled with so many fond nostalgic memories for this show
[00:04:39] that no matter anything else has meant so much to me over the years.
[00:04:43] And Sonia specifically, I think became somebody who meant a lot to me
[00:04:47] in my evolving relationship with Survivor.
[00:04:50] So that episode is very fresh for me rewatching that.
[00:04:54] And do you remember talking through that first episode
[00:04:57] for The Evolution of Strategy and remarking on just how
[00:05:02] how somber Jeff was at that first tribal council?
[00:05:06] Is it a completely different Jeff?
[00:05:08] This is a Jeff who is heartbroken that he's going to have to cut one of these
[00:05:11] dreams short so soon.
[00:05:14] It's the very first torch that he's got.
[00:05:16] No popcorn, no cushion that he is just very sad and somber.
[00:05:22] They're popcorns and cushions now.
[00:05:23] Yeah, it's a long story.
[00:05:25] But Jeff was very sad to see her go.
[00:05:30] And she was the first woman to ever hear the words
[00:05:33] the tribe has spoken as she was the first player voted out of Survivor.
[00:05:38] And hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people have followed in her footsteps.
[00:05:43] And it must have been so hard to be the first person.
[00:05:47] And I'm sure that she was worried like, what's what's everybody going to think?
[00:05:51] I went on this show and everybody's going to see me be the first person.
[00:05:55] And she was such a brave spirit about it and such an inspiration in so many ways.
[00:06:02] Yeah, to say that she is an essential part of the history of this show
[00:06:08] that has brought so many of us together, that has brought together
[00:06:12] so many of the people who listen to this show would be as much of an understatement
[00:06:17] as it gets. I think you think about the winners.
[00:06:19] You think about the people who went on to play four or five times.
[00:06:24] But I do not think that you can get to where we are in Survivor without having
[00:06:31] the person who goes home first be as memorable, as lovable, as rootable as Sonia was.
[00:06:40] And yeah, we're going to replay this interview that I did with her
[00:06:44] for the first one out project, which I think we released as a Christmas podcast
[00:06:47] once upon a time.
[00:06:49] And I'm really excited to re-listen to it.
[00:06:52] And I hope you all enjoyed as well.
[00:06:53] I do think it captures your spirit quite nicely.
[00:06:55] I hope you enjoy hearing this interview with Sonia.
[00:06:59] She was such a great sport about everything in so many ways.
[00:07:05] She got knocked down.
[00:07:07] She got back up and there's so much that we can learn from Sonia.
[00:07:12] So I really thank you for taking this time to listen to this tribute to Sonia.
[00:07:18] Josh, thanks for making some time on the other side of the world
[00:07:21] to record this with us.
[00:07:23] I really appreciate it.
[00:07:25] Nowhere else I'd rather be.
[00:07:26] And I hope you enjoy this conversation between Josh and Sonia.
[00:07:35] Well, let's hop into it.
[00:07:36] The first thing for you should be an easy one.
[00:07:40] What's your name?
[00:07:41] Where are you from?
[00:07:42] What do you do and what season were you on?
[00:07:45] My name is Sonia Christopher.
[00:07:47] I currently live in Walnut Creek, California, have for a number of years
[00:07:52] was born and raised in Olympia, Washington on the Tuget Sound.
[00:07:58] Which may be telling why I would do such an adventure.
[00:08:02] And what was the last thing you asked?
[00:08:04] And what season were you on?
[00:08:05] Though I believe we all know the answer.
[00:08:07] Oh, OK.
[00:08:08] I'm now retired from being a jack of all trades, by the way,
[00:08:12] from school teaching, investing, whatever, being a mama.
[00:08:17] I am.
[00:08:21] I wanted to ask you that last time.
[00:08:24] I was going to ask what season of survivor you were on.
[00:08:27] Oh, I was on the first season of survivor.
[00:08:31] It was in Borneo, an island off the coast of Borneo called Pulaotiga.
[00:08:35] So can you tell me a little bit about what drew you to survivor?
[00:08:39] No one knew what survivor was when you and the rest of your
[00:08:43] your peers out there and survivor were going out.
[00:08:46] How did you get roped into this world?
[00:08:48] Well, I saw a picture in the local paper one day of an island
[00:08:54] sort of a tropical island setting and growing up on Puget Sound,
[00:08:59] where I loved to swim, but the waters were cold
[00:09:03] and beaches were often barnacally.
[00:09:07] So I was attracted to this picture and it said something about CBS
[00:09:12] looking for 16 Americans to cast away on a deserted tropical island
[00:09:16] and see who could survive.
[00:09:17] And I'd always been very drawn to
[00:09:23] this the idea of how people did survive, primitive people.
[00:09:27] And I used to, as a matter of fact, imagine I was an Indian
[00:09:34] because where we lived on the bay outside of Olympia,
[00:09:37] there were Indian tribes and you saw the remains of that.
[00:09:43] And so anyway, I also saw us with family Robinson when
[00:09:49] when I was a little kid, probably second grade or so.
[00:09:52] And I was so taken with the idea of that beautiful white sand
[00:09:57] and building a shelter in the trees.
[00:10:00] So it was something that always intrigued me.
[00:10:04] So I was happened to be
[00:10:07] I was happened to be a footloose and fancy freak,
[00:10:11] shall we say, because I was recovering from breast cancer
[00:10:16] treatment and had lost their relationship in the process
[00:10:20] and had moved to a senior, more retirement community.
[00:10:25] And my son was grown.
[00:10:27] And so I thought, well, maybe I'll look into this.
[00:10:31] And seemed a little hokey though when I went on and read that it would
[00:10:37] somebody would be voted off every three days
[00:10:40] and there'd be a million dollar prize.
[00:10:42] It wasn't exactly the National Geographic type experience.
[00:10:47] I had been thinking it could be.
[00:10:50] But anyway, that's how it started.
[00:10:54] Well, when you heard about that aspect, when you heard about sort of
[00:10:57] the gameplay component of Survivor, what were your thoughts on that?
[00:11:02] And were you were you interested in that at all?
[00:11:04] Or did you grow to become interested in it at all?
[00:11:07] I was not interested in that aspect.
[00:11:10] As said, it was it was the physical, emotional,
[00:11:13] psychological survival that intrigued me.
[00:11:17] And I actually thought it was a little hokey this other step.
[00:11:24] Oh, also that it might be on television and might be on a program
[00:11:30] called Survivor.
[00:11:31] And so I thought, you know, friends maybe think this would be sort of silly.
[00:11:39] But I just kept thinking about it.
[00:11:44] And right about that time, I happened to be selected as one of 18
[00:11:49] breast cancer survivors from around the country to women in this case.
[00:11:54] Not all breast cancer survivors are women.
[00:11:56] But anyway, to participate in an outdoor adventure women's training camp
[00:12:04] where you go for a long weekend and sort of like an outward bound experience.
[00:12:09] And I got I had the privilege of experiencing this.
[00:12:14] You were trained in kayaking and mountain, mountain climbing,
[00:12:21] orienteering, you know, reading maps, how to get around the mountains.
[00:12:27] And so forth. Oh, and mountain biking.
[00:12:29] And, you know, I had had except for rock climbing.
[00:12:35] I had done all of those things.
[00:12:38] Well, I hadn't been orienteering either.
[00:12:41] But anyway, I was very comfortable there.
[00:12:43] And it turns out that I happened to be by far the oldest one of the 18.
[00:12:49] When I got there, I realized that.
[00:12:51] And I after this experience, I realized that, hey,
[00:12:57] I can still do physical things.
[00:12:59] So why not apply for this crazy program?
[00:13:03] And I did.
[00:13:05] And I made a tape and filled out the application.
[00:13:09] And I guess the rest is history.
[00:13:11] What did you do for the tape and the application?
[00:13:13] Can you tell me about that process a little bit?
[00:13:15] Sure, the application, as I recall, was about six pages.
[00:13:20] It's online if somebody wants to do that.
[00:13:23] The tape, you were supposed to tell why you could be the ultimate survivor.
[00:13:30] And I really didn't have any illusions about that.
[00:13:34] But so my trust in what I said was more to convince them why they should select
[00:13:42] a 63-year-old woman to do this.
[00:13:45] And so it went, oh, I know, I dressed up in khakis and I went out
[00:13:52] and into the woods and leaned against a tree with my little ukulele
[00:13:58] and sang, well, maybe I should sing it.
[00:14:03] You said you were interested in some music.
[00:14:05] Absolutely. No, I would love it. Yeah.
[00:14:08] OK, I'm putting you on speaker and it's a takeoff on a song I want to go.
[00:14:18] Well, you can you can hear.
[00:14:20] Let's see. It's not the island.
[00:14:24] That are calling me.
[00:14:25] It's not the bombing air or the tropics.
[00:14:28] See, it's a chance to survive and come out alive on the island of Pulao Tiga.
[00:14:36] Hi, my name is Tonya Christopher and I'm an active, healthy 63-year-old.
[00:14:42] Now wait before you turn that dial.
[00:14:43] I want you to know there's 75 million over 50s in America,
[00:14:47] many of whom like me are looking to redefine what it means to age.
[00:14:52] And so I went on from there and talked about the breast cancer
[00:14:58] or the women's survival training and so forth,
[00:15:04] dropping that I was a breast cancer survivor.
[00:15:07] And as I ended it with something like in short,
[00:15:11] I would welcome the opportunity to be your ultimate survivor.
[00:15:16] I wouldn't be doing it just for me.
[00:15:17] I already am a survivor, but I'd be doing it
[00:15:20] for the millions of other seniors out there looking for new images of aging
[00:15:24] and for the people fighting and surviving cancer.
[00:15:27] I sure wouldn't want to let them down.
[00:15:30] See you on Pulao Tiga.
[00:15:34] There you go.
[00:15:36] I'm juggling the phone in the uke.
[00:15:38] Anyway, and of course, you may remember,
[00:15:42] well, you may not even been born then, but I my luxury item,
[00:15:47] we were allowed to take a luxury item in those days.
[00:15:50] And mine was the ukulele.
[00:15:51] So I got very connected with the ukulele, you know, and so well,
[00:15:59] that came into play later.
[00:16:00] But anyway, that's what my tape was.
[00:16:03] And I later heard months after the whole thing was over that Mark
[00:16:09] brought about 40 some finalist tapes from the over 6100 that had been sent
[00:16:17] in and played them to the president of CBS.
[00:16:21] And he apparently saw mine and wanted it.
[00:16:26] So I guess that had a lot of influence.
[00:16:28] But then I had to go through the rather rigorous,
[00:16:33] I guess we'd call it an audition process like everyone else.
[00:16:37] Eight days in L.A., where we had
[00:16:42] extensive interviewing on camera,
[00:16:47] we medical review, psychological testing,
[00:16:52] and so forth.
[00:16:56] Then, and then, you know, anyway,
[00:17:01] it was quite an experience in itself.
[00:17:03] But I for some reason had the amazing fortune of getting selected.
[00:17:11] For the first one.
[00:17:12] So, you know, going into this experience and not necessarily,
[00:17:16] you know, being into it for the wilderness
[00:17:18] and that aspect of it and the nature aspect of it, when you got out
[00:17:22] to Los Angeles for all of the auditions and everything,
[00:17:25] did you find that hokey as well?
[00:17:27] Or did you find yourself starting to get into it?
[00:17:30] Oh, that was hokey is a good word because we were not allowed
[00:17:34] to speak to anyone except a CBS employee.
[00:17:39] What do they call them?
[00:17:41] A producer.
[00:17:42] There are lots of those running around.
[00:17:43] Maybe they're assistant producers.
[00:17:45] And we otherwise, I mean, I got an idea of who some
[00:17:51] of the other applicants were because they were the ones also
[00:17:55] who came into the dining room, sat by themselves, you know,
[00:17:59] maybe read a book over a meal, never said a word to anyone else.
[00:18:04] And there were 48 of us there, I understood.
[00:18:09] And by the end of the eight days there, it was down to 22.
[00:18:14] And so what was your question again?
[00:18:19] Yeah, no, just what did you think of that whole process?
[00:18:23] It yeah, it was it was very strange that we were sort
[00:18:29] of confined to our lovely rooms and it was very nice.
[00:18:34] So tell but it was it was like you were, I felt in prison almost.
[00:18:42] You were restricted to where you could go.
[00:18:45] You were definitely restricted about speaking to anyone else.
[00:18:49] I actually had my 6th, 3rd birthday while I was down there
[00:18:58] and I couldn't tell anybody.
[00:19:00] So I told the waitress though at dinner and think she
[00:19:03] caught me took a glass of wine.
[00:19:06] If if we're getting interrupted by that call coming in,
[00:19:08] do you want me to get rid of it?
[00:19:10] Yeah, no, it's totally fine right now.
[00:19:12] Okay. So so you got a birthday a birthday glass of wine is not so bad.
[00:19:18] Yes, yes.
[00:19:22] So that was that was bizarre.
[00:19:25] I remember yeah, well, I guess I won't go into some of the things
[00:19:30] we had to do, but I know on the last day or second to the last day,
[00:19:38] Mark Burnett called me to and to the his suite with where other
[00:19:46] people were, you know, vetting us or whatever they were doing.
[00:19:53] And he said, you are this close and he put his fingers
[00:19:57] sort of close together to to being chosen, but you'll have to meet the president of CBS.
[00:20:02] And so I know two vans picked up the remaining people who were being considered.
[00:20:10] And again, we didn't we not only couldn't talk to each other,
[00:20:14] we weren't even to open a door for someone or in any way show the kind of person
[00:20:22] we were because Mark Burnett's idea was that we'd be 16 Americans who had never
[00:20:28] met before, but were shipwrecked or and it were cast away on this island.
[00:20:34] Was that odd to not be able to, you know, have human interaction
[00:20:38] with these people and to have to play so close to the vest?
[00:20:41] Yeah, it was.
[00:20:43] It's an interesting psychological.
[00:20:46] I have an interesting psychological effect.
[00:20:49] I guess I used the word felt feeling imprisoned.
[00:20:54] That's very strong, but you are very much at the effect of of these producers,
[00:21:03] or we might call them guards.
[00:21:06] You know, if anybody, for example, had spoken to somebody else or
[00:21:12] we were assured that there were plenty of people out there who wanted to be on this
[00:21:20] program and, you know, we'd be disqualified.
[00:21:25] And then in taking the plane went after we were selected.
[00:21:32] We we were not allowed to talk to anyone on the plane.
[00:21:36] Actually, there was a producer type, a young person sitting next to me.
[00:21:42] And it was almost as though, you know, you were under guard.
[00:21:46] So it was I don't want to exaggerate it, but it was not an experience
[00:21:52] that I had ever had before.
[00:21:54] So what do you remember about the first impressions that you started
[00:21:58] to develop about the cast once you knew who you were out there?
[00:22:01] Does anyone really stand out to you?
[00:22:04] Anybody that you ended up on a tribe with just from those days
[00:22:07] before you were eventually marooned?
[00:22:13] I when we're talking about the airplane experience flying, it was
[00:22:18] what was it? I don't know.
[00:22:19] Twenty some hours as I recall to Taiwan and then to
[00:22:28] what we ended up in Kota, Kenabalu, and it was a lot of hours on the plane.
[00:22:33] But anyway, at one point, an announcement came from the pilot.
[00:22:39] If there is a doctor on board, would you please, you know, put your light on?
[00:22:44] Apparently somebody had had an episode on board, a health episode of some
[00:22:50] and at that point it turned out that Sean Kenneth
[00:22:55] responded to that. So I knew he was a doctor.
[00:22:59] That's one. And the only person I really had
[00:23:06] had a feeling about, as I recall, was Gretchen Kordy.
[00:23:11] But she turned out to be on the other tribe.
[00:23:14] I was a toggy and she was a Pagong.
[00:23:17] But I don't know.
[00:23:20] We had a connection that was just made with a wink.
[00:23:24] And this was after we were flown to LA for three days before we left for the island.
[00:23:34] And that three days was spent with publicity photos and, I don't know,
[00:23:40] all kinds of things.
[00:23:43] Again, we could not talk to each other, but
[00:23:46] I had a pair of
[00:23:51] sweat pants on. Only they were made out of
[00:23:55] a poplin material, not a soft flannel.
[00:23:59] And we were walking along to yet another
[00:24:03] photo shoot or goodness knows what it was.
[00:24:06] And the only sound we walked was the sound of my
[00:24:11] legs brushing together, wish, wish, wish with this material.
[00:24:16] And I muttered under my breath
[00:24:20] something about, I better be careful.
[00:24:22] I might start a fire here, you know, the friction of it.
[00:24:27] And that was taking a chance.
[00:24:30] But I just muttered that to this young woman
[00:24:35] who turned out to be Gretchen Kordy.
[00:24:36] And she laughed and winked.
[00:24:38] And so we had that slight little connection.
[00:24:42] And then, of course, after we were allowed to talk to each other
[00:24:48] before we had to go overboard and swim to our respective beaches,
[00:24:54] we talked a little.
[00:24:55] And she would just seem like a very cool person.
[00:24:59] Rudy, I got you, well, you asked
[00:25:04] really my impressions started
[00:25:06] forward forming immediately after we were allowed to talk on the fishing boat.
[00:25:11] We were, you know, we were we were taken by fishing boat to this island
[00:25:17] and about, you know, halfway through that journey
[00:25:23] where maybe it was as long and short as that.
[00:25:26] Anyway, we got to suddenly talk to each other.
[00:25:30] And there was a lot of chatter.
[00:25:31] And if you've seen the tape, you see that scene where everybody is saying,
[00:25:34] Oh, where are you from?
[00:25:35] And how are you?
[00:25:37] And last we got to talk.
[00:25:39] But within very shortly after that, we were told we had to abandon ship
[00:25:45] taking anything we could find on board.
[00:25:48] Yeah. What do you remember about the marooning so legendary?
[00:25:52] That first one?
[00:25:57] I remember.
[00:25:59] Oh, I remember jumping into the South China Sea and it was so warm.
[00:26:06] And at last, at last this adventure was beginning
[00:26:10] because when when we were finally selected,
[00:26:13] we were told we couldn't say anything to anybody about it.
[00:26:18] And of course, I already told my best friends about this crazy thing
[00:26:22] I was applying for.
[00:26:23] So I had to swear about 20 of my best friends or closest friends to secrecy.
[00:26:30] Anyway, so that was one the jumping into the water was at last starting
[00:26:34] and when when we arrived at the beach,
[00:26:40] now I know
[00:26:44] you know, somewhat about camping
[00:26:47] and and certainly studied about surviving.
[00:26:51] And I had spent the weeks
[00:26:54] from the time I was selected to until
[00:27:00] we went to LA were flown to LA for the journey.
[00:27:03] Um, you know, I'd take a piece of rope to bed with me at night
[00:27:08] and learn how to tie different knots so I could make a raft.
[00:27:12] And, you know, I was I was really serious about the survival aspect.
[00:27:16] But when we arrived at the beach, everybody was just talking
[00:27:21] and talking over each other.
[00:27:23] And, uh, it was, you know, they really didn't listen to each other.
[00:27:29] And certainly not this older woman.
[00:27:31] And so I just quietly went about my work and,
[00:27:37] well, you know, I could be labor this that the gala.
[00:27:42] You can cut all of this.
[00:27:43] But the women went off to get water, which was about,
[00:27:48] I recall, about an hour's round trip.
[00:27:54] Maybe it wasn't quite that long, but it was a trek anyway.
[00:27:56] And I was staying back with the guys and we were building a shelter.
[00:28:00] Well, the they took this crossmember and they put it way up high.
[00:28:07] And I said, Hey, you know, the wind from the South China Sea comes in here.
[00:28:12] We should lower it to so we have more wind protection.
[00:28:16] And the guys didn't listen.
[00:28:18] And finally I said, well, the books I've read say, and, you know,
[00:28:24] thinking maybe they'll, you know, honor a book if not to this older woman.
[00:28:29] And Sean said, Oh, son, you know, the books don't matter.
[00:28:33] And, you know, and kiddingly, I mean, we were in good spirits,
[00:28:37] but they certainly weren't listening.
[00:28:39] And I felt like I was with my teenage son again, you know?
[00:28:44] Anyway, when the girls, when the women came back then,
[00:28:49] Kelly Wigglesworth, who was an experienced river raft guide, saw this.
[00:28:55] The way they had put the top member way up high.
[00:28:58] And she said, this won't do it all.
[00:29:01] Get this down.
[00:29:02] So, but it was interesting how,
[00:29:09] how really there was a, how an older woman was treated,
[00:29:13] which I really had no sense of.
[00:29:15] Other than when I was the mother of a teenage son, but that's different.
[00:29:20] And, and of course, Rich alluded to people not listening to each other.
[00:29:26] And when he was sitting in the tree, sort of like a,
[00:29:29] he looked like a pompous ass, but he was saying, we've got to,
[00:29:34] you know, work together.
[00:29:36] I don't know when you last saw the first survivor.
[00:29:40] Probably about, probably been about a year for me. Yeah.
[00:29:43] Oh, well, you probably, you may remember it then.
[00:29:45] I remember, I remember Survivor pretty well.
[00:29:48] It's one of my few superpowers.
[00:29:50] Yes. One thing I would like to say about the first group of survivors,
[00:29:56] I think of it as the only uncontaminated group in the sense that we,
[00:30:04] all of us really were there to, as adventure seekers, as Mark Burnett called us.
[00:30:11] We, if there wasn't the emphasis on,
[00:30:15] on celebrity or winning the million dollars like there is now among applicants.
[00:30:26] And Rich, Rich was an exception.
[00:30:29] He had figured out from the get-go that we should win competitions
[00:30:33] and to win the million dollars, but my head wasn't fair.
[00:30:36] I was pretty naive.
[00:30:39] And if I had it to do over again,
[00:30:41] I probably would have, instead of deciding to step back
[00:30:46] because they would learn, you know, with time,
[00:30:48] they would see that I had things to offer.
[00:30:52] I would perhaps insert myself a little more
[00:30:57] so they could know more about me.
[00:31:00] Well, one of the things that I remember from watching that episode especially,
[00:31:05] and you mentioned it before that you guys were allowed to have luxury items on this season
[00:31:10] and you did have the ukulele and you would play it for your tribe.
[00:31:13] When did that start?
[00:31:15] Were you the entertainer of Toggy Beach?
[00:31:18] No, I didn't want to push myself on that, but one day,
[00:31:22] Rich and I were in Camp alone.
[00:31:25] And so I don't know whether he asked me about it or what,
[00:31:29] but I pulled it out and that was filmed where I sang the parody to
[00:31:35] or what I called the therapist version of
[00:31:40] Bye Bye Blues.
[00:31:41] It's a song, Bye Bye Blues.
[00:31:44] Life is hell, but I'm swell. Bye Bye Blues.
[00:31:47] Do you still remember that one?
[00:31:50] I do, maybe.
[00:31:51] Well,
[00:31:54] maybe.
[00:31:55] I don't know.
[00:31:57] Do you think you want to hear it?
[00:31:59] If you wanted to give it a shot, I would be up for it.
[00:32:03] OK, you can at least get it right.
[00:32:05] Yes, absolutely.
[00:32:08] Let's see.
[00:32:13] Oh, Bye Bye Blues.
[00:32:16] Bye Bye Blues.
[00:32:20] Thank you to Prozac.
[00:32:21] Bye Bye Blues.
[00:32:24] Give me a castle.
[00:32:27] Bells ring.
[00:32:29] Birds sing.
[00:32:31] The sun is shining no more.
[00:32:34] Flining just we too.
[00:32:38] And your mother smiling through.
[00:32:45] Life is hell, but I'm swell.
[00:32:49] Bye Bye Blues.
[00:32:52] Oh, that was terrible.
[00:32:55] I thought that was great.
[00:32:56] Anyway.
[00:32:59] So you played that for Rich?
[00:33:01] Yeah, and later he was asked on one interview
[00:33:05] what the highlight of his time was on that first season.
[00:33:08] He said when apparently I heard that it was when I was playing.
[00:33:13] I played that song to him.
[00:33:15] Yeah, I think winning the million dollars, probably a close second.
[00:33:18] But just second behind that.
[00:33:23] So yeah.
[00:33:26] That's an irony there, you know, because being the first one voted off.
[00:33:35] I was the loser, right?
[00:33:37] And Rich was the winner and he won the million dollars.
[00:33:43] Well, when I was being going through the selection process,
[00:33:51] I was asked what I would do with the million dollars if I wanted.
[00:33:55] And I happened to be on the board of our church at that point.
[00:34:02] And we had just finished building a new sanctuary, but it ran out of money
[00:34:06] to build the fellowship hall or social hall.
[00:34:10] So I was very into
[00:34:13] into that aspect in my own personal life.
[00:34:16] And so I said, well, I would
[00:34:19] I would build or I give the money to the church to build a social hall.
[00:34:24] Well, now fast forward to my surprise when this was all over.
[00:34:33] I was given a booby prize of twenty five hundred dollars.
[00:34:39] People were given stipends the longer you were on the island, bigger it was.
[00:34:45] And so.
[00:34:48] Anyway, I don't talk.
[00:34:50] I don't know what they do now, but anyway, I got this twenty five hundred dollars.
[00:34:55] So I decided to put my money for my mouth was and I started a building fund
[00:35:00] for the fellowship hall.
[00:35:03] Well, six years later, we were breaking ground for one point,
[00:35:08] six million dollars social hall because it started a building fund
[00:35:11] and then everybody gave to it and we did fundraisers and so forth.
[00:35:16] At the same time, Rich Richard Hatch was sitting in jail for not paying his taxes.
[00:35:22] And I just thought that was very ironic.
[00:35:25] The loser versus the winner, but who came out ahead?
[00:35:31] I guess the story is pay your income tax.
[00:35:34] I think that's the moral.
[00:35:36] The moral.
[00:35:36] Right.
[00:35:37] So, you know, you're on Toggy Beach, you're getting to meet these people
[00:35:41] and not long afterwards, the first immunity challenge of survivor history
[00:35:45] comes up quest for fire.
[00:35:48] What do you remember about participating in that challenge?
[00:35:53] I remember that I had the wrong shoes on footwear.
[00:36:00] It was very exciting.
[00:36:03] Again, my feeling of excitement.
[00:36:04] Here we go.
[00:36:05] And it was we swam out into the sea to a calm place.
[00:36:10] The sea to a cauldron of fire and I'm a strong swimmer.
[00:36:14] So that was just welcoming to me.
[00:36:19] But I've got to give you some background here about Reebok was one of our sponsors
[00:36:25] and they had issued beach pair of tennis shoes and a pair of beach
[00:36:31] sandals, you know, like like Piva sort of that big clunky stuff and to us.
[00:36:37] And when I put mine on, they immediately made blisters over the tops of my
[00:36:45] feet and around.
[00:36:46] It was it was awful.
[00:36:49] And by the way, when I arrived in in Kota Kinabalu at the resort, when
[00:36:56] they placed us the producer, some of the production crew said, and I was
[00:37:02] surprised that they could talk to us, but talk to me anyway.
[00:37:05] They said, Oh, Sonia, we threw ours out two weeks ago.
[00:37:09] When you know, apparently they were rubbing blisters on everybody's feet.
[00:37:14] But nonetheless, the damage had been done already to my feet.
[00:37:18] So when in the sense that I had gotten blisters, they had broken.
[00:37:24] And so when we got the tree mail that day saying it was going to be a beach
[00:37:30] or a water competition, I thought, oh, well, I should wear these.
[00:37:35] These, you know, sandals, these beach type sandals.
[00:37:41] Now by then they were no longer the Tevis, but they were they were still
[00:37:47] beach shoes.
[00:37:48] And so because there were blisters on my feet, I also padded my feet with socks.
[00:37:55] So I wore the socks and these sandals that also float.
[00:38:01] If you if one comes up, they float off the top.
[00:38:05] So OK, we've swum out to the cauldron of fire.
[00:38:08] We're now swimming in and Rudy is behind me.
[00:38:12] And when we got partway in, he said, Sonia, you can touch.
[00:38:15] So I tried to put my feet down on the on the bottom of and my feet wanted
[00:38:21] to just float up.
[00:38:22] I couldn't.
[00:38:24] I, you know, it was so I just kept I went right back to swimming and
[00:38:29] kicking very hard.
[00:38:31] But when we got into waist high water, I had to, of course, get on my
[00:38:36] feet and it was like running through water with slippers on your feet.
[00:38:41] Sort of like that.
[00:38:42] So
[00:38:45] and the others were going pretty fast.
[00:38:48] They're a strong group.
[00:38:49] And Jeff had told us if anybody lost hold of the raft, we'd get eliminated.
[00:38:54] So I was dragged off my feet.
[00:38:57] And it's you saw that on the tape and they played it over and over for days
[00:39:02] when the premiere was shown.
[00:39:04] It's most embarrassing moment of my life.
[00:39:06] I was dragged off my feet and I had to stop, stop, you guys, because otherwise
[00:39:10] going to lose hold and they stopped.
[00:39:12] And at that point, the the Pekong, we had been a little ahead
[00:39:17] and they caught up.
[00:39:18] And then we, you know, I resumed my footing quite quickly.
[00:39:24] But we were on the this spit and and running up the beach,
[00:39:29] lighting tiki torches.
[00:39:34] So that's what happened.
[00:39:36] And on the way home,
[00:39:38] but on the way back to our beach, I said to the tribe, I'm really sorry,
[00:39:44] you guys, I feel like cost us that.
[00:39:46] And Kelly Wigglesworth put her arm around me and that's OK.
[00:39:50] So it can happen to anybody.
[00:39:52] She was so sweet.
[00:39:54] And I looked around at the rest of the tribe and they were looking at me
[00:39:59] peacefully, if not lovingly, and realized then I was going to be voted off.
[00:40:04] That's how you knew just by the lips.
[00:40:07] Yeah, yeah.
[00:40:08] But but something else happened the next day that I I didn't bring up
[00:40:18] at that time to make it an interesting point because I was
[00:40:21] I wanted to be nice to people.
[00:40:24] But Susan Hawks the next morning.
[00:40:30] And by the way, that was a very difficult night.
[00:40:34] I knew it was my last night on the on the, you know, island.
[00:40:40] I thought it was and
[00:40:45] anyway, it was this wonderful adventure that I've been so looking forward to
[00:40:50] was about to be over.
[00:40:52] I thought then the next morning, Susan Hawks
[00:40:57] took me, she said, come here and we went and she motioned to me.
[00:41:02] And we walked down the beach away from any cameras and said,
[00:41:10] Stacy hates Rudy, so Rudy, so Stacy Kelly and me is going to vote him off.
[00:41:16] And we want all the women to vote against Rudy.
[00:41:19] And oh, I was so naive, Josh.
[00:41:23] I said, should we be talking like this?
[00:41:25] And then
[00:41:28] then I said, well, I
[00:41:31] I feel that I cost us that competition.
[00:41:34] And so it's only probably right that I should be the one to go.
[00:41:38] And she said, now we like you.
[00:41:40] We don't like Rudy.
[00:41:42] So I thought, whoa, maybe there is something to this social survival.
[00:41:47] But then I also added, well, I have to vote my conscience,
[00:41:51] which was a huge mistake.
[00:41:55] Well, anyway, with Susan and
[00:42:00] so
[00:42:01] but during the course of the day,
[00:42:04] the person I was going to vote off and other women who did not have camping
[00:42:09] skills and who was leaving a lot of the work to the others of us.
[00:42:16] She began from the first time to
[00:42:20] to help out.
[00:42:21] She was helping Kelly bring with the
[00:42:25] floor of our shelter.
[00:42:27] And so in good conscience, I could
[00:42:31] join the other women and vote against Rudy.
[00:42:34] So when I went to Tribal Council,
[00:42:38] I the worst that could happen was that there'd be a tie if all the women
[00:42:42] voted against Rudy and all the men voted against me.
[00:42:46] It would still be a tie.
[00:42:50] And so when Jeff, you know, in that as the vote says he read the votes
[00:42:57] and it was three for Sonia and three for Rudy.
[00:43:01] And then he pulled the last card out and said,
[00:43:06] first person voted off survivor and he turned my name to the group.
[00:43:12] And my thought was, who was the Judas
[00:43:16] in the or the misjudice?
[00:43:18] So, you know, one of the women obviously
[00:43:23] had not not all of the women had voted for Rudy.
[00:43:27] And I later found out it was, of course, Susan Hawks.
[00:43:32] You know, that was her strategy.
[00:43:35] Pretty clever.
[00:43:36] Yeah, she was the one who came to you with the plan and she she was the one
[00:43:40] who betrayed it.
[00:43:42] Right.
[00:43:43] And they had asked me to stay around for a week.
[00:43:48] And I was there when,
[00:43:51] well, I'm not sure whether when Stacy got voted off.
[00:43:54] But anyway, at some point I ran into her and I said,
[00:43:56] Stacy, did you change your vote?
[00:43:59] And she said, no, it was Susan Hawks.
[00:44:02] She did the same thing to me.
[00:44:05] So that's how I found out it was Susan.
[00:44:07] Classic Susan.
[00:44:09] Yeah. Yeah.
[00:44:11] So and you want to I'll tell you something else,
[00:44:14] ironic, you don't put this, you don't have to put this in at all.
[00:44:17] But a fan.
[00:44:21] I think it was called my attention to this.
[00:44:25] If you review the film of that competition
[00:44:30] where we were lighting tiki torches now after after we
[00:44:36] got out of the water and we were running down this bit on this small
[00:44:42] bit where the competition was, the wind was such that
[00:44:48] it was blowing the
[00:44:53] the wind was blowing against rich, rich was lighting the tiki torches on our side.
[00:44:59] And he you can see it in the in the video.
[00:45:03] He would think it was lighted and we'd run on then.
[00:45:06] And then it had either blew out or it hadn't
[00:45:09] lighted because the wind was blowing his flame away from the flame that had
[00:45:15] the torch that had to be lighted.
[00:45:17] And this happened several times and we lost
[00:45:22] that's where we lost the most time because we had to start and stop,
[00:45:25] start and stop a couple of times.
[00:45:28] Whereas on Pagong side, the wind helped them.
[00:45:31] Jenna was carrying the torch and she'd put that torch up there.
[00:45:34] The wind would blow that her flame right over
[00:45:36] onto the flame of the torch to be lighted.
[00:45:41] So it that was that was a very interesting thing.
[00:45:44] I, you know, was it my stumbles that caused it or was it
[00:45:49] this this thing with the wind and the way we were situated?
[00:45:54] But that's OK.
[00:45:55] That didn't it didn't matter to me.
[00:45:58] But it was an interesting
[00:46:01] after discovery by some fan.
[00:46:04] Well, I think it is interesting because it speaks to the fact that so much of the
[00:46:08] time on Survivor, your fate isn't in your hand.
[00:46:12] Sometimes it is as simple as the wind or a force of nature that costs you the game.
[00:46:18] That's right. That's so true, Josh.
[00:46:21] Yeah.
[00:46:22] Well, I was pretty beaten up with blisters on my feet and a swollen knee.
[00:46:27] And and so it probably was was just as well that I did go.
[00:46:32] And, you know, I said at the in the booth there,
[00:46:36] the confessional or whatever it is at the end that, you know, if I
[00:46:42] I probably would have done the same thing myself, you know, somebody I would have
[00:46:47] voted the same way if if it had happened because at that point
[00:46:52] it's about competition.
[00:46:54] And of course, the tribe is still, I think, very connected at that point, usually.
[00:47:01] But anyway.
[00:47:04] That's that's the story.
[00:47:08] What do you remember?
[00:47:09] What do you remember about that first Tribal
[00:47:11] Council in terms of the night?
[00:47:13] If I'm remembering right, was it raining a lot at that first Tribal Council?
[00:47:17] Not a lot, but I as I recall it was
[00:47:20] it was sort of it was the humidity was very high.
[00:47:24] Like like the humidity and the temperature were about the same
[00:47:28] on the island, which was ninety five.
[00:47:31] And it did, as I recall, rain a little on our hike there.
[00:47:37] The hike there took,
[00:47:39] gosh, I think it was an hour and a half, maybe it was a long it was a long hike.
[00:47:46] And it got dark while we were on route.
[00:47:50] We were stopped twice by these six foot long
[00:47:54] sea crates, poisonous snakes, these great big snakes.
[00:47:59] And we tried to wait them out because you don't want to infuriate them.
[00:48:05] The first one we did in a crawled away and the second one it was there
[00:48:10] across our path and there was a Malaysian guide who was leading us
[00:48:15] from our beach to this distant Tribal Council.
[00:48:19] And he finally threw a stick at it and the snake went on its way.
[00:48:24] But there were real dangers there.
[00:48:28] So but when we came
[00:48:30] to this, this to what was Tribal Council, you could see these
[00:48:36] these lights in the jungle, you know, sort of.
[00:48:39] And and then it was like, oh, my gosh, this looks like a
[00:48:46] stage set or something.
[00:48:48] You know, I said in a movie and it was I suddenly realized this could be
[00:48:55] a program, you know, this was
[00:49:00] you know, it was going to be a TV show, they said.
[00:49:02] And it was so hokey to me.
[00:49:04] It was it was sort of it was unreal because I had been living for three
[00:49:09] days just with the idea of how do we physically survive?
[00:49:13] And so it was
[00:49:17] I apologize, but it was almost laughable.
[00:49:24] And now, you know, I, of course, I've seen the program since then and I
[00:49:28] understand why they do it.
[00:49:30] By the way, they're rather ingenious, these Tribal
[00:49:33] councils, because there are no cameras that show.
[00:49:36] And, you know, you're not aware that you are being filmed.
[00:49:40] But of course, we know we know these are filmed.
[00:49:44] These Tribal councils.
[00:49:46] What was going through your mind when Jeff probes snuffed your torch?
[00:49:53] I, you know, well, as I said, who would be trade me?
[00:49:59] And
[00:50:01] interesting if you, Jeff was very sweet.
[00:50:04] I realize now compared to he gave a little spiel about, I realize
[00:50:10] that you people have done this for for different reasons in your lives.
[00:50:16] And you will always have bragging rights, that are the guy, you know, it was a
[00:50:21] very gentle way to let me down.
[00:50:24] I was just, I guess, surprised and
[00:50:28] having
[00:50:30] I wanted to, you know, one good thing about sports.
[00:50:35] I grew up playing tennis and softball in a girl's softball team beginning in the
[00:50:42] seventh grade and we learned sportsmanship, you know, when loser draw, you're a good
[00:50:47] sport. And so I wanted to, I wanted to support my team even though
[00:50:56] somebody had, you know, some people had voted me out.
[00:51:01] And so that's why I turned and said, go get him, you guys.
[00:51:06] And then I went down that dark jungle path.
[00:51:11] And Mark Burnett stepped out of the
[00:51:16] undergrowth, the jungle.
[00:51:18] And he said to me, if I had been a betting man, I would have lost big time
[00:51:24] tonight. I thought it was going to be rich.
[00:51:27] So that was interesting.
[00:51:30] I think a lot of people did because rich, you know, it was his arrogance side came
[00:51:36] over that word is often used with him.
[00:51:39] I liked rich.
[00:51:41] He had always been very forthcoming with me and and generous.
[00:51:45] And so I mean, I would run into him later at survivor reunions or
[00:51:52] charity things.
[00:51:53] And, you know, I didn't see the side of him that
[00:51:59] that is not as attractive or nor did I.
[00:52:04] It surprises me that he did what he did about his income tax.
[00:52:09] I mean, it was so late and
[00:52:15] I did learn something about about celebrity.
[00:52:21] Rich became a celebrity.
[00:52:25] He when when I would walk with him, say at a survivor reunion on the streets
[00:52:31] of New York, people recognized him.
[00:52:34] We could walk into any restaurant or club and get seated right away.
[00:52:40] And and I think when people become celebrities, pretty soon you
[00:52:46] begin to think the rules don't apply to you.
[00:52:50] You have an entitlement and we see that in our
[00:52:54] presidents of the United States and we see them in other people.
[00:52:59] And and I even thought a little bit in myself in that when you're flown
[00:53:06] around first class so many times by CBS for later for their publicity,
[00:53:14] when if you don't get flown first class, I was aware of it.
[00:53:18] You know, I mean, it's crazy.
[00:53:22] We
[00:53:25] it's like sometimes the more people are given
[00:53:29] the more they expect it and that.
[00:53:34] So anyway, I don't know what happened with Rich, but
[00:53:37] it was not a smart move to to,
[00:53:42] you know, not tell the truth about his income tax, not file them correctly.
[00:53:45] Yeah.
[00:53:47] How was that? How was that year after
[00:53:50] that year that the show was airing?
[00:53:52] The show was so huge.
[00:53:53] It was so massive.
[00:53:54] It was so widely viewed.
[00:53:56] I felt like everybody that I knew was watching this show and I was actually
[00:54:00] pretty late to it.
[00:54:01] My first episode was the final episode of your season.
[00:54:05] And now and now I haven't missed an episode ever since.
[00:54:08] But it was so widely viewed by so many people.
[00:54:10] What were the reactions to you?
[00:54:12] Could you go anywhere without being recognized?
[00:54:15] No, actually I couldn't.
[00:54:17] And that was amazing.
[00:54:20] I mean, I knew as CBS wanted me,
[00:54:23] they flew me back to New York for the premiere, the opening.
[00:54:29] And that let's see, was that on a Wednesday.
[00:54:34] You know, I was there was an interview by Time Magazine.
[00:54:39] I was on the early show, Rosie O'Donnell, Access Hollywood,
[00:54:46] Entertainment Tonight.
[00:54:47] These are interviews that John, I was on the John Stewart show, you know,
[00:54:51] the Daily Show. I mean, it was just amazing.
[00:54:55] I didn't expect any of this.
[00:54:57] And then when I'd come home, you know, living in,
[00:55:01] I would when I go to the grocery store,
[00:55:03] I'd be recognized and be born downtown and people would ask for
[00:55:08] my autograph. And it was I felt really guilty about it at first.
[00:55:13] I said, well, you know, my signature
[00:55:16] wasn't anything unless it's on the bottom of a check.
[00:55:20] But and that was also
[00:55:26] we could talk about the idea of celebrity or having your 15 minutes of fame
[00:55:31] and what it does to you.
[00:55:33] And
[00:55:36] you know,
[00:55:38] when it can in its extremes, we were talking about how people get a
[00:55:44] feeling of entitlement.
[00:55:46] Mine was more rather than feeling entitled.
[00:55:50] I felt guilty that people were imbuing me with these
[00:55:56] heroic type,
[00:55:58] you know, qualities because of the cancer
[00:56:01] survivorship, if nothing else.
[00:56:03] And
[00:56:05] that was really it.
[00:56:06] But I was not doing any surviving cancer.
[00:56:11] There are millions of people who have done that and every bit is heroic, so to
[00:56:18] speak. And
[00:56:20] also,
[00:56:23] well,
[00:56:26] I was also on the Sally Jesse Raphael show one time.
[00:56:30] And they were talking about
[00:56:33] anyway, this whole survival survivor phenomenon.
[00:56:37] And
[00:56:39] Sally Jesse Raphael said we have an expert in celebrity in the audience.
[00:56:45] And she was asked some questions and she said, among other things,
[00:56:52] celebrity can become addictive.
[00:56:55] And
[00:56:58] anyway, I was dealing with all of this.
[00:57:01] Also, the fact that I was treated by, you know, by
[00:57:04] CBS and the media as the star, but I'd come back home to my
[00:57:12] condo and my friends, you know, they knew what I had been through.
[00:57:17] They didn't want to hear about it anymore.
[00:57:20] Now I'm digressing, so you can get me back on track.
[00:57:24] No, please.
[00:57:25] But
[00:57:27] I would,
[00:57:29] when I came back from a specially heady
[00:57:33] time doing interviews and being on TV and stuff.
[00:57:39] And so suddenly I'm back here in my little condo and I'm still
[00:57:44] I'm not the famous person like they, you know, they build you up.
[00:57:49] I'm sure you're being in the business.
[00:57:51] You'd know about this.
[00:57:52] But
[00:57:53] and I thought, thank goodness this happened to me at the age I'm at,
[00:57:59] because it is,
[00:58:02] it does play with your mind.
[00:58:04] It can.
[00:58:05] And I saw many of the other young people, you know, they quit jobs and moved to L.A.,
[00:58:10] thinking now they would have careers in show business.
[00:58:17] So so anyway, back to Sally Jesser-Rafael's show
[00:58:22] and this expert in celebrity.
[00:58:25] So after the show, I ran out to find her and I caught her out on the street.
[00:58:32] And I said, I explain my dilemma that I was getting all this attention.
[00:58:39] And I really wasn't worthy of it.
[00:58:43] I mean, it made me there are other people who deserve more attention for what
[00:58:48] they had done.
[00:58:49] And she says something that really helped me.
[00:58:51] She said, Sonya, those people are projecting on to you what they want you to be.
[00:58:57] It has nothing to do with you.
[00:58:59] So just enjoy the ride.
[00:59:02] And that was a great relief.
[00:59:04] So that's what I did from then on.
[00:59:06] I just enjoyed the ride.
[00:59:09] You know, so when you have a moment like you had a few months ago,
[00:59:14] when Survivor celebrates its 500th episode
[00:59:18] and you see how much of a great response you get to your Instagram video
[00:59:24] celebrating the 500th episode, what does that do for you?
[00:59:27] Oh my gosh, that just blew me away.
[00:59:29] And
[00:59:32] of course, it felt very good.
[00:59:36] And
[00:59:38] you know, this I wanted to love all these people back, you know, return all the
[00:59:43] love that they were showering on me.
[00:59:46] But I also don't want to get, you know,
[00:59:50] tied up in the social media stuff
[00:59:54] to that degree anyway.
[00:59:58] It felt good.
[00:59:59] But again, you keep it in perspective.
[01:00:01] And I realize I don't have to feel guilty about it.
[01:00:07] If fans want to believe I'm,
[01:00:12] you know, a hero or wanted,
[01:00:14] that's great.
[01:00:16] If that makes them happy and I'll be happy to sign autographs and
[01:00:20] and do whatever I can to make them happy because it's really
[01:00:26] about them more than about me.
[01:00:28] So when you were voted off,
[01:00:31] you know, you had had so much invested in getting out there and the time that
[01:00:35] you spend out in LA and the journey out to Borneo and everything involved in that.
[01:00:41] Did it take some time to get over the sting of getting sent home so early?
[01:00:46] Actually not in that.
[01:00:49] I from the time I fell in that
[01:00:53] challenge or when we lost it, let's say when it
[01:00:58] I knew that, you know, that's the way probably it would be.
[01:01:05] I was perceived as the weakest link.
[01:01:08] And at that point and I sure I would have done just what the younger ones did had
[01:01:14] I been in their shoes.
[01:01:17] And that age, you know, yeah.
[01:01:21] So I remember they
[01:01:26] they took me to through the jungle to
[01:01:31] where the production crew was they built cabins for them.
[01:01:36] No warm water for showers, but any shower felt good at that.
[01:01:41] And they there was a psychologist, one of the two who did all the testing of us
[01:01:47] and so forth. One of them was on the island and he came over to,
[01:01:52] you know, I think console me or deal with any
[01:01:58] issues I might have around it.
[01:02:00] And I just regaled him with stories about what happened on the island.
[01:02:03] You know, yeah.
[01:02:07] And by the way, I don't know whether this is widely known, but
[01:02:14] Sweden, a survivor was in Sweden for about three years before
[01:02:19] the Americans got the rights and the first one voted off in the first season
[01:02:24] actually went home and took his life through because
[01:02:29] he felt that he was such a loser and that when the limit would show everybody,
[01:02:34] it would be humiliating.
[01:02:36] And he just sort of spiraled down.
[01:02:40] I was reading an article quoting his wife.
[01:02:43] And so one day he threw himself in front of a train.
[01:02:47] And I think
[01:02:50] and perhaps that's one of the reasons that survivor went to such lengths
[01:02:55] to make sure we were psychologically fit to handle this.
[01:03:02] So
[01:03:03] anyway, it was
[01:03:06] I, you know, again, maybe it's my training in sports.
[01:03:11] You lose some, you win some, but you try and do it with graciousness and
[01:03:17] good sportsmanship.
[01:03:19] So somebody is about to be the new first person voted out of survivor.
[01:03:24] What advice do you have to that person?
[01:03:29] I guess, you know, it's only a game.
[01:03:33] And
[01:03:35] whether it's survivor or your pine canasta with friends or
[01:03:41] poker in Las Vegas, you lose some, you win some, it is only a game.
[01:03:46] And don't personalize it that you are a loser.
[01:03:51] That doesn't that doesn't mean that.
[01:03:54] All right. So I would love at this point,
[01:03:57] if you could play that song you played for me the other day, I would just it's been
[01:04:02] in my mind ever since you played it the first time we spoke.
[01:04:05] Would you be would you be open to playing that again?
[01:04:08] Sure. If you take out that other one about
[01:04:12] that I screwed up, I don't know if you want to try that one again, too.
[01:04:16] I would be open to that.
[01:04:18] Oh, my gosh.
[01:04:20] I should I should practice it.
[01:04:22] But why don't I do
[01:04:24] when I want to go back now?
[01:04:27] You know, perfect.
[01:04:29] Honestly, Sonya, if you want to spend the rest of the day playing ukulele for me on
[01:04:32] the phone, I'm here.
[01:04:35] I will cancel my plans happily.
[01:04:38] That's great.
[01:04:40] OK, well, you asked me if I'd do it again.
[01:04:43] People ask me if I'd do it again.
[01:04:45] And here's a little parody.
[01:04:49] I wrote to that
[01:04:51] answer that question.
[01:04:54] I want to go back to my little grass shack on Pulao T.
[01:04:59] I want to be with all the rats and snakes I used to know.
[01:05:06] Just kidding.
[01:05:07] I can hear the waves are lapping on the shores of Toggy Beach.
[01:05:13] I can hear Jeff Probe announcing the tribe has spoken.
[01:05:18] You're the first one voted off.
[01:05:20] It won't be long till my ship will be saying back to Borneo.
[01:05:26] A grand old place that's always fair to see.
[01:05:31] You're telling me I'm just an old survivor who got no loot.
[01:05:36] I want to go back to where I got the boot.
[01:05:39] I want to go back to my little grass shack on Pulao T.
[01:05:46] Where the Toggy, Zempa, Gongs and Ricanas got to play.
[01:05:51] Yeah, where the Toggy, Zempa, Gongs and Ricanas got to stay.
[01:06:02] I love it.
[01:06:06] So that was from a long time ago.
[01:06:08] But I still, if I were young, I would go back in and I blink.
[01:06:13] Well, you are a legend in survivor history.
[01:06:16] I told you the other day, Queen Sonia.
[01:06:19] Yes, and I didn't even know what that meant.
[01:06:21] I'm so glad you educated me on that.
[01:06:24] Thank you.
[01:06:25] My pleasure.
[01:06:26] So I think that's all I need for right now.
[01:06:29] But can I knock on your door if we find that we need anything else for the podcast?
[01:06:34] Any time.
[01:06:36] I will say one thing.
[01:06:37] You don't have to use it, of course.
[01:06:38] But really, I was trying to think overall.
[01:06:44] You know, I sort of spiritually believe everything happens for a reason.
[01:06:50] And I can certainly see it in my journey here.
[01:06:55] You know, if I hadn't gotten breast cancer, I would not have
[01:06:59] had to move to broken up a relationship and move to live on my own.
[01:07:06] And if I hadn't been living on my own, I wouldn't have, you know,
[01:07:10] been able to do survivor.
[01:07:12] And if I hadn't been able to do survivor, I wouldn't have been able to go around
[01:07:17] the country and speaking about surviving breast cancer as I did afterwards.
[01:07:23] And it was the most rewarding experience.
[01:07:26] And so you see, it worked out even if it's sorry with breast cancer.
[01:07:32] Yeah.
[01:07:33] Well, I'm so thankful that I got a chance to talk to you about all this.
[01:07:36] I'm so grateful that you were interested.
[01:07:38] So it's been a real pleasure connecting with you, Sonia.
[01:07:41] You have been a joy with Josh.
[01:07:43] Oh, you as well, Sonia. Absolutely.
[01:07:44] All right, we'll be emailing.
[01:07:46] We'll be in touch now that we know our emails work.
[01:07:48] Great. We will be in touch for sure.
[01:07:50] OK. All right. Bye bye.
[01:07:52] Bye, Sonia.