Survivor AU: Redemption Simon Mee Deep Dive

[00:00:00] We all love Survivor, and in my first ever book, The Tribe and I have Spoken, I'll tell you how this little show evolved from that juggernaut first season on the beaches of Borneo all the way into its landmark 50th season. I'm like a storyteller, that's what I do. What role did the greatest players, the unforgettable moments, and Jeff Probst himself have in shaping what Survivor has become today? And what contribution did we play in building this worldwide tribe of Survivor fans? Love you, bae!

[00:00:28] For you future players, I've also included my Ultimate Survivor Playbook to help you win the million dollars, unlike me. It's fun, you know what, dude? It's fun. This hardcover edition is filled with beautiful Survivor illustrations in every chapter and is an amazing addition for every Survivor collector. I'm a meat collector. Pre-orders are everything for a book launch, so to say thank you to everyone who pre-orders, you'll receive an exclusive digital bonus

[00:00:56] chapter called The Ultimate Rites of Passage. My personal tribute to all the players who have ever competed on the show. All 751. This is huge. I needed this. Pre-order wherever books are sold in hardcover and as an audiobook at robhasabook.com. That's robhasabook.com. Nicely done, Rob.

[00:01:36] We'll see you next time. We'll see you next time. We'll see you next time. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to RHAP's coverage of Australian Survivor Redemption.

[00:02:06] My name is Mike Bloom. New week, new deep dive, or should I call this a meep my very early in the morning for me, but regardless, I'm back and done to talk to this man today. he came out for his third season he passed the 100 day mark and hopefully he's here to keep it 100 with me i know he is still contracting severe bottomness but i feel i'm on the top of the world

[00:02:31] whenever i get the chance to talk with one the only side in me hey how are you mike what an intro i'm doing stellar right now how are you doing man i mean obviously you know you got to experience your first live reunion it's been a couple of weeks since then what is it what was it like to kind of like immerse your mind back into survivor for a brief portion of time before sort of getting out of the pool again over the past uh fortnight or so yeah um oh wow like what an absolute

[00:02:59] finish for me and like my career like it was a such a cherry on top to have a live finale and that's the first time i've caught up with an entire cast um you know like even we just haven't had that since covid and you know yes it was mind-blowing to have everyone in one place and the vibes were high and it it kind of helped i guess the kind of communication across the season

[00:03:25] kind of keep everyone pardon me keep everyone like a little bit more involved as well um even you know even like the early boots because they knew that was something to look forward to and kind of come back and be a part of so that was all pretty fun but then like the night was it was so special it was one of the best nights of my life like just to have a um everyone there and knowing that that was kind of like a bit of my retirement party and to have like

[00:03:52] alumni there we had someone from every single australian survivor season there oh wow um yeah which was incredible uh and it's just such a great send-off um like you know for me or what i made you know what i took from it personally and um you know the backdrop the night the celebrations um yeah just seeing the raw reactions and emotions from caleb and jackson and stuff was all really

[00:04:17] cool so it's just such a great night speaking of the backdrop uh i had heard from people who were there that you know we'll get into obviously your very emotional uh sentiments towards the end did it get cut off a couple times by some passerby boats my god so i got a it was just such a typical thing for me it was just it was the perfect finish for me um in that last question that i got asked you

[00:04:42] know how's how important is survivor to you um you know try still try to keep it short and sweet but you know there was a section in the middle where like there were fairy um you know the manly fairies going like you know all night and um they were beeping at like you know big honks the longest one went when i was giving like giving an answer and i'm like do i think it gets got to the point where it's like oh but this is just normal like you know it's all part of what they're saying and what we

[00:05:10] are like you'll just follow through with it but it got it was like george hired a boat or anything to pass by it was immediately long like so long and being like oh my god and i didn't like i was kind of was crying at the time and very emotional and um it was just i mean even when the editors screwing me in this game like something someone else is like it was just such a funny little like

[00:05:35] throw away um yeah just one of those things right well let's talk about you setting sail on your third voyage here on the survivor seas because we need to rewind all the way before this experience started obviously you did you know brains versus brawn you did heroes versus villains did you ever think you'd come back for a third time and when did you end up sort of getting something floated out to i imagine

[00:06:01] by production of like hey we're doing this season it might involve returnees are you interested yeah um it's kind of weird like i felt like after the heroes versus villains i felt like i didn't need to scratch the itch again but i just kind of knew that i wasn't done um and just the fact that there hadn't been an all-stars too the fact that there hadn't been another

[00:06:27] like full returnee season since you know brains v broad or you know there hadn't been a fans v favorites or something and then you know we saw a snippet with australia versus the world um which i wasn't contacted for i wouldn't have expected to be at that time like i didn't think that i was you know in that kind of tier one of the you know even in a cut down season if i hadn't been a full season i would have been upset if i didn't get called um but then i just wasn't expecting to

[00:06:56] get a call in god it was like early april last year i got in you know full 12 months kind of thing almost made i've made this whole thing the 12 month ordeal um i just didn't expect it to be so soon and when my phone rang for the first time my heart just sank uh in a way that i there was there was a flash of excitement but i knew the reality of what 12 months

[00:07:23] look like a commitment to this show and if you know me you know that i lean in with my whole heart my whole self and um yeah it was able to it was a huge sacrifice to make at the time um going through some um uh just challenging personal like we're personal family you know matters um what we're kind of going through with our family um and yeah i was kind of like back and forth on you know is

[00:07:52] this the right thing for me to pick up the right opportunity for me to go again and you know at the end of the day um it worked out and was able to you know make a few sacrifices and my wife made the biggest ones to you know stay at home with my toddler this time um whilst i'm out running around a beach in samara my budgie smugglers having the time of my life um and it was you know it worked out and i think it was kind of a little bit more motivation to just throw absolutely everything at

[00:08:20] it um but they just it was it was heavily considered and this was kind of my last window of opportunity as well like we want to we want to grow our family and i feel like you know growing like trying to leave with two kids like with two kids at home is like being outnumbered as a parent is long um so you know just with the we have one at the moment um you know bonnie now is two and a half and she was two

[00:08:48] she was just about to turn two when after i got back and so yeah it was a really challenging time and my wife is a she's a um a very successful uh you know girl boss like she's great at what she does she flies very close to the sun and um you know she she's the the breadwinner in our house and she um she's it's like so great at like you know holding her family together and holding that up and then i'm just out going off and you know running around you know doing the having these side quests

[00:09:18] kind of thing so i'm so grateful to have her support to be able to do that but like i couldn't always like this is kind of the last window that i had to go and do this before it's like you need to pull your head back in you need to do this and that has kind of also made my retirement a little bit more solidified as well what was your mentality then once you made that decision because listen you had called yourself the worst player in australian survivor history you see these reddit receipts

[00:09:44] but like having had all that experience under your belt from your previous two seasons did that inform your thinking of how you should play going into this third time out i i actually haven't called myself the worst player in survivor history i had i had um echoed what other people had said i don't believe that but for a good come on yeah 100 but like it's fun to lean into it and especially for a season

[00:10:14] like redemption when i found out like you know what that was i'm like you know i got the call first and then i found out what the theme was and i'm like well i completely understand why you called me um like you know it's it's it's all it's part of my it's supposed to be part of my journey it's like it was the perfect finish for me um and yeah i i i leaned into it like you know like hapless i completely agree with like i've been very unlucky but i never think like i've actually been bad at this

[00:10:43] game but i think you know it's kind of been fun to to lean in and that's kind of like you know you generate the character like people this is an entertainment product and people love you know the people who love watching this show they love cheering for and cheering against people and i'm just so glad that i that people were you know had previously cheered against me in brains v brawn as the cocky alpha male had you know i'd had enough time across the three seasons to be able to show

[00:11:13] my whole self to be able to come through and cut through the edit and show the different side of me to yeah to people who were like i can't believe i'm cheering for simon in 2026 for the guy i saw in con curry you know all those years ago so it's like it's been pretty surreal kind of seeing that go 360 and like and i didn't i don't think i did anything differently in terms of who i was or who i am but the opportunity to kind of go on that journey was kind of crazy so but yeah yeah you lean into it and

[00:11:42] you you know you have some fun along the way well you are an incredibly resourceful person to say the least so i'm curious once you get this inkling right of okay there's going to be returnees involved in some aspects how much did you know about who you were going to be playing alongside were you trying to ferret out information about who was going to be alongside you in the season the first answer was

[00:12:07] like no i didn't want to like i kept after heroes versus villains with so much information got leaked and we kind of knew exactly who was playing of the returnees this one was like i need to keep my mouth shut for me i want to like i'm not going to tell anyone i will deny it till the till the day i die kind of thing um so it was very much so didn't tell a soul um i i had a podcast did a podcast with

[00:12:33] ryan brink before i went out um and he shared the information that um uh brooke was playing and um so that like that was huge for me so i knew about that about a week out and then i um mark actually gave me a call before like um after he got the call saying look i've been um been asked and approached have you got like any um like any recommendations on like you know just negotiating

[00:13:01] with production on you know on getting paid to go back um and was able to help him through a little bit and i i it was just the right time to tell him it was kind of heartbreaking to have let myself down at a point where i was actually telling someone else that i was playing within the alumni but i trusted mark in a way that like he's going out i wasn't gonna blow that for him or me or anything

[00:13:26] like that so yeah at that time you know i gave him the advice and be like hey like i'm playing as well so we kind of we kind of had that um understanding there um had a couple of conversations about the broader game but didn't actually like we made no deals we made no agreements it was like it was fair game there wasn't any pre-gaming as such there it was a you're going out i'm going out we'll be there let's have fun we'll have a good relationship whatever in terms of the enjoyment

[00:13:55] at its purest but there was no handshake steals or anything there which was which was really great and i'm glad that we were able to go in like that um and then to see harry out there was just a we see him get out of the um get out of the uber when we got to the airport was just amazing um as someone who i just knowing there was only going to be four returnees and then seeing harry as someone who i was friends with hadn't had any crossover with seasons or anything like that um

[00:14:25] i mean i think i did my exit interviews for heroes versus villains at harry's house when i was in wa like for for flick's wedding like a couple years ago like crazy um and i haven't had any like yeah there was no battle good blood when it came to the game it was all just pure friendship outside which was really nice um and so to see those kind of players there was like i was i was excited and

[00:14:55] probably more so relieved as well by the mix but i didn't spend too much time dwelling on who it could have been because like i had other shit i needed to sort out before going out like my i had other priorities i needed to get in line before i worried about who was going to be out there and you know we have how many australian survival players or we must be pushing the 250 mark now to maybe 230 ish i think overall and so like i'm not going to like rack my brain about

[00:15:24] who is and isn't going to be there on the off chance that i see them out on my island listen there's someone who uh you know may or may not usually host this podcast who may or may not have accused you of holding a one day org to try to suss out the gameplay of some of your fellow returnees can you confirm or deny that i can i can partly confirm and partly deny that but um i there were two there was part of my preparation that i did two things um but it wasn't like i did host an

[00:15:53] org i hosted a um uh with dylan header and a he does a the equilibrium eq online um and it's very similar kind of survivor style game played in different chat rooms he kind of kicked that off in 2020 during covid um i organized one of them with a bunch of survivor players just to get my head back in the game i also organized an in person i'm sorry and harry ended up playing that org which was just by chance and it wasn't to suss out who was playing it was just to get my

[00:16:21] head thinking like playing a game just thinking you know just in that space how can i get people thinking moving shaking you know and then i held a game of blood on the clock tower in my backyard around the fire and mark being a brisbane survivor alumni came along to that and um it was pretty funny that like the two things in preparation that i did i ended up sharing with two of the four

[00:16:46] or two other i mean three of the four players were kind of covered there over over that so yeah it's just you know it's one of those things like the survivor alumni like you you roll deep with your friends but it wasn't to suss out who was actually playing all right well let's uh let's go into the grimoire of the people you were playing alongside then perhaps i mean you've been a lot of power parlance uh because so you end up showing up here and yes you you may have known who was going

[00:17:13] to be alongside you as a returning but obviously the big factor are going to be all of these newbies so you end up getting settled in to this new beautiful camp on bounty beach who were you initially clicking with in those early days who did you find you were vibing with the most early on um harry first of all like that was a natural like um you know we just kind of we just knew what we had

[00:17:38] to do it was very a couple of conversations late at night and we were just there for each other um yeah but we weren't spending much time together which was really hard because you're like out in samoa playing the game we both love with one of your best survivor friends and you're not hanging out it's like so counterintuitive um but it was the right thing to do we both knew it so you know there were a lot of great late night chats that we had um the next part was it wasn't about

[00:18:09] it wasn't about like individuals for me in the first kind of a couple of days it was like lay low around camp and work everyone like prove myself to be of value to everyone you know in ways that were very like that when my name would come up that i would have that that person would go no no simon is good for my game so it was more about like the risk mitigation and proving value to

[00:18:35] individuals and the tribe um after i moved through that kind of phase it was like lottie just naturally became my my number one the person i just got along with so well um you know she was a she was a parent she was just had some great stories and just so down to earth like she's just absolute freaking

[00:18:59] legend um and just there for a good time she was very aware of the game as we kind of saw like she was so switched on and just got it and i loved she loved that for for her like not necessarily like the biggest survivor fan but knew what the opportunity was and was willing to go balls to the wall for it we both had this mentality of like we're not leaving our families at home to go around

[00:19:25] and fluff this whether you know other there are other people who you thought it was a good stepping stone to maybe other reality shows or like you're just there for the survivor element but yeah what he was just ready to like you know rip in and there were so many times that we just spoke about like it feels like there are so many people who are asleep at the wheel here right now and so we just kind of really connected and like you know after like a couple of days we're like we should probably

[00:19:51] formalize this relationship on camera right and get something going and um but yeah we spent a lot of time together and i i i absolutely love her she's such a good egg um but naturally outside of that my initial four in in my mind was harry lottie paula and myself that was kind of most important but outside of that i really felt like i had a relationship with everyone and and added value to

[00:20:16] everyone there yeah talk to me more about sort of like i guess your perception of your perception for lack of a better term because we'll certainly get into later on obviously there was a little bit of anti-returning bias that was happening amongst this cast but did you get a sense of that from the jump we certainly heard a lot of that from lottie towards harry did you feel like people were looking at you a certain way based on what they knew about you from your previous seasons yeah and i definitely

[00:20:45] leaned into that i think that's the whole you know lean into like i was i'm such a bad player i was like you know i'm so clueless like i'm just trying to make it work kind of thing so lean into that i'm a bad survivor player to the people there because that's an easy that's what they i don't have i don't know these people individually you know as humans but they have a perception of me for those who have seen

[00:21:08] my seasons um so lean into that was a big thing um then uh my i had a lot of people um paula for example eliza came up to me and said you're very different to the simon that i expected to be meeting and i'm like yeah i'm like in what in what way what do you mean and just the um probably just how like

[00:21:34] uh in like in touch and um in the on a human level like that i just didn't have this huge ego the ones you see in confessionals right when you've got that that moment it's like hey go make tv in front of camera versus you know i'm trying to be considerate looking out for people making sure everyone's just getting like living and surviving and like enjoying their time out on the on the island

[00:22:02] um and they're making the most of it so just trying to accommodate those people there i think that kind of softer side is one that's quite often not shown and we saw so much of it even this season that like camp life took a has taken a very much sort of back seat over the last couple of years in australian survivor to well certainly helps when you were given the best camp in australian survivor history yeah it was a great a great leg up um and even on that point right something that

[00:22:30] helped me flourish in the early game is that like we winning that shelter at the start made for an opportunity that i hadn't kind of experienced before where like you don't have that initial kind of conflict opportunity where like some people want to create build the shelter and some people want to you know um go off and strategize and everyone's trying to get to know each other at the start and

[00:22:56] like that first 24 hours is very chaotic and a lot happens but having the shelter built and the fire there and having wood was just such a like a it took the pressure off so many things and just allowed everyone to just relax and socialize and i really put my my finger on that as being such a big influence on the fact that our tribe was very much so harmonious and we had what two three like harmonious vote outs

[00:23:24] at the start and the combination of that and then i spoke to harry on night one it was like how you know returning how are we going to play this what are we going to do do we do we want to go down a cohesion or a division route do we want to look at creating tension within the tribe and either picking sides or you know being potentially on opposite sides or in the same side like you know um

[00:23:49] exasperating is that the right word that kind of conflict there or do we want cohesion um and harry was very much so about he wanted cohesion and i was more than happy to go along with that kind of plan there he didn't he didn't want conflict at all um and that worked for me so i mean my very quickly i'm like okay well to if we're doing cohesion i need to work my ass off to ensure that you know i would

[00:24:15] be so helpful around camp and just do what i need to do and it there was a huge difference for me between starting off in heroes versus villains and starting off in this tribe where and i've always been seen as a leader quite naturally right and i'm someone who likes to lead by example by just getting in and getting things done like even building the shelters in my previous seasons or

[00:24:39] whatever i wouldn't tell or demand command people to go and often do things but people would just naturally come to me and you know being a chippy carpenter builder that would like ask what do you want me to do and naturally that kind of fell upon me but this time around i was just instead of having to build the shelter i could just get in and like i'm just gonna start the fire i'm just gonna like hey i've cooked rice before i'm just gonna cook rice after it's done i'm gonna like wash the

[00:25:06] pot so we can rinse the beans and just lead by example there but instead of having someone like say george in the background being the um kind of pestering me being like holding me up in lights being like hey look at simon look at what he's doing he's the leader he's taking all the control i had a tribe that really appreciated what i was doing for them and just by leading by example and just like oh these are the things that kind of need to be done i'm gonna go out and grab some

[00:25:35] firewood we're gonna you know wash the pot now and do this crack coconuts do you want a coconut okay you know how did you sleep last night like just taking care of people's experience there just proved so valuable and and made and kind of de-threatened what it meant to be a returning and i kind of i put myself on the i did the tony vlatchos and put myself on house arrest um you know i i just for the first kind of four days i didn't leave camp i didn't go have chats at

[00:26:03] the well i just sat by the fire did the house work get things clean and tidy and stuff and that was fantastic by you know in daniel's exit interview um he said that simon was so he feels so he was so lost out there like simon was so on the bottom of the tribe because not like you know he was the last to know what was going on and that was almost like the greatest compliment i could have i could

[00:26:30] have got because it's exactly what i tried to do and that being the perception of someone else to be fed back to me like that it was like amazing so like i was so everything i went it set out to do i executed perfectly yeah so what was your sense of these first couple of votes because obviously you know things are going to turn on this alliance you were trying to really construct for lack of a better term soon with the paula vote but it's interesting that you talk about how you know oh it seemed like

[00:26:57] we were sort of uh more of a harmonious group because from our perspective right it's okay lottie all of a sudden is throwing daniel's name out there for his sloppiness and then you have you know lindal and paula and harry's turning on things on eliza all of a sudden so from your point of view with us sort of like being along for the ride or did you feel like you were nudging those votes at all one way or the other no i was like i was sitting my hands like this is not for me to not for me to drive the game isn't won and the first couple of votes so like sit back see how it all

[00:27:27] kind of goes if things aren't going my way and i need to interfere then fine um but the first couple of votes was super boring like they shout out to the story team produce production team for like pulling all that together the story i watched those first couple of episodes being like i was so nervous because you know dave's a new host and then we've got these couple of super boring tribals and like it was just really clear cut about where the votes were going and everyone knew and

[00:27:56] you know daniel went home with the most amount of votes ever like in strained survival like crazy right but the story was fantastic i was like shit they really like they really polished that and turned into something um but it was yeah it was a lot more uneventful from my my memory being out there um and it it worked we had like there was a larger group and i think it kind of

[00:28:23] the part that made it air when harry was talking about like an eight and stumble up being a nine and then try to make it an eight again but it wasn't still needed to be a nine that like within the same my core four group and say harry paula lotty and myself it was like who do we want like who instead of voting people out who do we want to bring in who's who's important for us to like bring in and then who's left out from there so my big thing was i in a season that i win i don't want the old

[00:28:52] oldest female going home first like that's just something that i you know i thought that was you know now if i can add if i can make that person valuable to me who would usually get there if i can protect them that might just show that i you know like and that ended up person ended up being laws that was then going to be like a i i want to protect laws laws is my number

[00:29:15] one to the wider group it appeared like that um and you know laws and lindal and i was like i was an advocate for them for the the wider group and so when and but and so i wanted to oh my god it's not laws so that was kind of like on the first vote there and naturally after daniel's kind of sloppiness was you know kind of exposed like it all kind of when you felt fell back on him but then i

[00:29:41] wanted to be able to showcase that like i i'm i'm malleable i'm can compromise i if i need to move on laws i can do that but i want to show like i'm advocating for her but i'm you know but i'm also willing to compromise um and that ended up being i think that was beneficial like i could see

[00:30:02] i i felt it i i felt in the conversations that i was able to offer and negotiate but be a willing partner to work with people in a way that like um you could talk things through and not be like locked in on something so you have preferences but not like yeah it wasn't to the detriment so it's just being easy to work with and i think that really sets you up for opportunities later on in

[00:30:28] the game um and quick funny side story at the finale with daniel i was we were at the we're going out the night before um that we filmed the finale and we're walking down into a into a club i think with harry and um harry eliza and a few others it doesn't matter um walking down daniel's telling me a story and he's saying that oh he and simon were out here and i'm like put my hand on his shoulder i'm

[00:30:53] like daniel i'm simon and it was so funny that like he just it's just such a character trait for him he's just horrible with names and i'm like i'm so sorry that that was the thing that stitched you up but to see it happen again right now i gotta go we we all had a good laugh about it there but yeah how poor hapless daniel oh well let's talk about uh perhaps the name that helped stirred this game along a little bit from your perspective paula let's talk about this vote here what ultimately

[00:31:23] because again it sounds like you were and certainly this has been corroborated by paula and harry a little bit to me that you were trying to set up this sort of like duo quartet alliance yes so what made you ultimately decide to go with you know the tie that lottie was doing against paula and harry didn't have anything to do with her approaching you and being like paula said she was sus on you

[00:31:49] um like in the in the moment yes but it was kind of days in the making already um my relationship with paula like i wanted to work i there was no one i wanted to work more with than paula like she like because as i said like that call for in my mind of harry simon paula and lottie was just so powerful like we just had so much influence and connections throughout the tribe like we were

[00:32:15] unstoppable but paula was the only one who wasn't it wasn't like drinking the kool-aid that i was dishing out to everyone she saw completely straight through my bullshit like in the way that i was buttering people up which is which was great but like i was so sincere and genuine with like wanting to work with her um and being like i know that i needed to land this relationship with her i think

[00:32:41] that i told someone a couple people like pardon me when i turned cameron away from a chat or something i'm like i need to land this conversation with paula because if i don't land this this could all you know this could all fall apart for me um and oh again we've been so close with lottie um lottie was also kind of confirming on the way through lottie and paula were very close that that paula was still

[00:33:08] a little bit sus with me that i hadn't properly landed that or like you know i had to i i worked so hard so so hard on on paula but just never really got there and and then it kind of got to this point where like there was just a little bit of tension which was unfortunate but it was just the reality of where it was and i was aware of what what you know what lottie was very transparent with what paula

[00:33:32] was saying to her um and then we kind of found ourselves in this like bit of this awkward position where it's like give a diamond sound have harry and simon at the top and bottom and then you have paula and body on the sides that like moving from a diamond to a triangle like that one person is going to benefit from say being at the you know we'll rise to the top and have those two people there

[00:33:54] like and if you know if um if paula if i went home paula would get harry and lottie to herself and but i actually stood in the same position that if right all went home then i get harry and lottie to myself which was fantastic for me um and so and then ended up like i was kind of aware of it i guess and then as soon as i i saw the conversation with paula asha and

[00:34:25] there's another paula and asha were definitely there and i could almost even people talking about you you just kind of know and i just felt like that was the moment that i don't know but paula had like just said said something or must have voiced her dis or concern about me whether it was actually throwing my name out specifically or just voicing her concern about me as a even being a um an awake player who

[00:34:52] knew what was going on like we have to be cautious of it like i just felt that and then saw where i was just sitting by the fire doing my thing and saw that that conversation move around and the next minute you know asha had come up to me and said then your paula's throwing your name out or you're putting your paula is is i don't know the skeptical of you or something like that and i was just like why don't we vote paula out and just you know had just another kind of element where it's like look

[00:35:17] i'm willing to compromise but then if there is an opportunity for like that to pick up wind at this stage of the scramble then it's like that i'm not opposed to it as much as i want that core alliance to you know to to work for me and i've also had that learning of you know sometimes when that it pays to get that monkey off your back and if you know if it's not quite there and that still is that bit of tension

[00:35:40] then you need to like just deal with it sooner rather than later um and when that kind of gained momentum like that you know made a lot of sense and i think that kind of lined up with like say lottie's confessionals about like you know i don't even know if it was true if paula put out simon's name or not but like the feelings were there and felt by both lottie and myself and then obviously

[00:36:05] through asha too like there was that level of understanding that it made enough sense to justify it so it was um yeah i was kind of really disappointed that it ended up going ahead and paula went home because she was a an absolute blast and a great aware player um you know who's just you know a newbie trying to find her feet and um yeah just just got caught in the saying the wrong

[00:36:29] stuff at the wrong time um and it's a biggest downfall is just not trusting someone in a game where you can't trust someone she didn't trust me and she had every right not to but it probably would mean the right thing to do well in that episode you also make a comment that you feel like harry's behavior is a little off right this is when he's sort of walking around paranoid telling you

[00:36:54] like i think it's me tonight talk to me about your perspective on that did that factor at all into you not telling him about the paula vote yeah 100 it's like i knew exactly that you know the votes were like if the votes are going on paula i mean harry yes is my number one um but i can't i just can't tell him at this point like it's just not not worth the risk um and at the end of the day like i'm out

[00:37:20] here playing for me and you know i'm like i can't and after this time the context that helps with this is that harry had harry had found his person in paula like you know he had jackson he had paula and was very much so comfortable and confident there and almost like just it was really they were really got really close and really spending like a lot of time together and late nights on the hammocks

[00:37:49] and like we were in there like having a good time as well but paula and harry both being from western australia had a you know really close connection there um and it it became yeah it just became so evident like how close they were uh and just at that point it's like oh harry like i love you here but he stopped he stopped working he sat down and he rested and so i yeah like and he was like i'm he was

[00:38:19] he was content he was content and he was content with his relationship with paula when he should have been working on the lindles or the riches or the you know maybe the uh uh camerons but it was like yeah he was like the newbies were kind of frustrating him a little bit and whether on the other hand i was prepared to outwit our play at last at work like just out work like you don't talk about

[00:38:46] that part on the flag it's hidden behind a little secret corner yeah i will be etched there on that was my that was my motto this time around like out of work like the one thing i can do with every minute is do something to benefit my game in some kind of way sleep when i'm dead i will work my ass off and i was calling harry um blasphemy i know but instead of dirty harry i was calling him dusty harry because he'd been out of the game for too long um shake those cobwebs off buddy yeah and like it was

[00:39:15] really it was it was really like kind of sad and hard for me to watch like my best friends and and the only person who cares about this game as much as me to watch him i watched his demise in front of me you know like watched him i watched his fail it failures happening you know like i had opportunities to then go ahead and save him but like it just wasn't worth it because my game is more valuable than his at the end of the day yeah i want to talk more about that because we really see lottie

[00:39:44] put in a concerted effort in the next episode to keep harry to the point where she even is like pushing against asha a little bit at least some tension there were you making any similar overtures to try to keep harry in the game despite the fact that everything seemed to be mounting against him it really got away from harry when he threw that vote on loz to get back in with jackson like he didn't need to do that like he okay made sense for jackson but like there was some like

[00:40:14] that was on the eliza vote but like it just loz and lindle thought therefore was like simon harry loz and lindle like that was kind of a four there from there and my perspective as well but harry didn't see that the same way that i saw it and the importance there so harry burning that bridge disgruntled loz so much and almost like ruined my relationship there and then uh asha came up to me

[00:40:44] was like i knew i know you threw that vote on jack on on loz like and you said you and i'm like and then i went straight up to harry and i'm like grabbed him by metaphorically grabbed him by the ear and dragged him up and be like you go back to asha and you tell you tell asha that you threw that vote on it because i am not taking the you know the downfall for this like i know exactly what you're doing right now but like um yeah like there were those steps had already been made and he'd

[00:41:11] already made his bed and it's like there were opportunities to like divert the course of it but i needed to do it subtly and i couldn't do it i couldn't i couldn't be out with the advocating for it because i was just aware aware of like where my um where my place was in the tribe and you know you started to there was overall there was a sentiment of newbies versus returnees for this season even on such an early it was always gonna be a conversation right but this almost felt very much kick-started

[00:41:41] that conversation at that tribal council oh my god it was it was even a thing beforehand like you know people knew that were the four returnees but the numbers didn't stack up but it felt like a newbies versus returnees season that heroes versus villains never was when it was an even split so just knowing that like maybe being you know not isolated from harry or making him take the fall might have just been okay for my game i feel like that was kind of like pardon me i feel like that was

[00:42:11] kind of um uh rebound like a couple people have said the same things and they're kind of confessionals you know stuff like that so yeah it it worked out well but it was a heartbreaking one to to see harry go down like that like it was it was tough yeah talk to me about you obviously emotionally embrace him in that moment asha actually makes a crack right i'm like i didn't realize they were that close how much did that surprise you like did because obviously it seems like there were some

[00:42:41] of those uh those secretive comments made about rice that did not make the edit like were you actually able to keep your tightness under the radar or was that more so just a crack made about how tight you guys were out there well yeah so we did have the um we did have the rice communication um it was actually more of like a an off-camera thing like you know when we like when the cameras leave in the morning and you can go and you've got you know you're in marshalling at camp and you're not allowed to talk

[00:43:09] about the game but you know harry and i were able to just do a little check-in while we're eating our the um go off to the challenge like that was kind of when that really kind of came into effect um but yeah it was a great little plan by harry um but then um what was the second part of that one well about the um so when asha makes this comment like yes sorry is this a flag of like okay the two

[00:43:34] of you were actually able to keep how tight you were undercover well i think that the fact that people were even willing to like throw harry's name out in front of me i think that was a real like testament to how well harry and i had like kind of kept that under wraps to an extent um it wasn't it wasn't completely under wraps but it wasn't at the people didn't see harry and i as each other's

[00:44:01] number ones right like and and that in itself is a huge success for us so yeah but like a great great result um and then it's not surprising seeing um you know asha's kind of reaction there it's probably just more so like disappointing that like i mean you've got newbies that don't understand the gravitas

[00:44:25] of the game right now versus you know i knew how much like it even harry being one of my favorite players like you know from seasons one to five when before i got my grubby mitts on this show um and then see him his dream go down in flames or out in flames was uh you know it was really tough um and just it was emotional for me like emotional seeing my friend lose their their their you know their

[00:44:53] their shot their dream and stuff and being partly responsible for it as well it was it was tough um and on that that vote like i think that um okay i i really felt like and you'll be see that you know lot is pitching back to asha to be like hang on it's not the right time kind of thing i really felt like that night as much as asha and cameron were pushing for um harry to go home i really felt

[00:45:19] going into that that it would have was going to be jackson kind of naturally there um i think we had like a lot like laws and lindal were probably a bit more on the fence about it but harry had made some con like some um you know the harry's interaction with lindal had made her a little bit uncomfortable lindal was actually come out after the fact and said that she was willing to she would have been willing to play her idol for harry if right yeah he hadn't yeah if he hadn't

[00:45:46] been so awkward about it and i you know i went into that hopefully voting for for jackson there to keep harry but then after seeing the blackmail pitch go down it just is a bit distasteful it did like entertaining and i'm so glad that like you know harry went out in a moment and had a special tv moment as well like because he is he's an entertainer like you know he play plays hard he wasn't

[00:46:14] just gonna you know just leave it all the chance um but i i felt the room move um and you know people got behind jackson in and in that moment and i had to change my vote at tribal without actually speaking to anyone and just and to wake up with the numbers at the end well yeah you talk about waking up with the numbers if bounty is stuck together if there was no swap and you went back

[00:46:41] to tribal council who do you think would have gone because this is when lottie sits you down and is sort of like hey you're my number one but also like asha's kind of sketching me out a little bit did you feel like there was going to be any big vote happening if you guys went back again hang on so sorry which uh which like if you had gone back again you know lottie and asha as you mentioned were sort of bristling before swap so who before swap yeah who was the last one to go

[00:47:08] from our tribe then so yeah so if harry left and then you go back let's say you go back in episode jackson i think like you know it was out of harry and jackson i don't think jackson had made enough inroads back after that to to get back in i feel like he was kind of like he like he came back into the fold with me like i was definitely there to just scoop him up um but in terms of keeping the there was a notion of like the the hive mind that got spoken quite a lot about at tribal council i'm not

[00:47:37] sure of how many people like reflected on that um and there was you know you don't want to upset the apple cart and lottie had a lot of influence but asha was queen bee and she didn't know it which is crazy insane but she didn't realize that influence that she had over it all and that her sentiment and thoughts towards people had so much influence in the tribe which was kind of crazy

[00:48:03] but yeah i think that jackson would have gone home at that time yeah i think jackson would have gone home next well luckily for jackson you get a change in scenery here let's get sorry just like on that point jackson was targeted very like there were always people who wanted jackson gone the very like in the first tribal like so first scramble cameron comes up to me and says he wants to do something big once jackson gone like his name was always thrown around so i think there's like just an impressive

[00:48:33] part of his survival story of getting through so far like laws wanted him gone like the entire time ended up working with him and then you know then still wanted him gone like it was just he had faced so much adversity to be able to get through i thought that was quite quite impressive and worth noting so as you make the crossover from bounty to baron you certainly are still bountiful i think in terms of connection but what was your early sense of where you stood in this tribe obviously you had a lot of

[00:49:02] people coming over from bounty you're gonna have some new friends you're gonna make in new baron what was your sense on the relationships you had in those early days yeah look as someone who in my last season came into a tribe swap in the minority of a three six so now being in a majority six three was great um i yeah like it was nice not to get swap screwed and then after like having a really

[00:49:32] really textbook good opening you know innings for me i was like it was i you know everything was really going my way like it couldn't have gone anymore perfectly for me i'd kind of say with like where my position was in the tribe like having a lot of you know trust and adding a lot of value to people um asha was definitely in charge like there's no there's yeah but she didn't she still had her

[00:49:58] blinkers on and she didn't have a complete awareness of the game and what was happening at that point in time lottie was my number one um and that was like very much solidified and lottie had a very close relationship with asha and cameron as well so that was like i knew it was kind of safe within that and i i really felt that like at the time lottie was advocating for me and she she had a lot of self-doubt around like her ability and the challenges and saying that you know i kept skull

[00:50:25] dragging her through them looking out for her and she was worried about her challenge for us but she was so fine like she was she was so yeah she definitely standing around two feet like i definitely helped her like on the on the way through but yeah she was so fine um but i was adding value to her and then just the amount of like the influence that asha and lottie had together was so big um then so

[00:50:49] yeah within the bounty six yeah lottie and asha like at the top cameron was just a plus one for asha essentially um i had a good relationship with was um jackson lottie was my number one uh i had devoted my um was showing my devotion to her earlier on um but after i think it was like it might have

[00:51:16] been on the the pull of vote where i tapped her on the shoulder side whatever happens tonight i'm voting with you like i need to solidify my relationship with with um asha i need to i'm going to vote with you that's how much i want to prove my loyalty to you and that ended up paying dividends and i had a good relationship with camera there so i was like so sweet in the middle and we have blanche bannon brooke come over immediately like get to spend some time with brooke like she's in a tough spot like let's see

[00:51:45] what i can do like i am choosing to invest in a shield strategy at this this point um knowing that knowing and for seeing and someone who's lived through a difficult spot and has a say a challenge bees coming into a you know uh uh an end game you want other big challenge challenge bees big players around especially you know being a third time player now like that was a that was just such a huge

[00:52:11] part of just something that you can't hide like regardless right um so it was it was in my best interest to look after brooke at the same time and you know we also paid dividends with relationships on the other side too um and as soon as we hit that beach it was it was really quite clear cut as as the edit kind of showed the story we hit the beach ash body cameron ash kind of dictated what was going down

[00:52:39] we vote brooke out immediately we throw the first challenge not even like no consideration what do we think hey how good's our new tribe like we won a majority it's like brooke's going home immediately so just yeah bread bread crumbing like breadcrumb jackson breadcrumb like hey loz did you get asked what your opinion was like how are you feeling like what do you think i spent so much time in those conversations like speaking up give it like making space for loz to have an opportunity like asking hey

[00:53:05] like publicly in the forum how do you feel about about this and stuff and then having like that taken away from her like was you know was like well this is an opportunity for me right um and then seeing you know jackson and ben had um uh you know a relationship there and yeah but loz and loz and jackson was a bit of the question mark because loz wanted jackson gone and jackson didn't care about loz

[00:53:31] so there was a bit of an awkward how does this kind of come together but then seeing asha's blinkers for throw the challenge take brooke out was just like i i can't work with this moving forward in the long run like it it's not going to work for my game and if she decides that she wants me gone that's not going to be great and also we're just merged like i have played this game before i need

[00:53:57] the experience of a returning player like is it's light and day not a day compared to you know a newbie but like there are six tribal councils maybe between now and merge but like we do not want to we don't need to race to tribal council regardless of how much strength you think our tribe may have stranger things have happened and like i very much so am a big believer in the fact that it is

[00:54:22] at times better for your game to just not be at tribal than to try to be there and controlling where things go if you end up at tribal yeah roll with the punches but like if you can and if you can avoid it then yeah because you never know what can happen and then it became very clear that you know asha is not going to work for me and i'm just lucky that i had a couple of challenges that you know

[00:54:47] we had the opportunity to win and not end up at at tribal and so that kind of you know bought me a bit of time to you know work not i didn't have to work on brooke it was it was fine but it was more like have the opportunity for the beauty and the beast to come together and i i i hot take i really think that if jackson didn't make it to the final two how much that would have probably reflected more on me

[00:55:16] and how much of an influence that i had on stitching that together um look there are a lot of dots out there that needed to happen but like i connected them like and i'm not saying that like i'm the only one who made it happen but i had the most to gain and the most to lose by making that happen and like trying to get loz and jackson together and peeled off away from that like it was a huge kind of

[00:55:42] you know it didn't it didn't just happen overnight there was a lot of groundwork that kind of came into that so i was just really uh i was just really proud of how well i threaded that and pulled that off and that's why that was so important to me because it was one time that like i had really just individually moved and shaped and and had people and manipulated people and you bought the horse to water

[00:56:09] to actually you know drink and that came at my hands and worked for my game and then you know along the the duration of uh of that period that like i was able to you know when the the fire challenge kind of came back around and you know i didn't want to throw the challenge to send new brookal asher home it's like if i'm going to blindside asher i'm going to make asher

[00:56:36] throw the challenge to you know because it's just it's more politic right and it all kind of it came off so well so seeing that come together as it did just worked so well for my game and then just had to deal with the fallout from it yeah i mean there's a lot there i mean let's stick on beauty in the middle here because yeah to your point from our perspective it seemed like it was more so jackson being like all right time for me to take advantage of a new situation but give me your

[00:57:02] perspective on this was this something that you had like once as you mentioned you had said okay asha is not necessarily good for my my long-term game did you specifically say okay these are the five what was the plan that you had come up with to be able to bring this together and how long did it actually end up taking to actually have you become a majority here yeah um it look it it didn't take long

[00:57:27] to realize what that asha was she was just very fixated she had the blinkers on she just when she had something in her head she just couldn't let it go and there was no compromising or maneuvering around and that was just a giant red flag for me and i hope that if she ever plays again that she'll be able to like address that um and hopefully as a returnee like she will be able to um but it it didn't take long with my motivation to like i was doing everything i could to work out how can i

[00:57:56] how can i save brooke how can i save brooke and just not be you know not lose another returnee right now um and just it took 36 hours being on the beach to see the opportunity and then maybe a little bit longer to like breadcrumb those people to the you know to the to get them to the water kind of thing right um and as soon as i kind of saw it all happen it was like it was it was so clear i'm like i can

[00:58:25] i i know what i need to do i now just need some time to make it happen and then as soon as we all got together it was within it must be within the first two days of being on the beach like it might have been even that night that everyone like the other tribe were at tribal council there but like that plan was solidified and blanche very quickly just was became with asha like and it was like you

[00:58:49] know asha asha um blanche cameron and and not so much lody but they were like it became a three and then lody would you know was there and then also with me and um it it yeah it was when we didn't go to tribal council for like a week right like it was a long time and asha was like we we hadn't even

[00:59:14] we hadn't tested our our tribe asha was like calling so many people for chats and just bouncing around the beach like a ping pong ball um like a pinball just going to everyone and like like how what are you talking about with so many different people and then going back to the same people that like it's it's too much well what are you like trying to get out here but just like the yeah paddling like crazy but going nowhere for no reason so it was like just

[00:59:42] so many alarm bells there but the beauty of it that the fact that ash was speaking to so many people it kind of created this culture of and you know blanche so you know ash and lody would be off chatting and then cameron and blanche would then go and have a chat and we were just left in camp like we had with that one chat at night and then we were just left in camp so many times together and they talk about like how are they operating how did they get you know ash was so confused in a

[01:00:12] in an exit interviews but i don't know how they were pulling that off but like we were in we were the only ones left in camp because you were working you were talking to your number one ally with the camera i just left us there and we were able to just like look around gave each other a nod but like we're still on i'm like yep and you know it was it was a tough spot to be in for me to like keep it cool for not keep it cool for that long but to like just not give anything away and there were like

[01:00:41] little sniffs like bits and pieces like you know cameron you know he kind of spoke about it at tribal council and lody was a you know lody said she couldn't put her finger on it but like we were operating underneath their noses and pulled it off like seamlessly so it was like it was really cool just really cool like survivor play and you know a poetic blonde side there well while you were making all these machinations happen something that probably complicated matters would be what is happening

[01:01:07] on the other side let's get into the rich of it all here simon because this is a relationship that will seemingly be important for this at least the idea of it right it is yeah okay you keep talking to mark about keep rich here there's people saying we need to keep rich here because i want to work with simon so talk to me about the bond you guys formed on bounty 1.0 and as much as you were talking about how you did not want to throw the challenges in those first couple of instances

[01:01:34] what was your reaction when he is telling you i'm in danger please throw the challenge sorry bro you're gonna sort it out for yourself man um no he was like rich was very much so like um like i like he he wasn't my number one on paper but he was a very important person for me and we had a very special connection that i just knew how valuable he was to my game but i knew that but the good

[01:02:04] thing with rich is like he just didn't he didn't require as much energy like i didn't have to invest in him as much as i did other people to know that he was always there for me like we had like he was just such a he's such a great guy has such a great passion for this game of survivor it just resonated through him and we just connected and bonded so tightly so it was it was amazing i had some great time

[01:02:27] within and i just i could see how important he was for my game um when we got split up it was heartbreaking to see him you know absolutely swap screwed and a really tough spot with with lindal over there um but it raised some new opportunities for me and the first was like i had opportunities to chat to mark and um it was a bit of a test mark at the same time to be like hey can you save like can you

[01:02:54] save rich and mark was like can you you know can you save my girl brooke it's like you know we saw we saw mark's mark's confession confessionals like you know just have his infatuation with brooke so it became it became a pretty easy one because i already wanted to do that but at the same time was like how willing is mark to look after my guy how can i actually test mark in this game and see that

[01:03:19] you know is he actually willing to follow through with looking after rich um and you know rich was like important important but not imperative to like i wasn't placing all my eggs in his basket on the other side there's like i could cherish my own relationships when i can but as an extra lever i can pull like yeah let's see how that kind of goes there and it just i had these opportunities like kind

[01:03:44] of line up where it's like i had this you know with mark being like look after rich and then in the bluffing challenge it's like why it's so stupid to in my opinion to do a brooke and to like for a piece of pie and so i'm like i'm not gonna play that like 100 be like i can be a man of my word i can show that i'm a trustworthy player in front of everyone and display that to not raise any more question marks as a

[01:04:09] three-time returning player and just and show that i'm loyal to rich as well and um uh you know mark wasn't you can see like you know back in the edit that he wasn't um uh you know held bent on that he even spoke about like hey i can deal with the fallout there but that would have been a really good like litmus test to see how much mark was willing to like i don't listen to i don't take that on board

[01:04:38] and he definitely sold it back to me like hey i you know when it when the when it counted you know after merge be like hey i looked after you guy rich like you know let's go um so you know kind of you know caught me off guard a little bit there but um it was it was good i wasn't willing to throw a challenge for him like to do it like no because like at the end of the day it's like it's just it's too important to for me like you're not gonna put your own game before someone else is

[01:05:02] there i had a in one of the challenges i had a i had that coral the fake idol that i ended up yeah usually i had it in my budgie smugglers um during one of the challenges i just didn't get a chance to hand it over to rich and i just all i would have needed to say was like um you know you know what to do with this and he's got a great survivor mind to be able to go off and do his thing

[01:05:25] um yeah it was very much so like a really really valuable relationship to me and i i knew that looking after that was going to was good for my public image within the contestants and good for you know my game if he happens to go through um but yeah it wasn't meant to be the case all right simon let's get into one of the first opportunities where you get your hand for lack of better term

[01:05:52] caught in the cookie jar here let's talk about this this fire challenge because yeah you were sitting here at tribal council now you were sort of making plans on plans right because you didn't know what the twist would entail with both tribes going yes and then you're told okay the twist is one person from each tribe it's going to make fire it's the same twist from australia versus the world so you said again you would never necessarily throw a challenge here you once have had your cake needed to but but talk to me about what was going through your head here i mean you have

[01:06:22] people literally on both shoulders from different sides whispering to you to throw this so that they can vote the other person out were you debating at one point even like not stepping up for the fire making challenge just so you could wash your hands of the situation no not at all i was always gonna like always going to do it if i if my tribe if i had the support of my tribe um but like

[01:06:46] as a returning player like you just like i've seen and watched enough of this show and been a part of it to know that like when these twists kind of come up like when there's a twist on a twist like uh just you know things just it's just alarm bells ring right like you just don't have all the cards in your hands to make that decision so to have like i don't know people just seem so i mean they were talking about it but seemed so okay with like oh this is just what it's going to be and i'm like no

[01:07:15] you guys don't understand like we're not necessarily done here and sure enough we had a fire like you know we didn't all vote together like we had a there was another twist in there and i'm like we have to factor in contingency plans to an extent you can't just think that like oh that's it and that was kind of frustrating of and to see the newbies just react like that then when it kind of came down to it um and that was getting floated i look if someone had stood up and advocated be like

[01:07:44] no way simon's doing this challenge like he's like not going to throw it um but that was kind of a it's kind of a good thing for my character to know that like simon doesn't throw challenges and that's the perception of it where in reality simon likes avoiding tribal council like that's that's that at the crux of it but like for the right reason yeah like why not but it became very clear to me

[01:08:14] that once i worked out like how it was all kind of happening and going to go down i'm like i i'd seen stranger things happen and i didn't want to give away my necklace before we on a winter fire you know and i knew that i had a feeling i think i even asked like can i can i give away my necklace because it's like i think ash was already pressuring me into um you know

[01:08:39] trying to give it away and so i think i asked the question the producers and um phoebe just recited the rules to me i've been like you can do whatever with immunity or with the necklace until the votes are you know until we go until david says okay it's time to vote so i'm like okay great well i will use you know that information and my knowledge of the game to do whatever i need to do so i wasn't willing to give it away then um ever throw that but then i have a chance to then influence the game in a way

[01:09:07] that works for me specifically and when there's so much going on i have a tendency i'm not i'm not quick on my on my feet mike it's a bit of a um uh yeah i'm just not not not great at it i'm not i'm not as nowhere near as quick as george and i'd love i'd love to be but it's just not the way that i'm cut out um so i like to sit back and like take on the information work out what's going on decode it

[01:09:33] all try processes as quick as i quick as i can and then make a decision so i was sitting back taking all this in and being like i feel like i will be able to do this challenge but there's a lot happening right now and then to be able to do it i'm like okay well i can save my entire tribe and get away from this i can hand my necklace to rich which is such a big pinch point and the whole

[01:09:58] motivation of why ash is asking me to throw the challenge in the first place and then like and then we can we can go like we've still got another couple of like tribal council like we got a couple more votes before merge unless it's a giant merge vote and then this whole thing's null and void like it's it's we can throw another one it doesn't need to be tonight there is no rush here um and it it worked

[01:10:24] out perfectly i'm like i i really struggled with the with fire like that night like the conditions were appalling like it was windy it was it was tough um and you know you see lody go oh yeah he's throwing it and i'm like i'm actually trying my hardest but thank you for these are kind of helping the perception being like oh of course like you know simon looks like he's throwing it but mark was taking too long and then he went ahead and did it and then like yeah i won great we all get safe and

[01:10:49] then yeah i had the moment with rich to save him and even again another show of public um uh publicly to show that like i'm trustworthy i'm doing something for someone else here and there was no skin off my nose but it it worked well for my game and yeah it was just so funny that like my entire tribe were upset that i yeah but i had thrown it and saved everyone like only simon could

[01:11:17] do that right like well there was one other person that you was upset with with something that you did what was your reaction when you stand up and faith who you had only recently become acquainted with is trying to stop you in the moment from giving the necklace to rich man that was crazy i was like i'm so infatuated with the character of faith in the way that she played i loved watching her on tv from the other side of because when we watch you know you don't know really know the other

[01:11:45] tribes you only know basically intel from matt chat no but even though i'm probably talking about like actually watching it back and i'm like you know on this side like i just love her character who's so like confident and just boisterous and like just like oozing confidence and playing the game in a way that i never could i think that's why i like i like watching those characters but then in the moment

[01:12:09] being like what the fuck are you doing and why are you so like why are you is this really the way that you're playing this game like you just like there is no there is no mutual benefit to me from you persuading me this way i i truly believe the information that's come to light after the fact that that was that's just faith's way of communicating she's like you don't actually need to give rich the necklace he is okay it's not and so there actually was truth to that and i

[01:12:37] don't think that you know he was going home that actually would have been would have been tez anyway um but such a wild like interaction to be at the forefront of and to be on the receiving end being like holy crap like are you talking to me in a like in a game that we vote people off and have like a jury vote for a winner this is the way that you're choosing to communicate and it's just faith

[01:13:03] and i absolutely love that but like deep down i was like oh well i don't trust her for one bit but that was her utmost sincere moment trying to genuinely convince me to that i i am okay as opposed to trying to pull the wool over my eyes go yeah so you talk about this again the pure irony of saving your entire tribe but perhaps angering them all in the process because of the various things they want to do which they'll get to do for lack of a better term in the next episode i mean

[01:13:32] did you feel like this changed the way people were looking at you at all did you feel like you were in any more danger because of what you were doing with that fire making slightly yes but the thing that helped me here was that asha had the blinkers on and just wanted brook gone so bad like we'd won she's like we'll deal with simon later brook is the primary focus right now exactly

[01:13:56] like it was so it made it so easy like her obsession with brook was just a nice amount of coverage and shade for me so like i kind of the fallout from that wasn't as bad as what i expected and they're like god if there's any anyone who can like go back and grovel and you know work their butt off after tribal council like it's me like i'm not the best at it but i've had to do it enough times that i'm

[01:14:22] well it was willing to keep trying you know so i'm never afraid of dealing dealing with fallouts and repercussions so as we get into the asha vote again this is something that had been a while in the making as much as you had tried to sort of delay the inevitable with not throwing these challenges but in the lead up to it was there any thought to trying to give lottie a heads up how much when actually push came to shove were you weighing like oh this could really piss off my number one

[01:14:52] ally oh it was it was the single biggest consideration for me in the game um it was like such a hard decision but a no-brainer at the same time um i think it's just experience that it came down to it it's like you know what when you have these opportunities to pivot and um you know you see a new path forward you can't have your cake and eat it too and like you know and they're not eating

[01:15:21] it too like i and i had had a lot of that in the first half of the game but that was a point where it's like i kind of had to pick a side here and like i don't know whether lottie would have you know been okay with the news like she said she like potentially could have been um but like you just don't know how people are feeling at that point in time and like you've just how many times have we seen you know the big mouth like blabber mouth like you know it blow up in their in their

[01:15:46] face or that person then is the one who ends up going home because someone's already you know throwing their name out and stuff and i knew that like they were just so close and um they had such a great relationship and you know they got along like a house on fire so it was like whilst i really felt like you know i mean lottie was my number one that yeah my game was just more important there and like just it's just that wisdom that you have as a returnee to being like if you're doing this you do it properly and you you have to deal with it um and like it did become a bit of a

[01:16:13] you know lottie did become a bit of like a a a loose end like bit of the monkey on my back like you know later on um and you know it's a tough decision to go you know do you actually have to deal with this now and i was just kind of lucky that there was like another distraction of jackson that lottie wanted jackson gone because she was disgruntled by the way that jackson was acting

[01:16:37] and treating a couple of people um for a couple of like just minor in camp interactions like just off the cuff comments and stuff that you know weren't like you know mean or or anything but just like kind of caught a couple of people off guard or just sat the wrong way with people that was just enough sucking up enough attention that was kind of deal with jackson and then me so another

[01:17:04] instance of that so i kind of got got lucky there yeah so i mean again did the fallout from like the actual reactions the comment of he's dead to me did that match up to what you anticipated her reaction would be what was the damage control like with lottie over the next few days yeah she was pretty like she's pretty like straightforward like she calls um a spade and you know uh a fucking shovel which

[01:17:33] is always pretty funny so i'm like you know she called me a dog like she knew like i knew she was pissed um and it was like it was definitely sitting in the back of my mind because we still have that conversation with jackson i'm like what about the fallout with lottie from you know she's still part of our original bounty and he's like i don't care and i'm like this is all on me like this is this is for me to deal with um so it was yeah it was a tough one but i just i i yeah thank god for

[01:18:01] jackson for actually like just you know just kind of pissing off a couple people that was just he was then he was the next one in front of me so it was just yeah just kind of nice to have a bit of coverage there when you kind of when you're in those situations and that that's the kind of stuff you can't plan like you know there's going to be fallout you know there's repercussions um you don't know how disgruntled people are going to be um and you know but lottie was

[01:18:30] she was appreciative of the game she understood it was a game and not taking things like she was going to take it personally yeah you don't like you dogged me but you're not it's it didn't take all the way from the shine for the overall mission for what she was trying to achieve and i was still valuable to her and you know you sometimes you're better off still having a someone who you've kind of worked with and he's been there for you and with you just then had

[01:18:56] like a different motivation there as opposed as opposed to i don't know there's so many scenarios right so i think i just got i i just got lucky having having another distraction and having a someone bigger a bigger target than me and someone who was investing in a shield strategy it was just nice to catch a break i'll throw another scenario in front of you all i'll again ask let's say that you did now the next couple tribal councils are weird but let's say it's like a

[01:19:23] regular degular tribal council after this asha vote you're going back to tribal you do promise laudy as a bit of a make good here okay next time i promise laws and i will flip we will take out jackson what do you think the vote would have been would you actually have done that or would beauty and the beast have taken out blanche or her or cameron i'm still probably still on the fence about this one and kind of glad i never had to cross that bridge and probably haven't put

[01:19:47] too much thought into it um i you know i try not to dwell too much on sliding doors mike but i think that i like if i could have got away with keeping brooke in a way that you know keeping brooke and lottie i that would have kind of been enough but i think that it would yeah it probably has been

[01:20:12] jackson oh it would have been ideal but i feel like i feel like on paper that would have been benefit to me taking out jackson he didn't have a lot more a lot of ties there if i could have if brooke had a brooke of course would have been okay with it but if i had been able to kind of keep brooke and ban on one side but then build some trust back with my ogs like with you know um ash uh that's what ash was gone with uh cameron lottie and then blanche by actually following through with

[01:20:41] something that i'd say i do to to rebuild trust um yeah i think that compromising on jackson giving where he giving the the wider relationships that he had in the game i will really only being with kind of ben and me would have been beneficial for me there but ultimately i am i am glad that i didn't have to make that decision at that point in time and when you once we once it got to merge it became

[01:21:08] clearer that like it was worth tying up the loose end with waddy so as much as you were adamantly about not throwing challenges you do get a very interesting opportunity served up to you right before the merge here all this redemption beach shenanigans are going down and you get told hey the tribe that loses this next challenge will go to tribal council but you won't be alone you'll be joined by keely and sally who don't have a vote and we see some legitimate discussion happening

[01:21:35] amongst your entire tribe seemingly about hey let's throw this challenge and then keely someone we could easily pick off so how close were you to actually doing that and taking out keely before the merge happened mike probably the closest i've ever been to throwing a challenge like i don't think that there's ever um yeah there's just never really been a better situation than that one to like that makes more sense for me to then you know actually consider like you know throwing a challenge and

[01:22:05] go to tribal council when you have an offering of a sitting duck uh or a pig with the apple in its mouth at like you know at your at your feet at the dinner table to actually you know take a huge chunk out of and it was keely was one hell of a tasty target at that point in time given that the information

[01:22:27] that we had um was that mark's running the tribe and it's very very clear of the size and the impact of across the entire game that mark was having he was um sucking so much oxygen out of the game from both both sides a giant storm over the the uh the island of samoa um and we know that mark had three girls with him sally keely um faith we didn't know what that pecking order looked like or what that was

[01:22:56] but we had information that keely but keely specifically wanted to take out mark like wanted to turn on mark or that there was motivation to take out mark at some stage which was kind of crazy for even me to kind of have that information there but like that i just felt like that was well known across the tribe so then to have an opportunity to like potentially de power mark a little bit

[01:23:23] was a huge consideration for me um and i had yeah like and i was in that position where i could have dropped the coconuts to you know just go ahead and i think have that moment i think that's where that was um and i had an opportunity to chat to mark about it as well and i i think that i think the other our tribe realized as well at that time that's like hang on simon's the one in the position of throwing

[01:23:50] the challenge right now it didn't really like we put him up for the hero position and i was like kind of nominated for that everyone just kind of looked at me went oh yeah it's simon but they didn't really something up it goes to you yeah but didn't really think about like oh hang on we there were some of us who actually might want to lose this one and it probably won't be simon and then you know next minute ben blanche and brooke like charge out of the water and like going up million miles an hour to like win this and the other tribe are also throwing and it's just like

[01:24:14] why are the other tribe throwing like what's like are they trying to say keely or you know what's going on here um and then i yeah it it was it was very tempting and i i'm not sure if i like regret not doing it but it's probably the closest i would have been to be like you know i probably it's probably something that i wish i had have done at the time to throw that but keely ended up being one

[01:24:43] of my best assets out there so i was gonna say you literally work alongside her in the very next vote yeah so it's like it like it's kind of crazy that like either that at that point in time on paper it would have been the best thing for me to do to you know to you not keely off her perch but it you know i wanted to kind of keep some face with mark as like i knew how much oxygen he was kind of taking out like i wanted to at least keep him happy as the as i invested in my shield strategy

[01:25:12] and yeah and like i'm like let them sort their shit out on the other tribe like they can go off and and do what they need to do and once we get to merge we'll we'll you know we'll deal with the fallout from there and oh my goodness wasn't that an interesting uh interesting couple of votes after after that saying um yeah seeing the fallout and what tes and faith going home after that so yeah it was faith it was faith yeah it was immediately faith though so then let's talk about yeah once you

[01:25:39] all meet up on the beach here because you you've got your fingers in a lot of different pies here right you obviously have beauty and the beast you and mark and brooke have this boomerang thing coming together you have this albeit right now tepid kind of relationship with lottie yeah so talk to me a bit about at the time the individual game began who were you gravitating towards the most which grouping were you feeling closest with and how much were your priorities shifting oh mike it was it was absolutely

[01:26:08] amazing going into merge in a position of a position of power position of influence and having great relationships across the board like i definitely you know severed a couple like you know here and there but it was just in games of survivor which i had gotten involved in like the whole way through like unless you do nothing you don't get to that point and not have a couple of disgruntled people to an

[01:26:32] extent right so i i had played the perfect the perfect first half of the game um in my opinion like i was just so freaking proud that everything that i had set out to do i had executed so well i articulated it well i the execution was great um oh it wasn't it wasn't perfect by any means but it was just very good even by by my sense and i'm like wow i have achieved so much here coming into it it was

[01:27:00] you know let's check in with mark and brock and see you know where we're out here um and this whole thing like the whole thing was kind of moving because merge was very much so on a lot of people's minds as it always is um the people around me with influence that had the biggest influence on my decisions on where i went was um loz as someone who had you know i'd been put so much energy into the

[01:27:28] entire game like way more energy than she deserved she got um just how but but i was willing to you know outwork and put that energy into her because it was you know hopefully going to keep paying dividends but it was a huge resource suck for me um loz with her initial idol swap with lindal and brook had a lot of motivation to go back and and wanted to team up with mark mark was one of the people

[01:27:55] she had a connection with from the other tribe when she went over and spent that night there right there was always like i would like to get if we get to merge i'd like to team up with mark i'm like okay that's great rich and mark had had a good relationship seemingly rich wasn't aware of how mark felt and i only know this now retrospectively but there was there was that was kind of good so i'm like okay

[01:28:21] i've saved brook i'm close with brook um you know mark loz rich and achilles you know in that and achilles and i just kicked it off like a um like a house on fire it was it was so great but very early on i think you know i had a conversation with mark and brook about you know where do we where do we go here or you have the returnees and stuff like that and then you know i said that you know i believe that from what loz has been telling me for so long that you know she's she's keen to get around this

[01:28:51] and rich was also very keen on it on the idea as well so we had this conversation at night um what was it i think was the first night of merge it might have been the i think we had after the merge feast god maybe it was the first night must have been the first yeah it must have been the first night first night emerged that we had mark keely brook myself and rich sat down at like 2 a.m for an hour

[01:29:20] hour a couple hours um underneath the tribe flag and essentially like pulled out like a play-by-play on how we want to actually like run this and pull this all together i knew that i had laws there because laws laws and rich was so close and i was so close with laws and laws had everything that she kind of i believe that she wanted like in that kind of point in time and so did rich like we were talking about what we can we can run this with a big majority and pick off from the outside and it made so

[01:29:48] much sense so rich had kind of sworn his devotion to you know to mark and myself and then the um the like after i saw everything like i can end up in a majority here and then i can like lottie doesn't become as valuable to me at this point in time the other piece of information that was critical was that lottie wanted back on lottie didn't want to be working with mark like there was

[01:30:16] so much conflict there between um ash lottie he's uh keely faith and then mark essentially and right i heard it that at that fire making tribal council there was a lot of back and forth between those two groups oh yeah and especially those girls there was yeah a lot of yeah just a lot of pent-up tension um and we're actually really robbed of seeing you know uh lottie arsh versus like keely

[01:30:42] faith clashing come um come uh so i apologize to the viewers because that would be amazing um but yeah lottie was like just very clear on like hey i don't want to like i don't want to work with mark i don't negotiate with terrorists i don't agree with the game he's playing i don't want that so as someone who was willing to invest in a shield strategy with mark then it just it it kind of

[01:31:06] cemented the fact that like that's not quite right for me i didn't expect to connect with keely and trust keely in a way so quickly that we just kind of got on and saw eye to eye and that was kind of like the like when i kind of realized and you should because there was a lot of buttering buttering up which was you know just a keely was very good at it and stuff but i could see through it but it's still

[01:31:32] like it was still a fun like almost she kind of poverty vibes like flirtatious way of kind of you know you're going across and you're stroking someone's ego and stuff so it was it was fun and then but realized that hang on there's there's some like serious like mutual benefit here right now and she didn't know where i kind of sat with lottie so i knew i had to kind of like when it became

[01:31:59] apparent to me for me to actually bring that up and like keely was quite surprised that like hang on isn't lottie your number one but i'm like yeah but it's a big loose end for me and we came into merge there and and mark was god so bloody hell bent coming into merge it's like sally has to go like it's got to be sally and i'm like okay like you could go to do your thing and then after speaking to keely was like maybe like i mean so i'm like is sally good for your game and and keely's like

[01:32:28] well i don't want her gone and i'm like she doesn't do anything for me but she's not a deterrent so like doesn't yeah like i'd rather keep sally around now and then i'm like yeah well i'm happy to tie like you know to tie up loose end with body and yeah it was kind of surprising and then we fed that back to mark and he was god we watched him just run around the beach and kind of confirmed the plans and then was able to like triangulate the information that like that was actually the name

[01:32:54] and the news that he was passing on and yeah mike just kind of we were able to set him up and he went and did the work for us and then got the was also seen to be like running that vote which was amazing so he was also taking a copping a lot of heat there um yeah so that's how it kind of came together and after that first vote i went like holy shit like this is really going my way like

[01:33:20] i've ended up here in a majority like we've got you know with um lot he's gone first i've got the biggest kind of deterrent there like off my or biggest no not a red flag but you know an amber flag for me like i'm kind of taking care of that and now i kind of have some free breathing room here ended up in majority and then it kind of leads into the next vote where it was where laws and what i'm sure we're about to speak about it um did you want to ask your question then i can probably

[01:33:48] no i mean let's let's get into it because yeah you're you're setting this up beautifully simon you're a natural narrator because you're like everything was going my way finally for the first time in survivor history yeah things start going for lack of a better term kaput and it seems like from our perspective it was okay it seems like there's this new group of basically head office and beauty and the beast working together did you have a sense early on that things would

[01:34:14] immediately turn so anti-returny as they did did you feel that tension existing even in the lotty vote oh the tension was there the entire time like there was no and i i feel like like mark has a lot to to answer for here as well just the way that he you know found himself playing the size of the game that he did like that was it was huge um and even just the conversation

[01:34:38] of brook being such a big target for you know asha and you know asha and co was just uh you know mark needs to go brook needs to go ah i yeah i felt that it was there's you know it was only a matter of time until you know really came to a head but i thought i i thought

[01:35:03] we were in a position where we'd done so well to negate that and that's why you know i could really see that in the kind of final straw was like you know i kind of pitched lottie as the leader of the resistance because she was the the um had the most influence over those kind of newbies so i bring you know bring them all together she can rally a troop like she's very good like that so it made sense to get rid of her to kind of give myself some breathing room but now i had rich

[01:35:30] and loz back together and with us was like this is fantastic but then after you know you know then then you know mark's run this for it and then there's a you know ben starts going oh i'm not sure if this is really like you know going my way that then the opportunity for loz and rich to potentially flip back the other way like when that news came about i was just so i was so confused

[01:35:58] mike the fact that look we had a vote under our belt and everything that loz had told me about what her intentions were and how much work i'd put into her to get her back to mark and to have this like it was it was just so out of the blue that she kind of came back to me and turned around and said like i'm you know uh you know i think we we we vote mark i'm like what what has changed for you

[01:36:27] and then she had this new fire or you know in a she had an independent thought for the first time which was like as someone as someone who'd been leading that horse to water like was hang on like hang on you're not meant to like yeah okay what are you doing like this is not how this goes like i've helped you like so much and now like your first independent thought is like just not gonna help me it was looked after you for so long it was like damn what's happening here right now um and and and

[01:36:53] look without going into the detail loss was going through a bit of a tough time uh at that that that point in time um and it you just this little breeze came through of potentially mark and then all of a sudden she just went with the breeze and that was like kind of really disappointing rich i didn't i didn't expect rich after sitting down with us that night for a couple of hours like

[01:37:18] outlaying of you know laying out how everything was going to go together and his allegiance to us and me and you know he was you know between simon and rich could bring walls into this and we're gonna have the vote under our belt but then for rich to turn around and be like no we're going mark i'm like what do you mean okay how does that turn for you it's like we've got the numbers i'm like but you and laws are the swing like you've got you've got the power to decide but we have we're sitting here with

[01:37:46] this and so that was really like i obviously got that information where you know rich and laws both came up to me and told me this and i'm going hang on like how like what's changed for you to just yeah to have like to to make that like snap decision and it just felt so out of the blue and it was just so disheartened because like everything i'd worked so hard for so hard for in the first half of this game

[01:38:10] came unraveled like at this this point in time um yeah yeah as they they swung away from me um and um yeah i probably might throw it over to you for the next question to see where you want to go to from here well i'm curious because you've they're claiming that they're just going with the breeze were you ever debating going with the breeze before i even get into the shenanigans of this tribal council but rich tells you it's going to be mark were you giving any consideration to like

[01:38:37] let me just go with you know the thing i've got going on with ben and jackson and rich and laws and turn on mark here yeah 100 it was definitely a huge consideration for me like i was definitely thinking about it and um like in my own head i was flip-flopping at that tribal council being like holy shit like i'm not sure if this like yeah like i'd love to have mark as a shield just because the

[01:39:03] new like the newbies want him gone so badly right now but as soon as he's gone i know that you know my name very quickly moves up the list which became so evidently true it wasn't even funny um but like i i um i i was before i found out about his idol like i know i've i i had that uh that fake coral i don't know if i slipped him just as a like i just had it up my sleeve never knew i thought i was going to give it to rich but i just had it there like just in case i'm like just as a way to

[01:39:32] you know just as an option to be like you never know what can happen and what tools you have up your sleeve but like if mark had been able to do something with that to throw some people off and maybe you know cause a bit of confusion like or even just attract a bit of attention like not a bad thing but then when he actually showed me the real idol i was like wow at this point in time like rich is rich is gone from me here like i cannot go with him but now i know that mark has

[01:40:01] an idol so mark's not going home and i feel like my clarity of the bigger picture was swayed with that information at that point in time whether when it became very much a survival you know i can make it i can make it through here and like i know that mark won't be going home regardless with this now he knows and i'm like you know i said to mark and

[01:40:26] brooke i'm like hey i think this ship's sailing like rich and loz definitely gone you know and i had a i had a final pitch with rich and i said like mate like i'm calling in all my receipts everything that i've done for you you know giving you the lollies advocating for you at tribe swap giving you the necklace everything that i have done for you i'm calling it all back like i am laying it all out here

[01:40:53] i need you and he turned around in to my face and said i can't do it and that was just heartbreaking but like i knew that he had you know you got to play your own game that's fine i you know i didn't think it was gonna be the right decision but rich had also been very clearly said to me that like we might not always vote together but i will always be there for you and so i had a little bit

[01:41:20] of reassurance than that it was just it was just tough when i wasn't like when i needed him the most he wasn't there um yeah and it you know the thing kind of fall out then then happens here and all like you know mark's mark's got about a thousand things going on as he's trying to like strong arm ben um i've thrown him a fake idol he's got a real idol and then he's trying to like got everything going on and then he's working out that rich isn't there with him and stuff like that um

[01:41:49] i yeah i i then yeah just made the decision being like you know what like this is where i finally after walking the tightrope for 30 something day or 30 days uh 20 maybe 20 yeah early 28 29 days or something i finally make my bed like this is where it you know it comes to a you know i have to choose a camp here um and thinking that you know what rich i can i can patch things up with rich

[01:42:15] i can you know i can patch things up with laws or i can i can go from here and then when um you know mark turns around to us as you know keely simon brook mark mark turns around he goes um i you know like i'm like why don't we just stick with the plan send ben home and he's like nah it's got to be rich and i'm like okay like that's like can we like can we do a compromise can we do lots

[01:42:43] boz is also flipped away from us here right after saying she's going to be with us he's like nah it's got to be rich and i'm like well this isn't good for my game mark actually called rich a c-bomb at that like two to us on the down low and i was like holy crap mark's just called someone a c-bomb on national tv and it obviously doesn't go there but like he's not fucking around right now

[01:43:08] yeah right there is no there is no there is no negotiation there is no like he's seeing red he's highly emotional at this point in time and i'm going holy crap like i i know why i want rich here right now but like this is what's happening like this is how i am going to wake up tomorrow

[01:43:35] and sure enough like after that like you know yeah my um you know mark turns around burns like burns me with the coral like with the the fake idol in a way that was like man i'm if i'm the one who's stuck by you and all this i really didn't think that you needed to to do that right now to take me down a peg um and yeah and then just to vote rich out out of spite where rich probably

[01:44:02] like rich could have been like it could have cut like if we had taken like out ben like it could like rich would have could have come back into the fold he could have gone either way he was definitely like a swing but like yeah and one of the other things mark said was like we don't if we don't we don't need an ally right rich when you know you ask for him you know you need him in the the most dire situation like he's a he's a piss weak ally like why don't like just we vote him out now i was like no like i don't want that and sure enough sure enough we did and um you know there was so much

[01:44:32] going on at the moment like oh yeah probably didn't see the big picture for what that could have been um and you know i could have like i probably could have like devoted mark like with you know in in as an alternative to know that i could have been there know that he wasn't going home that night and kind of kept a foot in both camps to an extent knowing that you know he kind of shown us that but like yeah it was just a it all kind of came to a head there and there was a lot going on um it was

[01:45:02] very very heated very heated so then what was the damage control like with ben and jackson specifically which is weird right because like you didn't necessarily vote against ben but this is going to become a recurring storyline is that you are trying to you know maintain that we still have a good relationship but that you keep voting separately from them so what was the fallout like with them in the aftermath of that yeah um big like if they weren't obviously weren't happy it's

[01:45:32] like hang on you said you were gonna like i actually don't well yeah i could did i did say i was gonna i'm like i don't think i ever confirmed but it was so clear that like you know ben obviously told me like hey the plan's mark like we're going mark like it's happening i'm like oh shit okay like yeah um and i remember just having to accept it at the time being like okay this is i can agree to this plan right now and i can deal with the consequences and when i came to deal with the consequences yeah they weren't happy they're like why would you do this and then like

[01:46:02] the fact that one of them wasn't idled out was oh god it's like and then rich goes home was like the worst case scenario for me but the my only saving grace here was the fact that mark was still in the game and everyone hated mark like it was just so much distaste towards him from now the newbies that he'd like he'd sucked up so much oxygen from the game and like and was really kind of

[01:46:27] controlling the votes and now now controlling the votes from a majority like when everyone's trying to send him home like it was a very clear message and he's still muddling with things like it was it was huge so i was very glad that i had had him there to like just again just be lucky to have people with blinkers on looking that way and not at me but knowing that that was coming right i could

[01:46:51] now it was apparent that i'm now on the bottom with the returning alliance with the number one target who's like a sitting duck without an idol like it's not a good sign so like i've got some work to do here and i'm gonna have to have to grovel so yeah i i definitely tried to you know own it and be like look yeah i i you know i had intention to but then i found out about the idol and you know it is what it is but like the reality of it is like you you know you vote one way you've got

[01:47:20] to kind of deal with it and own that and i feel like there was a lot of like as much as jackson and and bam were kind of laughing me like i don't trust the word he says but still the one-armed man in the in the fan in the newspaper factory i think yeah yeah i still knew that that was like potentially going to be an option so like and we still got along like well like there was so i i i just knew that i couldn't ever shut that i'm never gonna want people to shut the door but like there's always the most

[01:47:47] inviting one to keep trying to go back to which like you obviously saw that i kept doing did you get the sense you mentioned this before that people were so adamantly against you in that round that we see even mark is like brooke keely they're all saying yeah we need to turn on simon eventually did were you surprised at all and did you even discover in the moment before everything turned that you were public enemy number one for a brief portion of time in that episode i think um i think

[01:48:16] mark had like as a way to manage the under like in our um uh minority alliance had said that oh yes i'm going to pitch you and you pitch me and we'll try to i don't know create some you know just uh you did um do a bit of a uh bit of a split there between us to i don't know see if we can get in with caleb to blah blah blah so like that was the narrative but even after speaking to ben and jackson

[01:48:45] like it just i knew that mark was throwing my name out there but it's actually kind of weird that i was never really worried about it like it wasn't because of what mark had done and the impact he had on the game he was still a bigger target there so i like i i actually didn't feel compromised or worried at that point in time as well um even though i knew he was running around like yelling out my name

[01:49:15] and ben and jackson were like agreeing to it i think that was you know the same way that you just agree to a plan um and i think they'd later confirm that as well in another conversation that you know if that's included where i then go and speak to ben and jackson after mark goes and speaks to ben and jackson like it kind of sucks the life out of the the episode in that storyline or the anticipation building into tribal council but it became very clear and apparent about where that was sitting

[01:49:42] um for me there it's all right so let's get into what ends up being your final week of episodes in the game here and this is you know in a postmark world and like you say uh part of trying to recover your game involved going to some of these bounty 1.0 baron 2.0 players who you had burned a couple times i want to focus in on a couple of these relationships let's go back to the laws topic here because it's interesting for you to illuminate you know the fact that the two of you were tight

[01:50:11] because here we get you know this kind of tense conversation where she says well i have options you're like well you might not have many options this is the infamous like stuff you simon confessional so what was your dynamic like at this point because it does seem like from our perspective whatever goodwill and you know strong dynamics you had up to that point it kind of fizzled out by now

[01:50:34] yeah um i think like loz was very disheartened the fact that like um you know i i mean i'd always try to like look out for her but i'd never done any like i'd never followed her um i i if she wanted like when she wanted jackson gone she i never rallied people to help out with that plan

[01:51:00] and i always put it back to her being like look i get i get that loz but that you want jackson gone but if you want that you've got to put in some work yourself you have to go out and speak to people and like you know who have you spoken to to get this plan it's like oh i'm thinking about going this and i'm like you haven't done it like you have to you can't just operate through me and i think we see that moment where she actually speaks to ben and saying i've operated a lot through simon but

[01:51:29] now i'm coming to you know actually speak to you for the first time myself kind of thing like there are elements of that that kind of get shown so like it was um and again for her like it's kind of she's in a spot of frustration and then from my point of view like now you know she's we were so close and have worked so closely together and then she has dropped changed away from the plan that

[01:51:58] we were working towards together but she's holding me quite responsible for then you're voting out rich which i i get obviously did that but she she's really disappointed that i've then voted out her other number one in the game of of richard um and it it just wasn't fair to like be copying that much kind of resentment and frustration when like i yeah i just had to yeah the amount of work that i put into to loz and she was just not reciprocating that the social work that i was putting in

[01:52:29] um so at that point in time she's like oh simon like i will um you know i'd love to like i still want to work with you i still you know but like it just like not just like not just now i need i need to speak to some other people first i haven't spoken to anyone um was actually one of the the thing the exact thing she said is like i haven't spoken to anyone i'll speak to them and

[01:52:54] come back to them like well go and do that because right now in this scramble you're wasting my time like i'm on the bottom here trying to come up with an option and if you're just just you're saying that like you you might go speak to someone and then come back and see where everyone's sitting but and not doing that you're not helping me right now and it's not adding value to me and i'm at the point now i'm not gonna i'm gonna i need to stop investing and putting energy into this relationship because

[01:53:23] it is like the resource is becoming too draining on the time that i have out here and for what i have so i'm like happy to you know just sit that on the bookshelf and i need to like focus elsewhere and and which is tough because like yeah i had put so much effort into it and it did pay you know it it never really fully paid the dividend that i wanted it to but it was it was it was helpful

[01:53:47] i guess so i don't i don't regret putting the energy into laws but it was um yeah i never fully got the pay out there what about cameron because we see him say multiple times simon keeps breaking my trust you were at least partially responsible for you know his two allies going here what was your relationship like yeah my relationship with cameron was like was really good on a on a surface like

[01:54:13] surface level like i always put a lot of time into you know making sure that you know he felt heard i was you know trying to justify for like it gave him a lot of context into my thinking as to why i was doing the things that i was doing and um you know trying to bring along for like that understanding of why it was and he was like quite receptive to those big long apology chats but trying to like you know

[01:54:41] at the same time like installing um hope and faith into like you know our relationship of being like hey we can do this like i know of oh you know i've known like burnt you multiple times but i still invest in us and like i'm still here looking out for you um and i always i never gave up hope on him like i always wanted him to to you know just to just not to cruise along and then disappear i didn't

[01:55:07] want him to just fade to black you know as a because it's heartbreaking to see as you know you everyone's out there for the same amount of time giving the same amount of confessionals but then if you're not doing anything and playing the game in a way that you're changing the game you don't you don't get that benefit on the other end on the tv side of things and that kind of perception is really hard to

[01:55:33] um or that kind of like context is really hard to communicate to someone in the moment um and cameron also had some pretty uh it was just so okay he had a bit of i don't think necessarily overhang from ash but a similar kind of like blinkers on it needs to happen this way kind of thing and and and like he just always i think he wrote down in his journal before playing that like i want to vote

[01:56:00] out simon yeah he said like they had like a burn book right before the season yeah and it's just like in a game for a game with the grab it like it didn't have a i don't think like he had the context over the gravitas of what he was playing and for half a million dollars as well like what you actually need to do to get there so it was always a kind of option for me but he just it was always kind of closed off for him um and it was like it was really hard to see like the amount of times that like

[01:56:29] he got diddled like you know pulled his pants down like so many times and and made him look like a fool um but you know i think i think i said to him like there's like a you know fool me once shan on you fool me twice shan on me fool me three times you know fool me four times like maybe you should actually wake up and like pay attention but maybe there are you know maybe there are some better options there um so it was like it was definitely jaded and like as it went on it was kind of getting

[01:56:54] further and further away from from from that and at this point they kind of like became this now these returnees are now in a minority and we are being we are frustrating the absolute hell out of these newbies like they're splitting they can't get it right they're not splitting and they can't get it right like we just we how are we how are we losing numbers from our own side in my in a majority

[01:57:22] and just that kind of banding together of the underdogs who were never in an underdog position were um were it was quite just solidifying and just hard to kind of crack we were able to chip away at it from club kaput but not in a way that was ever to seize enough control

[01:57:45] so uh you go to this reward and under the breaking of bread meatball feast you make this offer that you will pull two rocks if two people flip at this moment when did you come up with this plan and did you expect anyone to take the deal albeit days later at that point yeah no mike so i actually pitched that

[01:58:11] um like you just have to make the most of any moment and opportunity like in in this game and the thing that i kind of noticed uh that like this these newbie crew needed time to process and think about things so and like you know i kind of learned and had a lot of a lot of time with loz where i was trying to give her 48 hours notice on where things were going um and just trying to make sure that like

[01:58:40] they had time to think about like they weren't just acting on a whim like there were times when sally like sally just couldn't just like just come up like and just like jump onto a plan at that time she like even though when things were all up in the air she didn't really know it was safe to do nothing like it was safe to just like withhold as opposed to like step out into the spotlight for so

[01:59:03] many of them and um i knew i needed time for people to think about this so before that reward challenges david's introducing it i took a moment i'm like yeah i think he asked me a question and i just completely went off and said like i pitched to the entire group in front of dave in front of production and everyone but everyone was there a public pitch to be like we're coming into a tight spot

[01:59:27] i if we go to rocks if anyone flips over to you know to our tribe at a you know from a six four to a five five i will pull your rock if we get there so this was made to everyone in the game not just the people on the reward correct absolutely everyone um so i think that was like one of the first of the simon speeches that people were you know angry but hey i'm on the bottom i've got nothing to lose like i'm going to do whatever i can and you know people need time to think about this

[01:59:57] and to go what does this actually you know what does this mean like what does what does it mean for me what are the implications like can i do something and you know it's been speaking a lot about a tribal council about differentiation because it was so clear that you could really throw a blanket over these these newbies these passengers that you know one's really doing too much so how can i get them thinking like yeah it's obviously a risky move and it doesn't really make sense on paper but how can

[02:00:25] really incentivize someone to make this move with a level of safety that's not compromising to them where i take you know take the the fall and um like i knew there was a bit of a white lie in there about like in the in the rules um but like the extent of it like this game is run by producers and you never really know what like you know there is a like there are a couple rules in there and one

[02:00:51] of them is like i think it's very top like all rules are at the discretion of the producers and their decision is final so even like at the very end when you know i didn't even know if it was going to be you know okay we're going to rocks taking a rock or not okay i still didn't know if yes that was the rules that you can't take someone else's rock but i was never completely out of the clear of like if i actually could and or would have that opportunity if like if i was going to be unable to and just have

[02:01:16] to eat my words so it wasn't a hollow threat as such it was definitely a white lie but like just throwing absolutely everything at it and that's why like at that reward challenge it's kind of it's we kind of recap it but it's kind of it's brought up in a bit of a weird way because of i've already pitched to everyone and i've laid out what the lay of the land is it is kind of six four and you know

[02:01:43] if we can get something going like yeah like i'd love a yeah an opportunity to you know to prove that yeah i'm you know i'm worth the risk all right well let's get into this absolutely wild tribal council let's set the record straight here simon at what point did you learn about a keely's real idol and b

[02:02:07] keely's fake idol oh i'm sure this will blow up a couple people's minds here so the reward challenge where keely picked up the fake idol sorry the reward challenge where keely picked up the real idol from the bottom of the um uh hourglass i grab keely as we are walking it's really funny we're walking out a challenge i know we've won i know we're going to and we you know we drew rocks for these six that were going on this high t reward um i was in split minds between like at this point

[02:02:37] in time not knowing which way i wanted to go with like brook and keely or with jackson and ben and in the split decisions we're walking out to challenge to go back into marshalling i grabbed i'm like i'm like fuck it i'm gonna like there's something about keely i just i think keely's the right person to be playing this game with and after everything we've kind of been through i grab

[02:03:02] it and i go pick the when we go to choose sticks choose the one that's closest to my thumb in my index finger like don't choose that one and you know when we go there it's like oh how are we going to choose the order like already forecasting potentially what could be the way how we decide you know who goes first who goes last what's it going to be i put the longest stick in the shortest stick in the like the closest two to my palm and then the other big ones there and said wait

[02:03:30] he's first you guys pick and at the time i didn't know is the first or the last stick going to be better to have a chance at finding an idol or an advantage or something like that i can take myself out of this by being the one to let the people choose sticks but giving the information to keely to be like we need one of the two of us to at least be first or last give us a crack there sure enough

[02:03:56] keely pulls last she finds the she's wearing my singlet like where she finds when she does that when she loses her croc climbing into the rice um she finds it she walks back in the camp and i'm like or walks back into um where we're waiting with the camera and people coming in she walks back she's covered in rice and i just like i think it was the first one to give her a hug and i'm like

[02:04:23] come in and brush it off her shoulder and her hand she's like thank you um and i knew i can you pretty i'm like yeah and she talked later on that night she's like i found it i'm like okay amazing great so i know about a real idol um and which was phenomenal and she's like and i've also got a fake idol she's like i think she wouldn't even tell me no it's probably around it might have been the day before it might have been at that time but she told us off like it was it was probably

[02:04:50] one of my like my off-camera slip-ups that you know i never we never got around to redoing that one on camera but she told me about the fake idol that she jimmied off the thing so i'm like okay so she's got this and um so i i had all the cards in my hand at the time which is sometimes better to you know to have that information and um then going into that tribal council i had immunity

[02:05:15] and i kind of knew the lay of the land being like i can see where like brooke and keely are in a tough spot here and i'm obviously with them but i also am trying to build some trust with ben and jackson here forecasting where i'm going to be here tomorrow and hopefully brooke and keely aren't but like i need i need to pipe the fuck down right now and i need to just like take a back seat

[02:05:44] and let this kind of happen and let someone else take some attention because there's going to be some shenanigans there's going to be some idol play there's going to be a fake idol play and if i can just like sit back and act shocked and do my thing then it's going to it might just it might just help my case if with ben and jackson as well and sure enough like yeah i was a little bit disappointed how like in the edit just how left out i looked in the point in time without context

[02:06:11] um but it was a it was amazing like master class to watch keely as a you know returning player i love the fact we all just call her that she's so freaking good um we just got you know just watching her in full flight and just have the um you know the balls of steel as you know as everyone has kind of said that she just to play the idol for brooke there um and to yeah and it all just went across

[02:06:35] so well so yeah i had the i had the information and i was probably quite surprised why the brooke was so upset that i voted for her yeah talk to me about that yeah like i um the fact that like it opened up a the opportunity for us to like flip jackson she was still quite like yeah and even keely's probably more joking about it but you know they'll call me a wimp and stuff we're having a big laugh but i was like yeah they call you a traitor i think to your face

[02:07:05] yeah and like you know we we were like so frustrated with the the newbies and how they were kind of um yeah call themselves the underdogs and stuff like that like we were we were in the same camp we're on the bottom there like you know in the same same boat so like i was i was with them and but i just knew that i had to to get out of this situation we still needed another number

[02:07:30] we still needed someone else because like we're now out of idols and you know brooke wins immunity whatever then it's probably going to be me right it's a tough spot to be in so like having the having the foresight to be throwing that vote on brooke 72 hours before or you know 48 hours before it needed to happen for it to come back around and like help our alliance like i just

[02:07:53] you know i didn't expect her to be as like kind of bitter about it but yeah she kind of she she really was so um it yeah especially like you know i mean she's a returning player she knows what it's like to be on the bottom and to fight and for it to work out and i explained it and it you know like the discussion that we were having was like who's our biggest opportunity here like who you know who

[02:08:19] can we actually flip to come out or to come and work with us and um you know brooke was brooke and keely were kind of trying to go for cameron like i'd you know i i hadn't given up hope but i felt like i'd finally you burnt it with you know with him like there was probably not enough coming back from there um and he just wasn't serious about it but yeah brooke had this weird relationship with cameron where

[02:08:45] where it was so cameron had like cameron wanted brooke on so badly but joked about it so openly that maybe if they actually could have worked if he you know had it like it was still a long shot but i don't know yeah you probably needed cameron to be a bit more of a dynamic player in that moment to like to do something and it just was never going to happen but i saw that yeah

[02:09:11] jackson was the was the one who could could be an option right and um i saw what the mutual benefit was i saw what you know that what he had to gain with differentiation and to take a risk and to you know if all the big players got picked off that he'd be at the top of that and the the passengers would just you know be at the end and he wouldn't be so like it the foresight that i

[02:09:39] had to make that happen i like it was just incredible and then the execution to make it to actually pull it off at the same time it's like holy shit like that was that was like the social side of my redemption really kind of playing through like i've had a move i had a strategic move with asha under my belt now i have like a a fantastic social move that i have threaded

[02:10:03] over 72 hours like votes before putting things in place to come together so like well the asha vote i think will be my like my legacy move um and my poetic move there i feel like you know lining up jackson the way that that all kind of happened when it didn't really make sense for jackson is just like an amazing social like legacy move for me as well yeah we need to talk about this because it's one thing to convince jackson to flip it's another one to have him flip on his number one ally someone that

[02:10:33] you have seen firsthand like get close with starting on baron 2.0 so what what was the i guess the initial set of pitches that you were giving and we certainly get from our perspective at least confessionals of jackson outright being like ha fat chance simon you're barking up the wrong tree did you get the sense over the course of the afternoon that you were moving the needle at all well it like it was a it was a long time coming like you know it as i said like it wasn't just like that afternoon

[02:11:02] like that it happened like there are a lot like the conversations that happened that afternoon were obviously shown but you know there was a a lot of time spent with jackson to just lead the horse to water i wasn't quite like i wasn't i wasn't playing a manipulation game but it was trying to play like a you know bring him into his own awareness as a survivor player in the bigger picture and where

[02:11:30] you kind of sit and what you need to do to actually have a chance at winning this thing but it was in a way that jackson was just the right kind of person to be receptive of it as an entertainer as like someone who was quickly learning the game and the ins and outs of it um and it was huge like to not many people

[02:11:54] can pitch someone's best friend to someone and have it like have it resonate but it it it was right in front of like the the other alternative was the fact that brooke goes simon goes ben or jackson go next after that and it just it was just like yeah he just he saw it as well as i guess as well as i could

[02:12:20] and so he knew it was there and then you know when i'm talking through it when he was the one who voiced himself that you know it's probably your biggest blind spot is probably right under your nose seeing him like get that and being like holy shit like i've actually done it and what it wasn't by any means like done and dusted and like there are definitely times like you know he'd be leaning into that going like simon's pitching me this like man like like what are you doing like but

[02:12:49] there was just that little seed enough like a little wedge like that you just or a little wedge that you're just driven into that crack to go like it might just be enough it might just sprout into an idea a fully fledged idea um so amazing um foreshadowing with the uh you know confessionals that he gave being like you know simon fat chance like what are you like you you idiot like you the mom telling you to go and clean your room like you're not going to do it and stuff like that

[02:13:18] and then that afternoon um you know just having the like the final the final chance to really make him think about it like we're running out of time like even at eight like when there's not many people left like there's only so many opportunities to to wiggle so he was definitely thinking about it and then the final pitch at tribal council i just i just yeah you just got to make the most of like those moments and jackson was just one who yeah i just

[02:13:46] had always had a good relationship with i'd always worked hard for i'd built some trust back up with the brooke vote and i just knew just speaking in his language as a performer just gave it gave a big serve of what he wanted like right in front of him and just it was it is incredible that he turned around and slammed the door in my face and said you know what like you know this is show business baby and he goes yeah and this is my show and it's brooke slams the door in my face and walks back

[02:14:14] to his seat and i go oh well that's done so yeah i was gonna say yeah how surprised were you when i've heard about this moment and through numerous people when he looks over at you all and actually mouths ben's name given the way that conversation ended did that take you by complete surprise it was it was like yeah i was like oh god that sucks but he went back to his seat and he sank he like he's

[02:14:40] he sat down and i knew i'd hit a nerve like i knew the cogs were turning he was thinking about it and then his body language changed like he looked so disappointed in himself and i was i'm like what is he oh my god and then he goes he looks at me and he just he didn't even mouth it he just he just

[02:15:05] gave the slightest smallest nod and this just look of it was really emotional like it was it was a really really hard decision for him and i um i like it i remember it just so vividly like seeing his demeanor change searing he's seeing his like aura like leave his body and just being like a broken soul already that he was like coming to terms with what he was going to do and i turn around to kill in and

[02:15:30] go holy fuck it's happening like it's happening i'm like oh my god it's happening and i i i couldn't believe it like i yeah it was just insane and when as he walked back from the voting booth didn't look at anyone he just dragged his feet back i'm like come in man like like give us some kind of like you're you're about to vote brook out like give us some performance there but that was nothing like it was

[02:15:58] so hard for him and he he did it and i did it and like you know what like that is you know he makes it to the end it's his move and i'll you know he's it's still very much his decision is part of it but i'll make it to the end i'll make it to the end with jackson holy shit that's my move you know like it's really really special to to see that kind of move and happen in the in the um the theater of tribal

[02:16:24] council so uh here we go we get into the final eight simon where it all goes down so it's interesting that you broke this up in our exit interview that you jackson was pitching brook that despite this idea they're like okay now jackson's welcome into club kaput it's the four of you that he still did want brook out so was the sense that the four of you were sticking together

[02:16:49] until a certain point or was this for you a little bit of getting back into that mindset of like all right got to negotiate this relationship with brook and keely while also keeping jackson at bay despite the fact that he still wants to go for brook yeah so this is so i i think it was like he's trying to jam so much into that exit yeah so yeah yeah no that's all right but to like a little bit further context it's like that not where he's turned on ben he's like jackson's so adamant on getting

[02:17:16] brook out like he wanted brook gone he didn't really want to play with brook at this point in time so after that and then like the night before we go to the challenge for our final eight like that night it was about 3 a.m the sun was just about to start coming up which the night producers can't film that anymore because the light plays with their infrared cameras a little bit too much but i've had

[02:17:40] jackson down on the beach and kind of went like i've given him uh you know he's come across i've given him his family reward like we've been there like he's still kind of you know and the information i had like he wants brook gone so i floated like an end game pitch with to jackson to be like look you have given me so much i will take your rock i will um i'll give you my i will vote for you at

[02:18:08] the end and you know like let's get this done like i will i will move on you know we're working backwards as well from like you know five you throw four five six seven like brook's probably motivated to turn on me at some stage as a you know as a challenge beast down the tracks of working back or we can get the jump i know you want to get her out so like i floated the idea to jackson as a

[02:18:37] way of like you know when when the time is right like potentially it's like i said that brook is probably motivated to move on me at seven uh or moving me immediately down the track so i can like get the jump on her at seven and um and it just doesn't weigh it being like oh you know i'm going all in on jackson here like the whole thing is going all in with jackson as opposed to like

[02:19:01] voting brook out next right and um uh jackson took that information and went straight to back to brook and said oh yes i'm once you have seven oh so that's so brook kind of brook had that info like that's the only way that could have got out and that became quite evident in brook's in brook's exits and stuff so i only found that out like i think i might have found out in julia or

[02:19:26] whatever but like um you know that kind of became clear then and what that looked like so that 360 from jackson kind of caught me by surprise as well just how like i know like i thought he came he came with you know with simon brook and keely but i thought he like i thought he was kind of coming back with me a lot in that as kind of his thought i would have been his number one within that um that

[02:19:52] scenario so that was a bit of a misread by me there and just the wrong kind of pitch like i shouldn't like you know probably the i use the information that i have with his intentions relaying his information back to him which ended up biting me in the butt all right so seems like rocks might actually be happening here brook wins immunity cameron pulls you aside and says

[02:20:22] the votes are on keely and this seems to light a bit of a fire under you because you're like crap i might actually have to draw a rock now i have to sort of face the consequence of even though to your point you were sort of just gonna wait and then play dumb for lack of a better term when it ended up happening what made you believe cameron saying that the vote was on keely considering the uh rather contentious dynamic the two of you had at that point i just i think there was enough of like a

[02:20:49] us and them enough of a stalemate to to think that what we actually could get through to that that point and the motivation for the votes to be on keely which actually leave me exposed to be the one drawing rocks so there was enough logic there from the way he explained it but it wasn't it was it was a lot more simple in his head and not that complicated um cameron also had

[02:21:17] some fucking stupid pitch to me about have you heard about this no he like cameron there was this whole at my final tribal council and i'm so freaking glad that the whole this whole saga didn't make it into the edit because it was so stupid cameron gave me like this fake idol and like literally like a piece of coral wrapped in canvas so i'm like okay wonder where you got this idea from um and was like i'm

[02:21:41] gonna give this to you but like i want you to play it and like pretend it's real and then i can like convince my crew that you've got a fake idol and then we can like we can vote out keely and then you vote for keely but then i am the one who convinces you to fight and i'm like this doesn't make any sense and here i am just like keely and i just going along with this well no things telling me

[02:22:07] and then i relate it and like i'm just going along with this stupid cameron idea um and so the plan that he was kind of pitching to me that we see on the edit is like this cleaned up version from a bloody stupid plan about some fake idol that is just it's just embarrassing it would have been embarrassing and i'm really glad like for his sake and for mine that like that kind of shenanigans wasn't in there so then at the point he was like i think someone's got a fake idol i'm like

[02:22:37] i think i stood up i threw it in the fire with the and pulled it out and was like through the through the coral away through the canvas in the fire and i said to cameron mate if you actually want to play with me vote with me oh you know and yeah so that kind of you know that's kind of how that ended and it was you know just another just like the final straw for for that and then sure enough like they put the votes on me i don't know if that changed or if i was just always the primary

[02:23:02] target there but i feel like retrospectively from what i've been able to piece together like brooke may like brooke obviously found that information out about me telling jackson about maybe we you know we've got to be considerate about brooke um that then brooke was motivated like you know when she had the shot and she knew that she wasn't going far and you know she had a streak

[02:23:29] of not winning the necklaces and she needed to like she took her shot there and and went for it and you know like i think the the comments of what people said about you know is that a good or a bad move for for brooke kind of speak for themselves um which is that why you gave her the standing ovation you're like yes you understand now no that was just a that was just a standing to like to applaud like a you know 100 day player who had played a phenomenal phenomenal game like god brooke was my

[02:23:58] like inspiration and idol like to to watch so it was just just a nice thing that had nothing to do with that um but yeah it was like oh yeah it was a i think it was a a short-sighted move from from brooke but with the information that she had like you know if you know that someone has floated your name it's probably not a bad thing to to move on especially at that point in the game and if you think you can win every challenge then you know absolutely go for it but it's a absolutely horrible

[02:24:23] um horrible tactic to ever try to implement because the game is built for so many different players and people yeah so that said when the votes come in and you're involved in the tie like in retrospect did you see anything change in brooke's demeanor that might have indicated she would have flipped what did you think the chances were that they that you would go to rocks and you would then de facto be safe to survive to the final seven i wasn't i was a little bit confused when i saw

[02:24:52] my name being like oh i didn't actually think that they like i actually thought i would have been up for rocks i was probably still a bit more nervous about that but brooke had a conversation with me in the afternoon which is a little bit like how are you feeling are you ready to go home like you know how you like we're as in kind of came about as like we're kaput but how are you feeling about it in general like our paths are you know we're running we're running out if we go home to rocks tonight

[02:25:20] how do you feel about that and i pulled on a big you know i kind of i read the situation i didn't know what to make of the situation but i knew that i needed to double down i think i pulled out the crocodile tears for that one to be like i'm not ready to go home like i'm you know we come so far like we're getting so close like i definitely i remember tearing up but that was a one of the few fake times i'd like i've really put on tears to you know to you know try to solidify um something

[02:25:49] there but she was sussing me out like now like i now identified that just because she had that information there and i didn't anticipate that getting back to her as as you know that kind of point in time so um that was probably the only thing but i there's nothing i could have done to change that anyway like i had already made had conversations with jackson and had the you know it's kind of gone

[02:26:16] that way and um yeah i mean as soon as my name came out like i don't know if brooke already knew that i might have i can't remember if i heard whispers retrospectively or or just after the fact if like you know brooke had maybe knowledge that it might have been my name in there and like if it was simon she'd be willing to actually throw one on i don't i don't know the the full ins and outs of that and

[02:26:45] yeah you probably probably better question for for brooke or someone else and um yeah like it yeah that she made a decision based on on that information which is i don't know the paper like what you have at the time there like fine but like yeah not great for the overall alliance like and i know that i i spoke to jackson about like i'm gonna you know i have to move to move potential on brooke at some stage like i mean god if we all want to win like we all have to vote everyone out at

[02:27:13] some stage right um but it we had worked so freaking hard to get off the bottom you know for so long and then to like fall to come so close even to get jackson to flip across that you know was all me then to like save brooke essentially like um it it was so we came so close and then i gave you know we were in a better position on roxy with brooke with the necklace like she had nothing to lose

[02:27:42] there so then you know it would have been keely or myself potentially pulling a rock you know and would yeah or you know jackson and myself like versus you know so two three chances of pull rock with a you know with a 40 chance of coming out of majority sorry 60 chance of coming out of majority so like those odds are good and i don't think i would have been willing to throw away a majority at that point in time like you just don't get to a majority at seven i need to go back to a

[02:28:11] three three split again and brooke did that again oh no well no brooke didn't but like she managed to vote cameron out but like it was um oh is that right is that she oh no she flipped yeah she yeah if you were taking take it by taking me out she put herself in a lower minority and then managed to get back to a three three yeah but like i don't know it's just yeah you say those things but like

[02:28:40] at the time like there are kind of having a couple of numbers at those critical points like you know seven five and through you know seven and five in particular or seven five nine like it's uh you want to you want to have some people with you so you've got to be on the right side of the numbers there yeah well let's briefly touch upon your final vote that you would cast in this season and i guess in your survivor career here it seemed natural from our perspective for you to vote for jackson you

[02:29:08] outright promised it but you even said right in your voting confessional for him like how much you admired watching him be able to sort of find his footing and grow into playing this game was it always as open and shut for you in those final days especially um like i um i've heard a couple of like bits and pieces about me being an advocate for for jackson in an injury but like i i i was there with him the whole way through i saw him you know change and flourish like you know on

[02:29:36] the way through his game but like i also didn't see caleb's game at all like i didn't really get to play with caleb or anything there and then i felt like with this even say some support from that mark was just so hell bent on caleb that even i almost felt like a little bit defensive in terms of being like hey you guys are going to consider like everything or you just might make your mind up for you know caleb i get why mark voted for caleb but then the others like you just vote for your

[02:30:05] friends like what's going on here so it was kind of like just i'll probably have that conversation with cameron more so than anyone else because i was his roommate in injury but just trying to get people to just consider like like just don't make up your decision before you hear someone's pitch right like because it's not all you just don't know what someone's going to say like you know we're all chasing the dragon with like you know the christy bennett like you know the final pitch like you know

[02:30:34] amazing to see like someone can articulate their story and kind of come up with you know how they're like amazing so like it wasn't all cut and dry for me and like because i hadn't seen caleb caleb's game like we hadn't played with each other like we had you know a top-line relationship but he wasn't ever giving me anything out there i know like the only time we've really had like interaction was like

[02:31:01] telling us that yeah he's going to vote with us to with you know with mark to vote i can't remember who we voted for that night but um you know i i'm like okay like i i i'm happy to believe you but i also have the necklace and i don't have like i don't have skin like don't have skin in the game like i'm not i'm not a gonna be a ricochet here either way so like i'm happy for mark to probably the mark vote yeah um you know happy for mark to go home here so that was kind of like sort of a glimpse of it but

[02:31:31] all the other times out there i didn't see that the you know the double-sided two-sided agent that caleb was you know it was playing i saw him you know running off and catching crabs or opening coconuts during the scramble and kind of not you know because even in that the bits that i saw on tv were like were um very interesting but i saw him like you initiate conversations then leave and disappear and there's a lot of him like floating around in the jungle like out there at that critical

[02:31:59] point so i was just you know i was always intrigued by you know when was he actually driving his game as opposed to just being a passenger like you know through it and just you know along for the ride and just ended up here at the end um and like i was very like i wanted to hear it like i wanted to hear caleb's story i wanted like what do you like what are you done like what do you know what's your big thing because mark had spoken so highly about it in jury mark wanted to get a t-shirt that said i

[02:32:27] love caleb and wear it to the final trial count or something like that like it was go full amber yeah it was crazy the whole like just yeah how in that camp he was there um so i'm like yeah show me tell me like i want to see this and unfortunately like the poor bugger like i mean he's kind of said it himself it was a shit pitch right and he just wasn't able to articulate that in its in itself so

[02:32:51] i just i couldn't after not seeing it and then not hearing it like it was just a i couldn't there was not even a consideration there to be able to vote for for caleb and um i was probably a little bit disappointed actually that that i don't know i grew up loving like you know in the old school even like i say australian survivor seasons one to five what inspired me but like that final pitch is

[02:33:17] always so imperative like it's so important and we've seen like they say you know christy bennett like do a you know do an amazing you know sort of flip the tides and um i don't know like it's such a like a big part of the game where you get to like tell everything that you haven't haven't done and maybe jackson's game was a little bit more visible but didn't have the friends there but he was so like humble and um like compassionate i felt like he was able to like you know when even when he was called

[02:33:45] out by blanche about not knowing things about him he like he owned his mistakes he like it was a a beautiful pitch on the way through but i think like there was some kind of frustrations in the same way that the newbies the underdogs were sick of my speeches were kind of sick of jackson's performative nature at the time and just voted for their friends so i was kind of like a bit upset to see like you know how like just that some people just like it went in was just like yeah like i'm

[02:34:13] just gonna vote for my friend we didn't see like there's no there was no there was no emphasis put on that final pitch because if there was it was a you know chalk and cheese compared to like the performances that night well the last thing i want to ask simon is uh going back to almost the very first thing we talked about here which is some of your final words that you end up saying and i will not interrupt you with a wayward boat horn here because you spoke so much about how you were

[02:34:40] inspired again like your your fandom absolutely shines through here by the people that you watched through these first five seasons yeah so what are you hoping your legacy across three seasons over a hundred days of australian survivor what do you hope your impact is on the next generation of australian survivor players i i really hope that people like lean in to the show and play for the right

[02:35:06] reasons um i hope that they you know you wear your heart on your sleeve you embrace your successes just as much and even more to embrace your failures um because yeah it's it's not easy out there and and it can yeah in terms of the like a legacy you just you go in and like just give it a crack and

[02:35:30] just make the most of every moment this is not a stepping stone for you know going on to other tv shows this is not a platform to make you an influencer this is not like going to you know change your life if you do not play the game in the first place like leaning to that make the most of that things might come but like do that first don't be worried about the other things down the track um in terms of legacy in the game

[02:36:00] like be creative like break you know break things where you can i handed the necklace over like to you know to rich like the first time that that had been done um you like how long has rocks the concept of rocks been around for but then like to break that concept that's been in the rule book and use it in a way that no one else has done in you know how many seasons of you know global survivor and 12 seasons of australian survivor no one's come up with that concept so some blue sky thinking in a way that

[02:36:29] when you're on the bottom like fighting for your life like i think that's really important um yeah and i hope that i hope that yeah people get creative and just and just make the most of it um and and respect the players who pass the way for for them respect your elders players yeah even the way they're like i just i hold the utmost respect the players from seasons one to five you know the

[02:36:56] the good the bad the ugly the the one the guinea pigs who you know put their time out there in the early days of you know of samoa and went through some pretty shit times to evolve this game from madechip and loyalty into the beast that it is today in an australian survivor and i'm yeah i'm just so proud that i have left you know uh i guess my mark on it in a way and have been a character that people

[02:37:21] have been able to cheer against or cheer for but have made them feel something um so yeah just just make the most of every single moment you have out there well i made the most of every single moment i had to sit down with you here simon and chew through this game because again the thing i absolutely adore about you is how much you will throw every single muscle organ bone into

[02:37:48] all things survivor it's clear like the passion absolute love you have for this game even if it doesn't love you back at certain points it's just so incredibly infectious and it makes me so happy to it's odd to say that you went out on top concern that you end up placing you know in a you don't end up winning but as you talked through a couple times like the redemption you were able to find along the way to be able to make this big vote happen from a strategic perspective to swing someone over to

[02:38:14] vote out their number one ally these are no small feats and so you know if this is i think i had like one of the greatest challenge runs as well yeah you want eight immunity challenges between you know only two times making the merge like there's a there's a lot to speak about here and i'm glad you're able to speak about it i'm so even though it does sadden me to know that there's you know a good chance that there might not be more of you to come regardless does not make me any more unhappy

[02:38:43] that we got to see you truly shine in this season and thank you so much for letting us in on some of those shining moments over the course of this conversation oh mate thank you so much for your time and yeah your your investment into um into australian survivor it's um it's so great to have like you know so much support in the community and um yeah it's been a wild a wild ride um and like i'm so excited we have so much great talent here in in australia and so many great players to um

[02:39:13] to you know to to come up and i'm looking forward to seeing you know who returns and how they return and how they grow as players um i can't wait to watch like you know all stars too from the comfort of my couch um and you know just enjoy it for what it is because i want my show back without me being in yeah that's not the same so yeah it's been great so thank you to everyone for for following along um you know and just loving this show as much as either because it's um it's really freaking cool

[02:39:42] well people want to check out all the praise you will lavish upon future seasons and much more how can people keep track of you on social media yeah instagram is really like where i'm at if you want to follow along my chippy adventures um simon.me89 um and i've also got some uh i got some snuffed hats going as well uh a few of them kicking around left they're all like 40 off as well um there are so many i have uh leftover in my garage downstairs that i need to um i need gone before my uh you were

[02:40:11] making promises to offer them to people on the island yeah i've sort of fit to send out to a couple people actually but i've um i mean i had so much going on over the last little bit uh you know in between the show going to air and you know working chippy job you know my uh content creator job and stuff and um yeah i've got a few going out but yeah it's been it's been a really cool way to like just make something that's bigger than me that the fans can kind of get around as well that

[02:40:39] that you know that just kind of embodies my passion for it as well and i've got those some of those stubby holders with my um with the uh the little tiki torch flames uh on it as well so i've got a few of them left that are going with the hats so yeah go check it out it means the world to me thank you for everyone who's grabbed one of those well can we give a shout out to like shannon we've missed uh as much i've loved uh i loved your coverage of the season mate it's been uh been fantastic i think you have some great great takes on it on it all and can really um you know just see through the

[02:41:09] the edit sometimes where you know we don't get the full context and stuff and i really like uh yeah you you definitely stood up for me a couple of times throughout the season as well so thank you very much for that um and uh yes i i i do miss shannon i do miss having shannon shannon around um so yeah can't wait to uh to have her back when she's when she's ready but uh we got a lot of mic and that was awesome well the pleasure was all mine man and thank you for helping

[02:41:34] contribute to making this truly a legendary season i'm for making this a legendary deep dive as well so let us know your thoughts in the comments people i'm sure you have plenty of them but don't let them be broadcast like a errant reddit topic on a future season of australian survivor all right let's be cordial here check out the other deep dives if you haven't yet i promise there's going to be at least one more in the pipeline as well so who's coming who's lost is it last one

[02:42:00] god we've got caleb we've got we're talking with the winner himself so uh our conversations about this season are not being snuffed anytime soon even even if uh my conversation with the man behind stuff will be so simon thank you again so much this was truly such a fantastic pleasure thank you all so much for listening as per usual until next time everybody take care bye bye 21 south african 12

[02:42:36] 1 million pounds you