RHAP: We Know Survivor - Christian Hubicki Postseason Interview

Episode Date: June 20, 2026

Christian Hubicki Postseason Interview Survivor 50’s game just got hotter as Rob Cesternino sits down with returning castaway Christian Hubicki for a post-season deep dive. Final Tribal Council secrets, boomerang idols, and a game-altering Jimmy Fallon twist take center stage as Christian shares his unfiltered thoughts and never-before-heard stories from the landmark season. Rob leads Christian through his journey, from the chaos of the finale’s swing votes to the unpredictable idol swaps and dramatic alliances that shaped Survivor 50. Christian explains how he, Emily, and Rick became the season’s kingmakers, why he confidently voted for Aubry at the end, and how using a cleverly disguised MP3 player let him capture his raw jury insights from Ponderosa. Christian also unpacks the complicated DVG3 swap, his tough call turning on Mike White with a legendary 3-2-1 split, and surviving the fallout with Ozzy after a strategic blindside. The episode spotlights wild moments like orchestrating a fake idol at Tribal Council with Rick, making a big pitch to work with Cirie from day one, and the jaw-dropping impact of the Jimmy Fallon journey twist. – Christian reveals the true story behind the finale’s close jury vote and what made Aubry’s game stand out – The unexpected ripple effect of sending Aubry the Billie Eilish boomerang idol – Christian details the 3-2-1 blindside of Mike White, and the emotional and strategic aftermath – How Rick and Christian engineered a fake idol find with a dramatic fall at Tribal – An in-depth look at Christian’s relationship-building attempts with Cirie and surviving the DVG3 swap As Christian breaks down where his gameplay soared and faltered, Rob and Christian dissect how Survivor 50’s wild advantages and evolving alliances reshaped the season. Did Christian’s bold strategic swings doom his game or set up a new Survivor playbook? And what would he do differently if he could go back to that fateful journey twist? Don’t miss this episode for a behind-the-scenes look at fake idols, swing votes, and the untold stories of Survivor 50’s biggest moves! Chapters: 0:00 Rob welcomes Christian post-Season 50 1:12 Breaking down the Survivor 50 jury vote 2:14 Why Christian chose Aubry to win 7:25 Christian’s Season 50 pregame & strategy 12:12 Planning to align with Cirie 16:02 Biggest regret: final day gameplay 18:38 Sending the idol to Aubry Bracco 21:02 Pulling off the fake idol prank 24:17 Navigating the tribe swap dynamics 27:25 Orchestrating Mike White’s blindside 34:39 Managing fallout with Mike and Ozzy 39:22 Surviving the pairs tribal with Jonathan 43:24 The lead-up to Christian’s blindside 50:29 Struggling with the Jimmy Fallon advantage 54:07 Jimmy Fallon’s twist and aftermath 57:12 Behind the scenes of the Fallon invite 1:00:41 Christian’s post-Survivor 50 projects To order Rob’s book, The Tribe and I Have Spoken, visit www.robhasabook.com Never miss a minute of RHAP’s extensive Survivor coverage! LISTEN: Subscribe to the Survivor podcast feed WATCH:  Watch and subscribe to the podcast on YouTube SUPPORT:  Become a RHAP Patron for bonus content, access to Facebook and Discord groups plus more great perks!

Hey, everybody, what's going on? Rob Cisternino, we're so excited here because we're catching up with our great friend who is so hot coming off of Season 50 of Survivor. Dr. Christian Hubicki. Christian, how are you? Frile to be here, Rob. It is, gosh, it's good to chat with you. Now the season is over and now there are no more secrets to be kept. And now everyone knows what happened and it's great to just dive in with you, you know?

Yeah. Okay. Well, we got a lot of stuff to cover. here today, but everything is going well after the season? Oh, fantastically. I'm thrilled. One, the semester is also over, in addition to Survivor 50. The finale was a blast.

It was great seeing everyone. You know, it went off without a hitch, of course. No problem, famously. But it was great seeing everyone. And I feel it's a great opportunity to, like, move on to the next thing. You know, and now it's summer, I'm doing a lot more kind of public science communication work. And so it's kind of a thrilling opportunity and sort of freeing, you know.

Well, I'd love to have you come back and do a whole podcast about what else is coming on after Survivor. I think we have unlimited time to do that in the future. But let's get into talking about the Survivor 50 of it all. And we came off of the finale

last month, and it was a jury vote that has been talked about to some degree. You were one of the people that was on the jury. I've looked at the block of you and Rick and Emily as the swing voters who kind of were going to decide this. I think it was also going to be the same case in terms of Jonathan versus Rizzo versus Joe. If that ended up being the final three, if Aubrey wasn't there, can you give us some of your insight? And you did such a great job of talking through

famously your vote for Mike White over Nick back in David, versus Goliath. So I have to imagine you put a lot of thought into Aubrey versus Jonathan. I did put a lot of thought in. I mean, to be fair, I think so much of the rest of the jury did too. But yeah, I really, I mean, I'm very confident in my vote and I did and I was at the time. And in fact, one thing I was kind of accidentally smart in doing is I brought with me to Ponderosa, an MP3 player, which I forgot to load any music on, but I did realize that afterwards

it was a voice recorder. I realized it was like, oh my goodness, this is also a voice recorder. So in the pregame and post game at Ponderosa, I was just dictating hours and hours of thoughts.

And this was really useful because I got like my contemporaneous thoughts right after the final tribal council vote as to why I voted for Aubrey. So in terms of logistics, what you're talking about, Rob, in terms of like me, Rick and Emily being the swing vote,

I mean, we viewed it kind of that way, too, at the time, to the point where we're looking at the people that were probably going to vote for Aubrey, the people were probably going to vote for Jonathan. We weren't sure, sure. Some of them we were very sure. But, like, we looked at the breakdown there and we said, hey, if the three of us keep our votes a secret and from each other as well, tell nobody, then no one will know who won the season. And so we swore each other the secrecy going into the tribal council. So we're not going to tell anyone who we voted for, not in each other. So I didn't know who they voted for until Jeff read the votes of tribal council. And it kind of was validating and that we all independently came to the same conclusion to vote for the same person. And in this case, in the form of Aubrey.

I remember I was talking with Emily before the vote. And I was like, oh, how do you feel about the vote? She's like, oh, I'm not fully sure about how I voted and how I feel about it. because she was worried that she might be like the swing vote that would literally tip it in one direction. But I think at the end, when we all kind of came to the same conclusion, the vote for Aubrey,

in a way it was validating. And yeah, we can get into why. I imagine that'll be sort of the next thing. Yeah. So, so like, and it's a little bit different than my first season

where Mike White, I was like, I'd walked away just sort of blown away. I like what Mike White did. And at the time, it really felt that way. And I maintained so much of what I said. With Aubrey,

it was a much sort of like, it was a much kind of, a messier sort of decision of a vote. But the reason that I recorded at the time is I really appreciated her zigging and zagging style of game. Like it was very clear to me, mostly because maybe I recognize it in myself of what I'm trying to do in a game of Survivor, where I'm kind of trying to jump around from vine to vine, when I need to, if I need to.

And she successfully pulled that off. And in a way that when, and it wasn't like she was just floating by, she was targeted. She was targeted multiple times throughout the vote. And so the reasoning I'm going through as I'm listening back to my reasoning for the first time in a year, by the way, in preparation for this podcast, like, yeah, it all kind of tracked with what I remembered, which was

that yes, she was targeted, but she found a way to say, okay, you know what, separating from Christian is probably the smart thing to do right now. I'll jump from there to there. That was good. I thought she did a really smart job with it. And it was intentional. I think it was, and it wasn't a perfect game

by any scratch. Certainly, there were a lot of things I noticed that like a couple of things was once she said she lied to me by why she didn't play her idol. I talked about that in the episode. Aubrey, do you think I'm stupid? And this came up at Final Tribal Council.

And she was like, I decided to play it off like I forgot. I was like, I said, Aubrey, it really came across like you thought we were stupid. And she was like, and she owned it. And in addition to that, a big one of the bigger things was the listening back, was the Ozzy vote. And this was what the information we had.

had going into the vote was like, that was a question. Who is responsible for the Ozzy vote? Who do we give credit for the Ozzie vote? And the tenor of the discussion is that it ended up being like, oh, this was Aubrey's move. That was something that was sort of the conclusion of what we talked about at tribal council. I think that it's a little bit hazy,

I think still as to what happened. But I remember that something on the clock, it's like, I feel I had to give more credit to Aubrey than to Jonathan, because that really was a domino. That sort of caused the rest of the game to fall down. So there was this role in this pivotal vote. and I was going back and I was listening to, yeah, and I remember that, you know,

Jonathan played a very good game. And I was like, I thought, specifically at Final Tribal Council when he talked about how he made up the D fight, he kind of staged that whole thing. Like, that's good. There's some intention there. And I think that with Jonathan also,

there's a little bit of Boston robiness to him. And before, without talking about him being, you know, coached under the tutelage of Boston Robb, he does have a similar style, where he leverages his power when he has it. If he feels like he has you over a barrel, he will kind of use that leverage. Like, okay, you've got to tell me this.

Or you got to do this for me, right? That's sort of a Boston Rob running the game kind of move. He had that sort of intention. So he was very much a viable candidate. But I think in the end, the fact that Arby was able to jump from vine to vine in a way that she was always on the right side of the votes really stood out to me as a reason to vote for her.

Okay, thank you for getting into that. Let's get it back to you and talk about you coming into Survivor 50. And you gave a great interview with Mike Bloom, about 35 minutes or so to kick off the preseason. And it was such a delight to hear you back talking about Survivor again. And all the things that you had been cooking up, we had no idea of when we would actually see in the season. But we knew you had been thinking a lot about season 50. Yeah, I mean, it was a very. different experience in my first season. My first season, I had no idea how I would even be received

on the island. And I talked about this to you before. We can rehash that at a later date, but I just didn't know. So I didn't have a very strong game plan going in this fiber game versus Goliath. I'll adapt and figure it out, you know, what the game is like. But this time, you knew who was going to be out there. The cast leaked like four days before we left. And I remember I was up late at night. My son Michael was like, I had to like rock them back to sleep. I put him down. I pulled out my iPad and had the list of all the alleged cast. And I started like categorizing people. Like how do I, I was trying to figure out who was on what tribe.

And I came with this sort of elaborate, this sort of hypothesis of trios. Now, I don't think literally Survivor cast in that exact way, but it's sort of a model for which I started thinking about how Survivor views us and why we are cast on the show the way that they are. What are we there to do? Like, because we're here to produce a TV out television show. and you're like, well, Jonathan, while he has a lot of talents, if he was not excellent in challenges, he would not be on the show. He's there because that's why he's a survivor player, but he's also got other talents, right?

Similarly, you know, something like Mike White, I think he's very talented at the game. He's very good, but also he's an excellent storyteller. He's great in the confessional. And once you start realizing that these are their superpowers that get them on the show, you start to realize, I started to kind of put together patterns of behavior as how they behave in the game. And which of these folks would be compatible with me

moving into a returning player season, which, by the way, I was terrified. I would go home early. Terrified. I had no idea what's going to happen this season. So how do I maximize my way of getting as far as possible to specifically get to the end? And if I don't have a path to the end, why am I here? Why am I leaving my son

if I don't have a path to the end and win? And what this ended up being is I ended up to say, this was really important in the pre-merge, because in the pre-merge, often, yes, you want to just get rid of people that are just not you and maybe don't want to work with you. So that way you can get to the merge.

This season, I was like, getting to the merge is not enough because I've experienced getting to the merge and being a giant target and being targeted over and over and over again and eventually it just gets you, right? So I was looking at these people on the beach and I'm like, okay, there are some people

I don't want to make the merch if I have anything to do about that about that. Even if I like them a lot, a great example is Q. Like Q is, I actually I had two days with Q. It's beautiful two days with Q. I love being with Q.

But I also saw how Q plays, and especially at the merge, he kind of admits this distortion field. I kind of categorized him as a character. He's there for the drama. He's also a smart guy. But like the, but he is,

but no strategy can happen around him that isn't somehow distorted by Q to do something else, right? And that was not going to be helpful for me at the merge. And in fact, everyone seems to want to take Q deeper. And so people like Q, who are being kept around, people want to keep them deeper, they are, as much as I love them, like strategically my enemy on a returning player season of Survivor,

because they're taking them of a spot that is not me. I am very likely to be targeted. And so I was trying to eliminate people who, once the merge hit, one, if they didn't want to work with me, they want to get rid of them. But also, they've taken up a spot for me,

then I should find a way to get them out if it's reasonable. Yeah. Besides Q, who else fit in that category? A big one was Angelina. And as much as I, you know, Angelina and I had a good relationship since David versus Goliath. We didn't talk very much, but it was,

but like I remember looking back on the season. She was one of the people that, she did a good job of David versus Goliath to always keeping the door open to want to working with me. And so I saw no reason to target her after a certain point, Daberg Gly. Like, oh, she wants a person that might want to work with me. Why would I target her?

And that's good on her. In hindsight, I was like, I should have targeted her because everyone else wanted her around once you got a certain depth in the game. So I was like, if there was an opportunity came up where Angelina might be a target to go pre-merge, she should go pre-merge for a number of reasons. That was one of them.

Okay. So one of the things you talked about in the preseason was that you really wanted to work with Surrey. You wanted to go to the end with Surrey because you felt like that you could offer something to Surrey that she never has. She never gets to the end. And you thought that your unique selling proposition

was, I'm not afraid to go to the end with you. Yes, and I was thrilled when I showed up on the beach on my starting beach, and I not only had Rick, who I was excited to work with, Emily, who I knew from Blood on the Clock Tower game as though we play on, you know, available on, as a podcast, a YouTube channel. You can watch.

And for the record, you did not, that's, put your hand on the tribe and I have spoken. Yes. You did, you did not have a pregame relationship with Rick Devin's? Not, well, I met Rich Evans, but we didn't strategize pregame. Like, we, like, so we would sound like we never texted. We absolutely texted. But there was no, like, Rick, when you and I get together, we're going to do X, Y, and Z.

We, like, we actually, he's trying to get me to do a talk at his university. He was at middle state Georgia University. So it's not like we didn't talk, to be clear. I should make that clear. I do wanted to disambiguate. Rick was kind of removed from a lot of the free gaming. I think if you talk with him, he would tell you that. But I would say I talk more with Emily flipping.

And we didn't talk strategy either, but it was mostly that we would touch base. And I think in part because she wanted me to make sure we were on a good page, even though she told me she would absolutely never go back on Survivor. And then she was going back on Survivor. I think she was worried that I'd see her as a liar or something for that. So she was very friendly. It's not a lie if you change your mind. There you go. Exactly.

Exactly. Rob. So when it comes to Surrey, though, I was on a beach with her. I'm like, oh, my God. And I'm thinking, because my big puzzle that I had in David versus Goliath, it may have not been true this season, was how to hell do I get the end of this game? Just like, like, if I'm ever in a position to win, I'm very likely to be targeted. if I get deep in the game and I'm likely to be targeted,

they will target me. It'll be very hard to get to the end. I need to find more people like that. One of them was Rick Devons. Rick Devons, and I thought that he was perfectly compatible. If I ended up on a beach with him, it's an easy sell.

And I want to give the same pitch to Surrey, which was that both of us are targeted constantly. And I did. I found her on day one, and I said, Surrey, I really want to talk to you. I've been wanting to talk to you this whole time. And I basically told it's like,

you may not, you know, it's like, you and I have, and I have different, we have the same problem to vastly different degrees. Both of us have never been able to penetrate the end of the game. And there will be time, and I am, and you might not believe me, but I'm crazy, you know, I would go to the end with you. You know, I would want to go to the end. And there will be times where you'll need my help to not be targeted. And there will be times I need your help to not be targeted. But then at some point, we will need each other. And so there was this this back and forth of

I pitch this back and forth and of course Cerey says yes because of course he's going to say yes knowing that she might go back to the professional and laugh at me but I knew I had to make kind of a big play like that. One thing, and as much as Ceri I do credit with a lot of my downfall later in the game, one thing she did say, I feel like in my boot episode

what she was like, there were times where Christian protected me and there were times where I protected Christian. And I was like, huh, I feel like what I said did sit in her mind a bit and there were certainly times where I went to bat to protect her, certainly

in the early, the first vote of the season, when Jenna was targeting her. And so I did make that pitch. That was something that I did as a big swing, but I should have cut bait on her earlier kind of mid-merge, knowing how

close, now realizing how close she was to Oz. Was there a specific point that you look back at that you think that this was the move where we should have gotten rid of Surrey? So, really the I regret almost nothing about this season up until my final day in the game day 18 and that's both me going on the on the Jimmy Fallon Advantage you know journey and telling Surrey about wanting to get rid of Ozzie I mean those are the two things I just like

and it's on like the last the last day those are the things I really regret and so um and seri might have been a good target at that vote because there was appetite for Surrey from some quarters, but I would have had to know where to go for that. So I wouldn't have gone for her earlier. I don't regret not taking her out first, to be honest. I think that it made all the sense in the world because she was in fact, in a world where Ceri is at, let's say, the merge, and we weren't close. I could have been someone she threw under the bus at the merge instead of D. I could have easily been that person. So I think that she wasn't trying to target me, at least for that period. But maybe on day 18, if I let other people build the vote, I could have banned wagoned on.

It would have been tricky at that point. You're coming off of the coach and Chrissy tribal council where you've spent a lot of social capital with lying to Jonathan and Joe is upset with Rick Devon. So you kind of need a lot of the people that you're most at odds with. Maybe that could be the olive branch that gets the two sides back together going after the actual middle, which is Surrey and, Ozzy and Rizzo. I do want to go back to the beginning of the game. And something that I think is really notable is when you end up finding the hidden immunity idol.

You find the Billy Elish Boomerang Idol. And you have to come up with a decision of what to do with it. And the Billy Elish Boomerang Idol that you find is actually going to play a very big part in your story, but also the season. first, it is going to be something that with you and Rick and you're going to hide the fake idol. It's also going to be the thing that you need to tell Emily about at the last minute before the tribe swap.

But you also make a decision. Who am I going to send the Billy Elish boomerang idol to? And you chose Aubrey. Aubrey Braco. And you said in confessional, Godspeed, Aubrey Braco. And you probably couldn't have even known. that it was really one of the first big turning points in the game.

Well, I mean, certainly I did not know the details of what was going on with Aubrey. But like the thinking behind that, you know, I get a little backstory. For one, it was edited a little bit out of sequence. It actually found that, I actually found that Idol shortly before Tribal Council on episode two. So it was right before Tribal Council, I found this thing. Well, Joe and Rick had just had their little spat, and it was so awkward. And because there's an odd number of people,

I had no one else to go off and talk to. So I said, I'm just going off and look for an idol. And I found it. And I was talking to camera about it. And that's, I'm even reacting. I'm even talking about Joe and Rick in the moment when I find it because I literally was just exiting from this fight on day six right before tribal council. So I just found it.

I'm pulled aside and I'm asked, you know, who do I give it to? And it's great, what a crazy decision I have to kind of go through. And what was sitting out in my head, because I had just seen the episode to Immunity Challenge and we're all running kind of dragging this snake. around. And I remember a lot of us were talking about like, Aubrey looked like she wanted to cry. Like she looked like she was really upset. I think she was like, like, I don't, and also knowing she was there with Q and this person who had famously on his season said he should be really worried about people with Aubrey, she was, I was, it made all the sense to give the idol to someone

who was in trouble for two reasons. One is it could protect them if they need it. Two, if they're targeted and they're not protected, you get the idol. It's like, and so it's the natural place where you send it. And Aubrey is. a person, we didn't communicate really over the course of like the years in between our seasons or anything. But I just had a vibe that, you know, we're both kind of nerdy folk. We'd get along. So I could build

a relationship with that. So that was a slam dunk there. And so I was hoping that this would build a relationship. But if it didn't, I'd get an idol. That was the thing. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, tell me about this plan

that gets concocted of because you said that you find this fake Idle shortly before the tribal council that ultimately, I believe it's the same tribal council, the Savannah vote, where the fake idol is planted. How did that come together so quickly? Well, I mean, the first thing is I had to report to Rick, in my opinion, that I had the idol because there was concern that Savannah had an idol. And now we finally knew something about this idol.

So I was, I'm going to go tell Rick because I don't want to have to have people try to do a crazy split vote situation because she didn't find anything. Now, but I did say if she could have been gifted something. So I wanted to report to Rick real quick. Like, this is what's going on. So let's put the kibosh in any kind of split boat plans that are happening. There was a very complicated plan. Surrey wanted a very complicated plan.

It was in a good way to try to get her to Savannah and like trying to really pitch us. I'm like, I'm fine with it. I'm fine with her in Savannah. It's okay. But I talked to Rick and he immediately has this idea of like, clearly he'd been cooking this up for a long time. He just wanted to do this? It's like, do you have the wrapping? I'm like, yes, of course.

And so he'd pitch the idea of high. it at tribal council. You see my reaction. It's one like, oh my God, that's brilliant. Oh my God, that's amazing.

We should absolutely do that. And so I give him the wrapping, and I think I told the story, I had lost the twine. Rick Devons is an idol artist. He wanted the twine, and we had to go find it, and I lost it again.

It was a whole rigamarole. And we, in fact, we're working out the logistics of, like, if he's seated here and I'm seated here, where should I do the fall and where's he going to plant the idol? because on the first tribal council,

he was mostly scanning around finding places where he could plant it. And so we worked out the logistics of where I would fall when. They sat us at tribal council and then like, oh my God, like, am I going to do this? And sure enough, like you just kind of just embrace

the craziness. Like, sure, I'll just do a pratfall. Why not? And it worked shockingly better than I expected in part because tribal council is quiet. Like we get all the music when we're watching the show, but it's dead silent otherwise.

So to hear a, you know, happening, that's going to startle everyone. I even, I asked one of the editors that I got to meet at the final tribal, after final tribal council, sorry, at the finale, they said, I do the Foley work,

the Dan Foley work, the audio work, you know, like, and I said, did you make fake noises for me falling? And they said, no, we used your sound from your mic, I think is what he implied,

for the sound of me falling. That is the actual. down. So it startled people and it worked shockingly well. The only challenge is that Rick didn't tell me where he hit the idol and I forgot to ask. Did you get hurt? No, not really. I mean, like, it just, like, I just kind of just let myself go kaput and kind of knee down, arm down.

People were really concerned. And like, I felt bad about it because I don't want to fake a medical condition because I feel like kind of crosses a bridge too far for like a game move. So I got that, like it definitely, I kind of acted like I got my bell rung and then Surrey had to redirect me. away. I literally was walking the wrong direction. It's like, it kind of worked. It kind of just built, you know, and I

got back to camp. I wanted people to, one, not think I was about to die. And so I was like, look, I'm fine. Look, I'm dancing around. I'm good. Don't worry, folks. And Joe had some very elaborate medical hypotheses as to what happened to me, and I felt bad. It was like the season, no, I was just faking. Yeah. You're set up incredibly well.

You're doing so great to start off the game. I think you probably couldn't have thought to yourself I could not be getting off to a better start in this game with this initial starting tribe and how things are playing out. And then ultimately, you get to the swap. And so, and it's such a unique swap

where you get swapped to a tribe with Mike and Angelina. Yes. And my first interaction was like, oh my God, this is amazing. We actually gave each other a glance when we were being walked out of like, off of the swap. Like the three of us happened to be in line behind each other. and we're not supposed to talk at that point

because we're about to go off camera and we look at each other like, oh my God, is this happening? This is amazing. And so it was, first it was exciting. And then I'm looking at it. I also have Ozzie and Emily there from my starting tribe.

And I have a good relationship with both of these people at this point. So I'm like, this is good options. And we got Q and, Q and Stephanie on the outs. This looks good. It's only once I kind of get the camp and I realize the optics of this.

I even kind of said it at the time. I was like, look, these people voted, tried to vote me off four times each. Which is something I think I told each of them that I would say if I would ever asked about our relationship. I was like them, but they tried to vote me off four times each. And so

the, but I was aware of the optics, I was like, the optics are bad. Let's see if there's a way to manage it. And I was particularly worried about Emily Flippen because I wanted that relationship with Emily Flippin, but I could easily see her getting spooked by the DVG3. getting back together.

So I was, I was a little nervous, but I wanted to see if there was a way to handle it. That was my first instinct. Yeah. And this is when, of course, Emily is, has gotten a little spooked about the idol that you were trying to tell her about. And then she goes to Q and Ozzy

to tell them about what you told her. Yeah. So that surprised me. Like, I think, I expected her. So first you get to the beach. Like, like, the reason I'm, wanted to tell her is I wanted to have that information that is that someone, if she got

swapped to another tribe, that would somehow help her. She could use it to blindside Aubrey or she could use it to help Aubrey. I wanted to maximize the chances of her getting to a swap, to the merge and we're together. And literally, like, one thing to emphasize how little time there is, like, I wish I had been able to tell her before was we were literally trying to pull people aside. We managed to catch Surrey that we want to tell them about the idol.

but like literally she's like talking to Joe Emily's talking to Joe and I'm like I don't Emily I can't just pull her away from Joe it's highly suspicious and so I was like oh God and then sure enough it's a swap so I was like I told her and I figured it's okay we'll get to the beach we'll fan out we'll talk to people then we'll reckon

wait or tell her what happened I didn't expect within 20 minutes she would tell people or whatever time it was and that she said she would panic like that I did not expect that I feel like that was outside the bounds of what I would have there was a reasonable expectation of what an ally would do in the end, I was okay with it.

At first I was like, okay, especially when she came to the conclusion that she can't trust these other people and she was happy to work with the DVG 3, I was like, this is an excellent outcome. My bigger fear than the idol being found out was Emily Flippin, wanting to align with, to try to get rid of people from the David versus Goliath 3.

And she seemed to be off of that train. So I was like, okay, I'm all right with the outcome of this. as much as the front, I was so, I don't think I've ever been more mad in my life that in the moment that I found that she did it. And like,

like my reaction is one, I've never been that angry. I can't even remember when. Yeah. All right. Well, you talked about Q and what ultimately went wrong for Q. Can we talk about the big vote,

the 3-2-1, which, uh, it was technically, uh, something to behold, a 3-2-1, of course.

But it must have been a big decision for you to ultimately turn on Mike. Oh yes. It was a huge decision. Like it was a lot went into that. And it was, especially in the lead-up to the all these votes,

I was trying to come with at least dramatic votes as possible. Boring votes. Clean votes, you said. Clean votes. Clean votes. Emily Flippin almost got Ozzy out in the first vote, which would have been hilarious.

She was trying to pull out like a three-way vote. That would have left out Sri and Jenna to get rid of Oz and I was like, I admired it, but I was like, what do we do it? No, no, no, clean vote. And so I ultimately, she respected the fact that I didn't want to do it and do it. So anyway, clean votes.

This was, but like what, like, I, the only reason I would do not a clean vote, especially in the premarge was if I felt it was like catastrophic if I didn't. And I think that that vote that real, when the lead up to that foot, I started to realize what a bind I was in. Because I, like, I was realized, oh my God, this, if, if, If we, number one, if we, the Dave versus Gly of three, go through multiple votes and we emerge from a tribe swap together and we go into the merge, the three of us are a target. Absolute target. Easy target to paint.

Especially when I'm back in my first starting tribe and I'm like, look, I like Angelina, but I'm not going to work with Angelina is what I told people. Then all of a sudden I'm protecting her at all these votes. That's bad for me. Especially at the merge, if the three of us are there, I'm the one taking the bullet. Angelina, I think once she gets to the merge, she becomes much less of a target. People start to see her as a person that they can take deep into the game.

And Mike White, celebrity aside, is actually incredibly personable and people like working with him. And sure, there's a little bit of the White Lotus effect, but they're not targeting Mike. No one believes when people meet Mike, they don't know how good he is. And I have to like remind people that he is that good.

So I'm the one taking the bullet. I'm the obvious target. So I'm like, basically one of these three, to go. And my first thought is Angelina. And it's like, well, and already Ozzy wants to get rid of Angelina. This makes sense. And I kind of want, like, and Mike is aware of the situation.

In fact, spills the beans to Angelina that she's the target and tries to save her. And I'm not talking to Mike. And I pull him aside, like, Mike, you realize this is three, this is bad for us. And that's where he starts pitching me on getting rid of Emily.

This is a Gabby situation. And I was like, oh my God. Like, it actually did hit me. I was saying he did anything out of bounds. You didn't do anything out of bounds, but like, it really did emotionally kind of hit me. And I remember I come away from that conversation and I go and talk to Stephanie. Mike had went to go and work on Stephanie to get rid of Emily flipping as well. And Stephanie was like, Mike is so convincing. I think we should get rid of Emily. What do you think? And I was like, yeah, let's do Emily. Let's do Emily. I, because I, even though like,

in part, I was like, Mike, I think he's trying to do me as solid. It didn't fully make sense to me. It's like, yeah, Emily might turn on me eventually, but like in the pre-merge, why are we doing it now? It didn't make fully sense, but I kind of trusted it. So I said, let's do Emily to Stephanie. I went to Mike and I was like, okay, let's do Emily. We'll do it.

But I got to know, what are we doing when we hit merge? This is going to be a problem. Like, for all the reasons I said, I'm going to get targeted, we're going to get targeted. what are we going to do? And he's like, we'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. Maybe we'll get rid of Angelina next. And I was like, and that's when the switch flipped for me.

I was like, one, that's not a plan. And two, this is not sincere. He's, at this point, if he's trying to pull out the sort of emotional stakes of Gabby to try to get me to save Angelina, he's not just going to pitch her overboard next vote. So it's like, okay, at that point I'm like, I really wanted to work with Mike. He was great on the Q vote, by the way.

And I admit, I actually loved, we got to sleep by like the, near the canoe together at night. It really reminded me of all times. But at that point, I was like, this guy is not in my corner. He's an Angelina's corner. And what does that mean? Okay, what are my options here? Because if I go over, I can get rid of Angelina. I could get Emily flipping on board, get rid of Angelina.

At that point, I've gone over Mike's head. And also, he's very close with Ozzy. One thing that Ozzie was trying to hide that he was close to Mike, But Mike told us he was close with Ozzy. He said it's publicly back on David versus Goliath. He's like, oh, I'm good friends with Ozzie. He comes to my restaurant all the time. And Ozzy was trying to hide that fact.

And I remember I told Ozzy was like, Ozzie, I know you're close with Mike. And he kept like downplaying it. We even floated the idea of Mike to Ozzy at one point just sort of half jokingly. And the way he shut that down so quickly, I was like, okay, he's got something deep going on with Ozzie. So, oh, Ozzie's got something deep going on with Mike. So what are my options? So I was like, I go to Angelina. that's going to piss off Mike.

And Mike is close with Ozzy. He'd bring my Ozzy on board and he's really influential with Stephanie. He'd probably get three. So maybe I make it to the merge by I pissed off Mike. But then, like, what if I get rid of Mike? How could I do that? Obviously, I can't tell Ozzy for the reasons I said.

And I think that was born out on the show. He said he would absolutely have blown up my spot. And he told me afterwards that he absolutely, you know, was trying to go deep to the end with Mike. So at that point, I still be a three, two, one. and my thinking was is that if I split up,

Ozzie would be mad. So the good side is it diffuses the David versus Goliath three. No one sees things David versus Goliath three is working together. It splits. It leaves Ozzy and Angelina back in the game, both of whom had just lied to each other going into that vote.

Ozzy, in fact, voted for Angelina that they're unlikely to work together in the next vote. Downside is the Ozzie's mad. But I remember in South Pacific and when he was left out of votes in the pre-merge and he got really mad. But then he got over over it and then volunteered to send himself to Redemption Island and give Cochman his idol.

So I was like, I just need time. And it's certainly preferable than being a dead man at the merge. And the benefit, the real benefit is that if I got through this vote and proved to Emily Flippin, that was willing to take out Mike White over her, I would have her loyalty. That was my reasoning. And I think that that was borne out in the end, the fact that she went to bat for me, and almost went home trying to get out Ozzie over me on day 18. So that was the thinking of that vote.

It was just a matter of pulling it off. And that was scary. That was scary as hell. But looking back on it now, I wouldn't change a thing. I really, when I think about it, I am proud of it on many levels. The only thing I don't like about it to this day is the fact that it makes, that it hurt Mike. That's the one thing I don't like about it. Yeah.

And I understand that there are hurt feelings there. Do you feel like that there is hopefully? that there will be reconciliation at some point? I mean, that's up to Mike. I mean, Mike's got a lot going on in his life. And certainly, my phone's open to him, if you ever wanted to reach out and talk about it. I reached out to him as soon as I got back,

send him a message because one thing I didn't want him thinking is that I always planned to do this. And as much as I was wary of whether or not Mike was truly in my corner, I like him. And I wanted that kind of talent on my side. but he was basically just to re-litigate just a little bit more if I wrote down with Mike going into the merge

I'd be playing Mike's game I'd be reliant upon Mike saving me in the future and as much as I think he's skilled I don't think he was that skilled I don't think he would stave off me voting off one of Ceres's allies in Emily at the merge I'm not sure he could stave that off

so it's purely a strategic move and I hope that you would see it that way I think that he sees the game differently, though, and that's okay. I mean, people who have different views of it, but it's up to him if he wants to reach out. My phone's open. I would say give it time.

I found Mike to be a very forgiving person, and I think that, you know, with time, I think maybe he'll come around. Yeah, we'll see. I mean, the good thing is, is we've got both good things going on in our lives. I mean, he obviously wonderfully so. And so I've always wished him well and still do. Yeah.

After this vote, though, we're going to see a lot of fallout between you and Ozzy. And you talked about how that this was anticipated. And you felt like that with Ozzy from South Pacific. He was going to come around. Yeah. Yeah. And I maintain that. And I think that was ultimately true.

Like, I think that our ultimate falling out later, in the game, I'm sure was not helped by the fact that I left out of the Mike White vote, but I don't think it was a difference maker. I think once I'm coming for Ozzy, I don't think he's forgiving me. But like, basically, I went on a 40-hour apology tour after

that vote. Granted, knowing when he reacted the way he did, it wasn't just him being left out of a vote. I caught, like, in my opinion, I'm thinking jackpot. Jackpot. He's this mad because I took away an end game option for him that he was hoping to keep tight and he didn't see it coming.

and so he's trying to, in my opinion, punish me for taking that option away from him. Really, like a lot of these other moves I could have made at that stage left me sort of at the mercy of like Ozzie and Mike and some other folks. And that took away that option from him. But I really went to a place where I really tried to bond with Ozzy over the course of the next day and a half before the next tribal council. And really just tried to be in a patient place. Because the fight that happened after tribal council was, it was longer than was shown, is what I'll say. It was longer. I don't remember all the details of it, but it was intense.

It was really intense. And I remember really trying to be patient and just listen to him. Tried to take him aside and not talk to him in front of camp, but no, he wanted to have it out in front of camp, in front of everyone. And so I remember, like, I really had to go into a patient mode. But I was actually hitting my limits, though. Like, because by the time, like 30-someodd hours later, I feel like we're making progress. Emily Flippen, thank God, is reporting into me secretly

what Ozzy is saying behind the scenes, so I'm getting his temperature, you know, after each of these conversations, which is helpful. So I'm trying to work on that. I feel like we're in a better place. Then when he asked me for my shot in the dark, I'm like, I was like, I can't believe it. He wants my shot in the dark too.

The answer should have just been, yes, here it is. And of course, I did give it to him eventually. But I was stunned. And I realized, is that this is what needs to happen for him to know that he's back in a position of power. That was my interpretation of what he needed. And I was happy to give him that if it got us through

because, one, I wasn't really scared of going home at this vote, really. I mean, I'm always a little scared, but like what I knew that a merge was coming, I wanted to get in our relationship in the best possible place before that merge. And sure enough, I mean, I caught no votes at the tribal council. I don't think I was in any actual danger. And from talking to people after the, after the,

after the fact, people have told me that as well, but at the same time, I didn't want him pissed off going to the merge. So you get through the devote, and then we have the pairs tribal council, and you're paired up with Jonathan, which in hindsight was probably a good person to be paired up with initially, because from opposite sides of where the game was, that it sort of like was mutually assured safety for you to be. partnered with Jonathan. Yes, immediately. And I think that, like, and that was my immediate reaction. And like, this is good for me. But it, uh, but one thing that like, but it was bad from a, like,

the fact that we had Emily and Rick spread out amongst pairs and obvious targets. And if I, I had a couple of like, and this is a continuation of a couple of doctrines that I had this season, one of which is, like, was being a lot more intentional of the people that I'm targeting at votes. I can be flexible, of course. I was extremely flexible in my first game, but I want to be more intentional. If it was between two people, there's a person who has these qualities

is less likely to work with me and blah, blah, blah, and she'd go home. But another one is that I will go to bat for you if you're my ally. If you're like, my deep allies, I'll go to bat for. In my mind early on, that was Surrey. I, you know, was, you know, certainly was looking out for her

at the first vote when she was being targeted. make sure that was not going to happen. Not that there's the only one, to be clear. A lot of people are involved. I hope it's super clear. This is very collaborative. But also for Emily Flippen. Like, Emily, I want the bat for you.

Like, I took, like, the Mike White vote was a real show of loyalty to her. And this was my opportunity to go to bat for Rick and Aubrey. And to bring an Aubrey into the fold of people that I was, that they say, look, I, I mean it when I say that I'm your ally. Look what I did. And the reason I felt, and as much as I wanted to stay under the radar for the merge, the fact that I was safe, quote unquote, by being with Jonathan, meant I to do a lot of work. It was not stuff that was shown on television.

But with Surrey gone, she was off on some Exile Island. I didn't have her to help move the vote off of Aubrey and Rick. We didn't know she was coming back. We had no clue. We thought she was going to go on the whole night. If I knew she was coming back, I would have laid luck. instead I really went to work trying to move the vote. I'm not saying I did move the vote.

Sheree was certainly critical in that. You called her the cavalry. She was the cavalry. It was like, okay, this is going to happen now. It was getting a little dicey. I think that Ozzy and these people, they were thinking like Rick and Aubrey, and I was like, we got to work.

And I think that we're making pitches. But at this point, Jonathan was looping me in on the vote. He was saying, oh, here are the people that I could see targeting. And he listed everyone except coaching Chrissy. And I'm like, oh, okay. So clearly I can't include him on any coaching Chrissy targeting because he will absolutely blow up that spot.

Like that's obvious. Meanwhile, the first names, I told Jonathan this afterwards, I was like that the first names I throw out, it's actually kind of a tell. They're probably my allies. I threw out like, oh, I'm going to be okay. We're going to Rick and Aubrey. I'd be okay with getting rid of Emily and Rizzo.

Because if I hear I say that, they know it's a lie. You know, and so it was clear to me that Jonathan needs to be left out of this vote, and he cannot know because he will tip them off. And also, I need to have some leverage to help slip the vote. And I'm not saying this, to be clear, I'm not saying this is what flipped the vote. This is just my perspective. Like, Chrissy was telling me all the plans, which was great for me in the sense that,

in theory, I wanted to work with Chrissy, but now she was a target. Like almost by process of elimination, her coach had to be a target here for me. And so she was telling me about potentially voting out, about voting out Rizzo and Emily, but leaving Ozzy out of the vote. And I remember thinking, do you know what Ozzy loves being left out of the vote? I'm sure he would love to hear this information.

So I went up to Ozzy, I just want to let you know. I know you're still deciding here. Chrissy wants to leave you out of this vote. So I think at that point, Stree was already back. So I'm not saying that this was any kind of difference maker. But that's the kind of stuff I was doing. I was burning some bridges to get rid of coaching

and Chrissy, but it also burned bridges with Jonathan. And I felt I needed to do this because there were enough people pushing to save Aubrey and Rick. And so I really put myself out there. Yeah. And shortly before tribal, right as I come back from a confessional, I'm like, okay, we'll see how this goes. We'll see if anyone leaks.

Someone's going to leak. Certainly, like, then Jonathan comes up to me and says, Christian, I heard that the vote is now coaching Chrissy. I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about, Jonathan. I don't know. Like swearing up now, I don't know. And I was like, who's leaking? Who's leaking?

Turns out it was, I believe, Ozzie and Surrey leaked. And I only knew about the time of Ozzy. And so I'm like, dang it, dang it. This play, it's like, you're trying to, what's the deal here? Are you trying to blow up the plan? Are you trying to get rid of Rick and Aubrey? What's the plan here? And at tribal council, this, like, Jonathan starts doing a live tribal really early in the

tribal council because he wants to know what's going on. It's already on Haywire. Yeah. Okay, and that precipitates Rick going to take out the fake idol. It seems like coming out of this vote, though, a lot of people are frustrated with you and Rick in particular. Well, I mean, Jonathan was frustrated with me. I mean, it's just to remind me in the edit.

I haven't rewatched my boot episode. I watched it the one time. I only take so much. But Jonathan, I understood. But at the same time, I didn't know. And certainly, and Joe was frustrated with Rick. but like I didn't say at that point like I mean the people who have been most frustrated

are the people who were part of Jonathan's sort of mega alliance that that was one of the big concern. It's a mega alliance. It's like this, I mean like people call it the Zoom Alliance I think even in the real time we're talking people calling it the Zoom Alliance on the island of and it's it appeared to be like a lot of old school

thinkers kind of like I don't know I don't have a strong opinion on how pregame this was I don't really care. But it's people like Jonathan, Stephanie, Joe, Chrissy and Surrey, like that's a strong five, right? Sorry, sorry, Chrissy and Coach. I apologize, not Siri. Chrissy and Coach, although we didn't know

how much Ozzie and Surrey would side with them if necessary. We didn't know. There were some ties there. So it was really, it was the people left over from that who would have the most causes would be mad. Really are talking. Jonathan, Joe.

and Steph. I didn't like that collateral damage, but I felt it was necessary to not lose two people and frankly not give this big alliance five, maybe six people with only 11 people left in the game. And that was dangerous. And that's something that Emily

Flipping pointed out was super dangerous. So yes, there was collateral damage. So tell me about what was going on in what ultimately ends up being this final round of the game for you. Yeah. So It was a rare two-day cycle, which I appreciated.

I love it that when there's a two-day cycle after I've had to burn a couple bridges, I didn't expect that Jonathan would be back on my side, but I did best effort to make him believe that I believed he'd be back on my side, that we'd be back together, you know, in case that that works out. It was very clear Stephanie and Joe were in a weird place. We kind of patched it up a little bit, but I want to but like the

but I think where I had all of my worst ideas was like when I woke up on day 18 like I remember I woke up by the fire I tend to walk I tend to sleep face down in the dirt by the fire okay um and I woke up and I was thinking and I really stuck in my crawl I was like Ozzie is like clearly doing

some kind of middle game play here so there's something going on in the middle the way that that last vote was handled there's something happening here and Ozzy is somewhere in this group. And playing the middle is a bad thing. I don't want other people to play the middle.

I want them out. And it was like, maybe Ozzy should be the target. And that's why I pitched her pitching the idea of Ozzy. And that was just, and that was just a bad idea for a number of reasons.

I mean, Ozzy was not, yes, he was in the middle, but he's not the type of player that made sense for me to eliminate at that stage. The people, my sort of doctrine were people that, one, had,

a lot of sway and a lot of people that will move with them when they move in a direction. And I had a list of those folks, the last of whom was Surrey. And she was the last one in the game. The other were people

that were being maybe taken deep into the game because people perceived they weren't doing very much or perceived not to be threats. And I have emphasis on the perceived because one of those people was Rizzo. He was just perceived to be that way.

He was doing a lot in watching the show. But like, one of the reasons he was being taken deep is because he was lying in the shelter. He was sick. He wasn't eating. And so like, it's like, okay. And coincidentally, those are two of the other people, I didn't know this, they were part of this actual middle, right? So if I had gone by my original doctrine, it would have pointed me in one of those two directions. Now, getting them out how that would work would have been challenging. I shouldn't have been the one, I definitely shouldn't be the one pitching it, right? I needed other people to pitch. I mean, I don't think that

Surrey was pitching my name. I don't think that Ozzy was pitching my name at this point until I threw out their name. And that really cat, that's when things started boomerang on in me, as opposed to being just some vote that wasn't. Mm-hmm. Okay. You are feeling that maybe things are going in a negative direction. You come out of the challenge where Jeff has participated and you are vulnerable for the vote. And they're looking for somebody to go on a.

journey. Yes. So my thinking was I wanted, and I still fixated on Ozzie being this middle person and that if he's playing the middle, he's an enemy to multiple sides and we can mobilize votes on it. It was all, is all misguided based upon the fact that I already told Surrey. But my thinking is in which place I don't want him having the advantage. Like even if I like went and didn't get the advantage, that's fine. He doesn't get it. And even if I got it, if it's something I didn't want, I could throw it into the fire. Like if like, you know, if I was like, look, I got the advantage. Dr. Mike, you know, throw it in the fire or something.

I didn't know if I would do that, but that was like on the table. The point was to keep it away from Ponzi. But I think that my principal mistake this round is, like, I did not need to be the person doing these things. Like, I think I was coming off of this last vote where I felt like, yes, I have to be the person doing this. I'm the one that's safe from the Jonathan vote. I have to protect my allies. I have to go to bat for them to show that they, to make, to show that they, I'm loyal to them. And I will keep looking out for them.

I didn't have to be the one who did. So really that's like day 18 is like where all like my bad ideas like really so I kind of consolidate you know. All right. You go to the floating barge and you are going to be doing this puzzle.

I have to think you're you. You have done you know some famously done some puzzles great in the past on Survivor that were you confident when you approach this puzzle? Well, I mean, I wasn't mostly because it's the type of puzzle, right?

I mean, like, puzzles that I'm really good at are ones where there are sequences of moves that you should need to do. Like, slide puzzles is a classic example of that. Like, like, that's sort of it's very amenable to optimization techniques and really sequences and patterns. Also, like, even the opening

challenge, the opening reward challenge, there's like a puzzle where you had to move these oars back and forth to maneuver the things around. Yeah, exactly. It's like that, that I get Like, oh yeah, I can come up with some kind of backward strategy that's counterintuitively kind of good, right? For a great moment. I mean, you just put all the things to the left and then went through it. Yeah, that was like, I was proud of it.

Yeah, it's like, I'm loving it, right? But jigsaw puzzles I don't love because really you've got to kind of grind them out. You find the pattern. Okay, does that fit? Does that fit? Very different skills. I'm not particularly great at those. I'm not even very good at them.

But I went thinking it wouldn't be one of those because they've done so many on the I was like they've had so many of these jigsaw puzzles of the Survivor logo. They've got to do something different. So I was thinking, it might be a puzzle a la what Rachel, what Rachel did on season 47. That's a secrecy puzzle. Oh, yeah, that's right my alley. Or I thought, this is season 50, Rob. Where's the Survivor Trivia?

Where is the Hunter Survivor Trivia channel? I'm thinking like, that's what's going to. Then I pull up and I could see enough of the things like, oh, it's a jigsaw puzzle. Like, okay, don't panic, but try to work through it. But no, I was not confident. And when I read the note and I saw what it was for, I was like, there's not a great advantage. I'm not sure exactly what I can do with this.

This is kind of a, this is kind of somewhere between an extra vote and a bank of vote, kind of. And I'm sure what I can use this for. And if I win it, I have to throw it a vote in the urn, which I'm guessing would have been for Ozzy, just because I wouldn't have known who the target was, right? I was like, so anyway, so I do the, so I'm not confident going into the puzzle.

I think in the end, actually watching it back, I was more closer than I remembered being. It felt like it was so far away, but there's only a handful, like four pieces left or something. In that point, you know, those puzzles become easier at the end. So if I hadn't gotten stuck in the middle of the puzzle, I feel like that I actually could have done that. And that's kind of frustrating.

Yeah. Is the issue that, because the words are on both sides, is that what the real challenge is? It's like there's two ways that each piece could go. That's true. Yes. And that is true of all Survivor puzzle challenges. I mean, I never went and bought Survivor puzzles to practice.

Call that arrogance, call that, you know, I just felt like that's not what Survivor's about. It's over preparing for a particular puzzle. What about buying some motion on Etsy? Apparently it is. Apparently it is. And this is maybe something that, like, I would really just, like, if I could redo anything in my pre-game challenge, just buy this stuff on Etsy. Just buy it on Etsy.

junk up your house or whatever. You have it in your house. So I'm sorry, your sellers out there. I hope you make a lot of money. Everyone go out and buy these things. I mean, that's what I mean to say. But the double-sided puzzle, that's different than the ton of jigsaw puzzle you do at home.

So you really specifically try to do those. All right. And so you get this letter from Jimmy Fallon. And you don't even know what it's going to be. In your wildest dreams, could you have imagined what it was going to say? Absolutely not. It was foreboding and it's like it's not going to be good for you.

But in my head, I'm still thinking like you'll lose your vote, right? Because that's what typically happens on a journey. What could be worse? Like what would they do that is worse than that as a result of like not doing a journey correctly? It was really bad. It's just like. So I had no idea it was going to be that bad. I think that I was still kind of just on the way at home.

I was just processing, oh man, it sucks. I had to lose that puzzle. It sucks. On the way home from the puzzle? The way home from Fiji. On the way from puzzle, I apologize. Yes. On the way back to my home, my tribal home.

Yeah, so I really should have been thinking, what could this thing be? But I don't think I would ever thought that. Have you ever given a thought about, is there any way that you could have played this differently, knowing what it was? So when you have one in the urn, is there a way that you could have made this work for you?

yes the I mean it would be to bluff about what the actual advantage was because a lot of people wouldn't already believe that I have to actually vote for myself

like there are some people who are skeptical of whether it's actually a thing and I could and I could also play it off as like this is a double edge sword kind of it this is a double edge sword advantage

I come with an idol as well right I can tell the wrong person about the fact that I have an idol right and so and so I think if I knew if I in the piece and again The clues were there that I was going to be blindsided post community challenge.

I think I talked about them in our exit interview, so I won't rehash them here. But like the, so it was possible to know at that point that Surrey had flipped. So I could have said Surrey is like Sri. You know, I also have an idol. And now they probably would have split the votes. But if they, we know in the splitting the votes, we could pull an operation Italy type situation where you exploit the split vote to get a majority. I mean, I even thought about all the details of that. because I hadn't.

Sure. It's a little painful to relive that end of that experience, but that's what comes to mind. So let me ask you about, you went to go to, you talked to Jimmy Fallon about this. Did you feel like that, did Jimmy Fallon really feel bad about what he did?

I think that Jimmy Fallon doesn't get much thought to it. It's like a year ago that this happened. I mean, I mean, he was super friendly. I mean, I think that a lot of these celebrities they were approached like,

hey, you want to do a thing? And they're like, oh, yeah, let's do this thing. They might even pitch on what these things are, right? And, like, I don't even, like, blame the guy because, like, I mean, he's not a game designer. Like, by, he's not like a profession. He's not like making blood on the clock tower in his free time. Maybe he is not the, not the chariotieppy Jimmy.

So I don't like that. He's a great inventor. Is that a thing? Yeah, I think, from what I hear, I hear he likes to come up with ideas and inventions. Oh, that's cool. I mean, like, he's a creative guy. but like the impact of a of a new twist on a game is very hard to predict.

I mean, this was a particularly bad one, but like, effect on the game. But like, I mean, I don't, I mean, he's living his life. He's talking to three celebrities a night. And so, like, I was just really just tickled to be there. I mean, like, I got voted out of Survivor, something that is overwhelmingly likely to happen when you play a season of Survivor. But by the end of it, I'm jumping on Jimmy Fallon to talk about it. And I even get to talk about the fact.

I'm a robotics professor on Jimmy Fallon. And like, this is insane. This is, Rob, this wasn't even supposed to happen. This wasn't, I was not even supposed to be on Jimmy Fallon. I'm not sure if this is publicly known.

But like, like, they were going to have, like, I was, like, I went to New York for the, for the exit press.

I was there for CBS mornings, which was fun. I got to meet Gail King. Sure. She's, she's, she's a formidable interviewer. And,

um, as you know, you, as you matter. And, and see, and, and,

and, and, I was told that, yeah, Jimmy Fallon, you know, he's, unfortunately, he's all booked for guests. You know, we'll explore the idea that's not going to work. You know, but he will do a TikTok with you. He'll do something like, you know, pop back backstage or something that will do a TikTok. That's great. Look, I'm not, you know, I'm not entitled to any of this.

Like, I'm just a guy on a reality show. And I'm doing my exit press with, like, you and others, like, on that day, like, in around noon. And then, like, CBS person pops in my ear during my interview. It's like, Christian, you're going to be on ballot. I'm like, oh, my God. It just happened. And it was more or less told to me from the producers when we were doing our pre-interviews that it was in the hands of the fans.

The fans went on Jimmy Fallon's socials to such a degree to let their displeasure with the twist be known. They felt obligated to put me on the show. They didn't say those exact words, but that's me retweeting between the lines. So thank you fans. Thank you fans for making that happen. They bumped Joel Egerton, Taryn Egerton, of the Kingsman movies, it seems. My wife was texting me, he's good. Maybe I have another celebrity enemy in him now because they bumped him for Christian Ubicki, apparently.

I mean, like, according to he was on the website. If you can forgive Jimmy Fallon that I think that Taryn Egerton can forgive you. Okay, well, good. I'm glad. I hope that that's the case. So it was bananas. And then no sooner than that, I hear like, hey, Rizzo's in town. Can he come?

I'm like, sure, Rizzo can come. Rizzo was backstage with me at the Jimmy Fallon. Oh, nice. So it was wild. Oh, yeah. So he, and he was like, and he was so appreciative. Like, oh, thanks for letting me come. It's like, of course.

What am I to do? Not let you come to Jimmy Fallon. And it's like, what could I do? I was like, Rizzo, document this. Document everything. So he's got his phone. He's taking photos. Yeah.

And Jimmy, he's good at that. He's good at that. It's like, so he's really helpful. And in fact, when Jimmy Fallon was crossing the green room to go to do his monologue, I'm on the phone with my wife, Emily. And she was a big fan of Jimmy Fallon for many years. And I said, hey, Jimmy, can you talk to my wife? And he gets on the phone with my wife, and he's like, I am so sorry. And he kind of goes off from this very long apology.

And I have it all on film, thanks to Rizzo. Nice job, Riz God. Okay. Christian, this was such a delight. And I know you have a lot of cool stuff. that you are working on. Can you tease at all, any other things

that you have coming up? Well, first, I would say, keep an eye on me on Instagram, especially at Chubicki, C-H-B-C-K-I. I'm doing a lot of science-related content.

I've always wanted to get involved in this space, and the reaction so far for what I've been putting out there has been really positive. So keep an eye on there and you can find more about what I'm doing

at Christianubiki.com or on my links on my socials. All right. Christian, what a delight it was, of course, today to watch you in season 50. Congratulations on all the success. And looking forward to the many, many future conversations as well where I'm sure we've only scratched the surface of your Survivor 50 anecdotes.

Well, thank you very much for having me. It was a delight regardless. Hopefully, you still want me around, so I'm glad to hear it. Yes, always. Thank you so much. Take everybody. Have a good one. Bye.