RHAP: We Know Survivor - Survivor 50 Flashbacks: Aubry Bracco’s Post-Season(s) Interview

Episode Date: July 20, 2025

This week, we're flashing back to Aubry Bracco's post season interview!

Hey everybody, what's going on? Rob Cisnerino back with you for the Survivor 50 Flashback and each week I will be bringing you from the RHAP Vault an interview I've done with some of the old school cast members of Survivor 50. And so this week we have for you an interview, one of two post-game interviews I've done with Aubrey Bracco. One, this one that we're listening to today is from May 29th, 2017.

I remember it well. It was a Saturday morning and Aubrey came by my house. I think she brought me a plant and Aubrey and I talked about the most recent season that she had been on of game changers But we also talked about Survivor Co-wrong back on May 29th 2017 believe it or not. What is that eight years ago that we did this Incredible. So my interview here is with Aubrey after she had just played only two times.

There was another interview I did, if you wanna check that out in the archives, after she played on the Edge of Extinction, where we actually went outside in my backyard, a rare outdoor interview, maybe the only one I've ever done, which is also an interesting interview from Aubrey, but she wasn't really talking game so much in that one was more about her experience on the edge.

So this is more about Aubrey as the game player. And you'll hear about her thoughts from Game Changers and Korong here as we flashback to Survivor. Well, flashback to survivor, well, flashback to survivor game changers as we look ahead to survivor 50. Comedy live from the Oregon trail. It's Rob has a podcast and now here's the guy who has been known to have dysentery of the mouth. Rob says to Nino, hello everybody. And welcome back to a special off season edition of Rob has a podcast. We've got a great show here tonight because we are honored to have this guest here in

the studio. This has been a long time coming. This has been a Craigslist missed connection for the longest time. But now here she is, the two time Survivor player, Aubrey Bracco. Aubie is free. Yes, Aubie, that's a nickname.

Like Dobby, Harry Potter. No, don't go with Aubie. OBS, I'm good with OBS. Okay, OBS, here she is. Survivor know it OBS. Here we are. Days after the game changes finale here in the studio for an interview that honestly, there's so much to talk about. I don't even know where to get into any of it.

Yeah. It's been a long road. It's been almost two and a half years of Survivor casting, waiting, going on the show, waiting, airing, and scrambling to go back again. So this time last year, I had my exit interviews for Korong. It was way more controversial than I thought it would be, but I was super careful not to say anything because I knew all these people going on Game Changers would be listening to everything I had to say to try to understand what kind

of game I played. Yeah. And now you're unplugged. Now I'm unplugged and it feels super good to just go for it. This is really exciting. You've actually brought a laptop here with your thoughts. I don't think that anybody has ever done that in the history of like Nicole has brought a laptop into the room, but I don't think she really like she, she brings it in here to like multitask and like read Twitter while

we're podcasting. Nobody I don't think has ever brought in a laptop with their thoughts to talk about on a podcast. Yeah. I have a couple of things. I made a point after Corong, a couple of people said that you'll want to write down what you remember because that can kind of change over time. Who said that? Can you tell us? Who said that? I think Max Dawson. I actually heard him say that once, that you need to put it down or you won't remember. But other people said that too and I would email myself when I would go through one of those waves of, oh I should have answered this person different in tribal, was this the right move? And I would email myself like the

Debbie vote. Why did it happen that way? So these little nuggets I could go back to in the moment. There you go. And much like the chicken nuggets that West Nail could eat all in one sitting, we are going to try to ingest as many of those nuggets here today. I don't know if we'll get to 50, but we will try.

And so really excited to have you here. I've been looking forward to this really for months and here we are. So first of all, how are you doing coming out of the finale? I know it's like a whirlwind week. Yeah, it's been a whirlwind week. I'm feeling grateful. I'm feeling a little bit sad.

Andrea and I were just talking about last night how we felt like a little slightly depressed, like the post finale blues I mean, it's really been a long road and this time I'm not scrambling to get a wardrobe together or study players and download Podcasts, it's it's strange. I need to find like the new normal post survivor It's a little bit like now you've graduated college and now okay Well now what now what do I do with this? Not that necessarily you're looking to do something specifically with Survivor, but

it's sort of like, you know, you've been in this machine for so long and now you're sort of like free to the world and now, you know, you have a platform, you, you know, feel like, okay, this is, you know, not necessarily going back anytime soon. Now what? Yeah. I keep saying I've been working on Survivor Aubrey for two and a half years and now I have to work on Aubrey Aubrey. So I had done journalism before Survivor, social media, creative stuff.

And then I had gone into social media customer service, which wasn't exactly what I wanted to be doing. So my main focus now is going to be the writing, the production, the video stuff for the web. And I need to figure out what that's going to be. It's been a, I've been able to kind of pause on the career a little bit this year. And Survivor gave me the opportunity to do that. But now that I'm not going to go voting people out, I have to figure out how to make that happen. Your experience with social media, I think became such a big part of why I think you

were popular with so many different people. Was that something that you really were doing intentionally? Was that part of that or was it just something that came naturally to you? I think the social media thing was natural for me. I think part of it is the truest things are said in jest. So sometimes when I was feeling really frustrated about something going on, making a joke would kind of relieve the tension because it's you can say that and it's acceptable to make that a creative outlet as opposed to getting yourself in trouble publicly for something you want

to say. It's just fun. Do people still get in trouble? I don't mean get in trouble in terms of like the social media policy, but I mean some people are not very wise. Yeah, people are not savvy sometimes with the things that they say and then they wonder why they have things crashing down on them. Right. What did I do? Yeah, I find it a little bit comical at times and also there are some people I've tried to say, hey, you might not want to do that. Because the backstory that you have coming out of social media customer service is a big part of this, you know, quote unquote gig that I think that I've said for years, I don't think Survivor does a really good job of preparing its players, you know, especially the first time players for what is going to happen.

And this is something, you know, Stephen and I have both talked about over the years where it used to be that people would just watch the show and they would comment at it and talk about what was going on. But now you live in a world where people watch the show and then they talk to you about it, where you know, there you are directly receiving that negative feedback where as opposed to it was out there and you could just not look at it but now it comes directly at you and you have to live with it and respond to it in whatever way you know how.

Right and Co-Rong was notorious for being a little too sassy, a little bit too loose on Twitter. I mean the funny thing with that group of people is I was kind of the de facto social media guidance person. I helped Sydney got catfished kind of on Twitter. Someone took her name, was trying to get spoilers out of other players by pretending to be Sydney. Like, hey, tell me what happened again. I don't remember.

Yeah. Or they had a little inkling like, maybe there was a disagreement with these people. So they would reference that in a DM pretending to be Sydney. We figured out this was going on and I had to help Sydney contact Twitter with my contacts, bring her ID and get it shut down. And then I was a Joe Del Campo whisperer like, Joe, this is not DM, this is public.

Yeah. And to speak and spell doesn't work the same way on Twitter. So I've kind of tried to help people and then some of them just self-implode, but there's nothing you can do. Yeah, just, yeah, it's kind of funny. Do you have anything from this week? I'm sure that there were probably a ton of great stories, many of which you probably can't share with us. Is there anything that any anecdotes from this past week that you could tell the listeners about? Yeah, well, Malcolm Freeberg's dad is one hell of a dancer. We had a dance off after the after party, which was quite entertaining.

I had a blast with them. So that was definitely a highlight. The green room was pretty chill. People were hanging out. Oh, Sarah and Zeke got water all over their clothes right before we went on camera. And someone handed Sarah the water and said, please don't spill this. I'll get fired if you spill it. And then Zeke said, can I have a sip?

And the whole thing went all over them. So they're running out right before we go on stage. it was like magic and they were good. So I mean that was that was funny. There's always mishaps with hair and taping things in place. Yeah. You know this cast for the most part did people mostly get along at the finale for the most part or do you feel like was this a cast that ended up being divided? I would say the Game Changers cast did get along. People were cordial. I wouldn't say people were necessarily best friends. There obviously was quite a bit of drama that went

down on the season and I think people were kind of quietly in their own camps on that. But people were kind to each other. If anything, they would just kind of avoid each other. There were some polarizing people who didn't necessarily talk to everyone, but that's kind of, that's every cast. Yeah. Because that we talked about this a lot with Millennials versus Gen X about how that was a very close cast and you know, it's not always the same when you go back and play the second time. But you know, Korong, you know, that that was a season that also had a lot of drama in it. Was the Game Changers cast, was there more or less than Korong?

For me, it was definitely a different kind of drama with Game Changers. I think when you go to the end of the game and you have a long time to wait to know what happened and I thought I lost Korong without a doubt, but there were a lot of mind games. Like the boys were convinced on the flight home. They want, they told Michelle and I that they tied the vote and that one was there seven on our jury? Yeah. Seven. So they told us it was three, three one. You gotta, you gotta split one. Yeah, exactly. Right. So Michelle and I were convinced that they tied it.

And then things would come out over the year that we waited. And the Korong cast was. That would be a very interesting situation where you would have a tie vote, which would literally be split by tie. Yeah, I know. Ty was going to split the tie vote. And it's it's kind of cool to know what the tiebreaker is now, because we thought about that for 32. And that was one of the theories that Ty would have had to split the tie vote. And it's it's kind of cool to know what the tiebreaker is now, because we thought about that for 32.

And that was one of the theories that I would have had to split the vote. But that time after that was that was not an easy time. Like Michelle and I got along very, very well. Can I just add one thing? Like what we don't know, though, is are we assuming that this tie break would happen at the finale or at the reunion? Because there would be like quite a year of politicking of like you and Michelle like hey Ty Like did you get that care package? I sent you did you get that gift basket tie?

I think that happened a little bit Rob. Yes. Yeah, that was going on a little bit I definitely was. A preemptive tie break for Ty? A preemptive. Tie break. A little bit of a competition for relationships in the unknown event that the winner was decided after the show aired. Wow.

Definitely. I just feel like in that situation though, and again, not knowing how, we only found out from Jeff, I feel like they would have to do it at the final tribal council. I can't imagine they let you go home for a year. I don't think they would. I don't think they would.

A year plus like for you guys, right? Oh, yeah. It was, we got back around Mother's Day and then it aired after that day. That'd be a great question. It's insane. Maybe like one of these days like Josh Wiggler can get the clarification on that from production of when they do the tiebreak vote at the reunion show or because I think it would be such a, I think they would, people would like look at it like, okay, well you were affected by the confessionals. You

were affected by what you saw on TV. And that's always been, you know, something that survivor has gone away from where even big brother, you know, they've sequestered the jury because people, they don't want you to see what was going on. Right. Yeah. And I think part of it is something I learned is that some people said my game wasn't evident and then it would have been very evident if they saw what I had been saying the whole time. But yeah, it would have been, it would have been really different. I definitely had some people who will remain nameless. Three people on my cast say that if they had known things might be different. So I can't imagine if the vote was after the show aired. Yeah.

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All right, well, what I'd like to do is sort of, let's go back to the beginning. I wanna talk to you about anything that you feel like you didn't get a chance to talk about during CoWrong and then go into game changers, sort of look at this like chronologically. And so I think that something I don't know about you is how you even got involved with Be On Survivor.

So where did that process begin? So I had always been a big fan of the show. I distinctly remember watching Borneo with my family and my best friend whose wedding I actually missed to be on Survivor this time. I was supposed to be in the wedding, my friend Katie, watching the first Survivor that summer. And I was in love with Greg.

I was like, this guy's awesome. He talks into a coconut. And then we watched as a family. It was kind of the family watching thing. I always joke that I thought my parents were going to get divorced because one really liked Russell and one was like, how can you like Russell? And it was like very polarizing in my house.

That's just a fun anecdote. Russell Hance has divided many a family. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty funny. But I had kind of stopped watching maybe in high school or college a little bit, but then I watched Kagaian and I binge watched it. And that was this, it was at May 2014 when that aired and Tony won.

And I saw something of myself and Spencer and how he was scrapping and super emotional. Like he loved this game he wanted to play. And then just like Tony was a complete and utter lunatic. Yeah, and it's funny because you know, you would go on to play with Tony, but we talked to Spencer on the podcast a couple of weeks ago and we really did compare that your arc on Survivor would be very much like

the arc of Spencer of a series of, oh, I'm on the bottom. Like, oh, I'm back in business. Like, oh, I'm back on the bottom. And just like this up and down roller coaster ride, that's interesting that you identified with him. I did. And I think there's something that you identified with him. I did. And I think there's something, I think in my life, I'm good at managing chaos.

So then chaos kind of comes to me or I unconsciously seek out people who might be a little chaotic because I feel comfortable with crazy a little bit. Yeah, I do feel, I am comfortable with crazy. That's for sure. But anyway, watch Kageyan. I really liked Sarah actually when I watched the show.

I thought she had a lot of potential. Just all the characters. And I said, you know what? I'm sick of saying I'm gonna do it. I'm just gonna apply. I'd started to make a tape one other time. It fell through because I was moving and changing jobs. So I put the tape in, in July, 2014.

Talked about how I like to make crayon art. I liked astrology. I had been a journalist, and then I had a cameo from Ron Jeremy in my video, because I had met him on one of my last journalism stories the year before. I've also met him. Oh, have you? Was he wearing crocs and sweatpants like when he met me? Yeah. It's not a pretty picture often with all due respect to Ron. Yeah, it's a little bit of an awkward picture, but he did produce the little, I said, can

you just say, I said to him, I want to say I can hang with anyone. I can even hang with Ron Jeremy. And he said, no, no, no, wait, we're going to frame the shot and I'm going to walk in after you say that. And he did. And he had a harmonica randomly He's really jokey right? He's really sassy. He wants to do a lot of shtick.

A lot of shtick and then he offered to like sign a body part and I declined but Yours or his? Oh, mine and I was like I'm all good. Thanks, buddy. Yes, but I put the tape in in July. I got the call in October from casting of 2014. Oh my gosh, wow, 2014. So during San Juan del Sur. Yes, it was October 2014. You got the call.

I said, make another tape, focus on your journalism skills. And then I got swept up into casting and that crazy stuff. And then I was on a plane to Cambodia. So funny on the plane over, I was actually sitting next to Michelle and next to Michelle was Sydney, which I always think is really funny. I love those memories of getting on the plane

and casting when you first got to know people. Like the first time I ever saw Nick, I was like, this is like a creepy Don Draper. And he gave me what he thought was a smile as I walked on the plane. Yeah, I think I did. He was such a weirdo. He had like, he's grinning at me like, I'm like, what's your problem, dude? Like, I just do not get who this guy is.

But it's just funny to think back. And like in casting, I was in love with Ty. Ty, Ty said, I knew she was my like in casting I was in love with Ty. Ty said I knew she was my girl in casting like we looked at each other and he's like winking at me and like dude you need to like chill out just a little it's pretty obvious but I still have the notes from casting of like names I had for people. I said that I thought that Neil was polite which is kind of hilarious to me now because he's a little bit irreverent and does his own thing. But Julia, I called her sorority girl. I knew I liked Joe. I didn't interact with him much.

Sydney looked super tough, but I liked that she was quiet and to herself because she seemed stable. Oh, and then Liz and Peter in the pool. That is a great story. I went out, we could choose gym time or pool time. And the first day I had pool time. And then I said to myself, I want them to think that I don't have any athleticism at all. I'm going to go to the pool. So I go to the pool and it's just me, Liz and Peter there. And Liz is in her little white bikini and walks up to me and goes, hi. And I said hi back. And then I'm a rule follower. So I'm like this. And I said some like expletives. I'm like, oh my God, I can't believe she's trying to talk to me. Like she's trying to get me kicked out.

So then you said this to yourself. You said this to a handler. Oh, I said this to myself, but I definitely like sneered at Liz to a handler to be like, she coming to talk. I was like, no, he shouldn't. But yeah, that's on me. But then Liz and Peter in the hot tub. Wait, this went from a pool to a hot tub. Yeah, there was a pool and then the hot tub.

And then I'm sitting there like alone by the pool and Liz and Peter in the hot tub. And I'm just watching them. And then Liz gets out of the hot tub and I'm legitimately cold. So I go in and like five seconds later, she comes back in the hot tub like to claim Peter. And I'm like, you got to be kidding me. So now all three of us are sitting in this hot tub, not talking. But I think that was the moment that the brain started to get cast because it was so uncomfortable.

I was so irritated with them. And then I talked about them the entire time you're casting. Yeah. Well, this is really interesting. Now, I that the three of you, I think all have like qualities that would have made you on the Brains tribe anyway. So honestly, I don't know how they work that to see like, do they put people they're thinking about putting together in into the wild to see like what the what the interaction is.

But this is so funny that you know, this drama that unfolded on the show started from casting. Yeah, I'd say it did. I did not have a good and I love Liz now and I love Peter now, but I did not have a great vibe with them at all. And I liked Neil. He seemed like kind of a weirdo and I get, I'm attracted to crazy. And then I just knew I'd love Joe because I always love old people. Um, I love, I love Joe because I always love old people. I love I love you Joe. What is it 71 and getting it done. So what he says that's that was his hashtag and then when he turned 73 he asked me to post after his unfortunate that about cash tag 73 and now he can pee.

Anyway, yeah, the casting it's just funny to think about that's how I met those people and then you go through that whole process and I had no clue what the theme could be when we went out there. I didn't even realize that the alternates weren't in the cast photo. I had myself so amped up before we went on Co-Wrong that I thought that the two alternates, one of them ended up being Jay, were like this couple we had to like find in the jungle, like these two outcasts, like I was making stuff up in my head. I was so amped up.

I have a journal from right before we got marooned and I was just such a mess. I can't believe my panic attack was on day two. I would have thought it would have been on the boat, but Well, when you played in the game and you had that big panic attack early on that, you know, I probably would have said it was more heat exhaustion in my head. Is that what it was? It was more of a, of a like, okay, I'm just like over my circuits are overloading. Well, I thought it was a heat exhaustion. So when we, we got, we got out there, I didn't drink the water. I didn't want to get sick. I waited till Debbie and Joe drank it.

And yeah, I wanted to see if they died first of dysentery or whatever organ trail disease you get from drinking water, cholera probably. And it was a water thing. I hadn't had water. I was overheated. I wasn't sweating. So my skin was dry. It was like a bloated leather couch. I wasn't sweating. So my skin was dry. I was like a bloated leather couch

I don't know and it was that but then I realized there was definitely an anxiety part of it when I had people Telling me who are like professionals like yeah, you definitely had some anxiety in there. So it's the heat anxiety Have you ever experienced that outside a survivor? No, I have didn't I hadn't had a panic attack or anything panic related before and I haven't had it after. But I do remember like I have my notes from when we were on that boat in Co-Rong and things were like neon colors jumping off like the my memory of that boat. I can't think of any memory I have where the colors are so vibrant. Yeah, Nick's shirt to the man in the yellow hat, like the banana looking outfit. You just needed curious George. You could be all set. I don't want to just go, you know, day by day into color. Just because we don't have

the time for everything that with all of the survivor you've played in the last couple of years. So I would love to sort of just get into things that you feel like that people either have Misperceptions about or things that you've always wanted to talk about but haven't been able to have the opportunity from that season Is there anything and we could sort of like talk about things like just like in chunks in terms of that game Or if you want to be more extemporaneous in terms of notes that you have to talk about sure I think we can just kind of jump theme. I have a couple of themes that have come up. And if you have any others or questions that relate to that, I think a big thing for me about Korong and I was that I have evolved over time is that I kind of got pinned as wishy washy and that I had

anxiety according to Scott. And I really don't care about his opinion anymore whatsoever. But I thought it was so funny that I got pinned as wishy washy in that game when what I was trying to do, at times, sure, wishy washy, you cross out someone's name, let's talk about crossing out the name. Yeah, that definitely was a bad move. And maybe that's where I drew dead in the game. And let's just reset that just in case.

You know, so, you know, not everybody has the best memory, but what it was was that you had what it was you and Joe and Peter after the swap. Yeah, right. There was Ty and Scott and then Julia had just come back in from the Exile Island. Yeah, there was potentially going to be a 3-3 split if all of the brains stuck together rather than go to a potential rock draw in that spot.

You said that you were debating the, you know, should I stick, stay with the brains or do I avoid the rock draw and then ultimately switch and vote out Peter. And so in the episode from what we saw, you originally wrote down Julia's name, crossed it off and wrote Peter and Peter ended up going home. Yes, that. Oh man, that night wasn't fun. That was a legitimate. There were a lot of conversations that happened on the beach that day. Scott spoke to me individually. Scott spoke to Joe individually. Scott spoke to both of us together. And then when we're sitting there, he says original plan. And I realized that the original plan that I thought wasn't the original plan that Scott thought. So what you see happening there is me trying to figure out if the original plan that Scott meant was when he talked to me alone, me and Joe together, or Joe and Scott together. Because

Joe and Scott had different conversations than I had. And I kind of was realizing and processing in real time that his interpretation of original wasn't mine. And like, yeah, was that wishy washy? It wasn't clean and it wasn't great. But I think that I did get called wishy washy a lot. And I think the true definition or the true thing Scott should have said is that Aubrey liked to consider other things that weren't what I told her to do. And that was that was a stigma I had in that game that I think stemmed from the fact that Scott was a bit of a control freak. And that always kind of irritated me.

I'm like, I'm wishy washy. At least I'm being proactive and doing something and coming up with a different plan. But that's something that's kind of irked me over time. You know, I didn't make things look pretty, but I was never a passive player in that game. I think there's a difference between playing under the radar intentionally and just being passive. And I think that's something that happened in Korong. I mean, there are a lot of mind games when the season ended where I was asked, like, did you really make that move? Did you really know what you were doing? And I felt really lucky that when it aired and I feel kind of like hockey or obnoxious saying this

now, but the things that I thought I did, I did. And I was super spoiled that I got to narrate my thinking and the moves that I made because there was a lot of gaslighting in the year between Koron when Koron ended and Koron aired. By who? By who? By the like by the show or by the cast? Oh, the cast. Yeah.

I mean whether it was Jason and Scott telling us they tied the vote or Michelle and I squabbling a little bit over who made what move. I mean it was it was it was uncomfortable. Right. And those relationships got complicated and people were very close but in a not always healthy way. Yeah. But you guys are good now. We're all good now. We love each other now.

But the wishy washy stigma really, really irritated me. Because I think that if we weren't necessarily placed in the categories, brain, brawn, beauty, and I wasn't put as a brain. I mean, like Ozzy called me Woody Allen in his exit interview this time. I'm like, Ozzy, I barely talked to you. You're calling me Woody Allen because I wear glasses. I think I wonder if we hadn't been in brain bra and beauty, if the stigma would have been a little bit different.

Tell me if I'm reading into this too much, but I feel like you're sort of saying that you also were able to take advantage of some of these perceptions coming into Game Changers and you almost wanted people to think that maybe that was the case of you being wishy washy more so than you having more like direction and confidence in what you were doing at that point. Yeah, I think that I wanted to strike a balance

coming into Game Changers that I was confident and a stable Alliance member, but that I wasn't necessarily an alpha type of person because there were moments in Korong where I did kind of get portrayed as the alpha. And I think I was, I just had this conversation with Andrea that I think I'm an alpha, but only when it's appropriate.

I know how to go into beta mode. But I kind of wanted to strike the balance in Game Changers where to some people I could be that girl on Korong who didn't quite know what was going on, but also that I was confident and stable. Yeah. If that makes sense. Now, I had felt like while even if that was a moment early on

where you're trying to decide which is the way to go that Jeff talked a lot about the growth that you had during that season did you feel like that that was a fair representation or did you feel like that you were this person all along and it wasn't really an arc of growth? Oh I definitely think I grew. I know I'm sensitive about the stuff I was just talking about mainly the stuff that comes from Scott, but I did have growth. I did become, I don't think I was ever not confident.

I think that's an important distinction. I was told a lot that I didn't have confidence and I lacked confidence. I have, therapy is the best thing ever. I made a point after Korong to go to a therapist and sort through stuff. And something I learned very quickly is I didn't have very much self-compassion. And self-compassion is different than self-confidence. And I definitely lacked self-compassion out there. I'm the kind of person who's so hard on myself

that I end up kind of spiraling when I'm too hard on myself about being hard on myself. And I think what you saw in Korong, that was someone who is too hard on themselves, but then someone who learned that even when you had everything right and your ducks in a row, things still wouldn't work out. And then I've always said on Survivor,

the days that seem like the good days are, end up being the worst days. And the days where you wake up and it seems like the worst, they end up being the best. So in terms of growth, I learned how to work with, roll with the punches a little bit more. What else from CoWrong is something that people might have the wrong idea about

or something that you haven't been able to talk about? Sure, the Debbie vote out. I've gotten a lot of people say, why'd she take out Debbie? I see a lot of people saying she was a solid alliance member and then you put a bitter juror up there, someone who, not bitter, sorry, the B word. I know it's controversial, but someone like that I caught her and that was bad jury management.

Okay. Well, let's just set the stage for that. What is that? Is that final nine final nine? We decide to take out Debbie. Who was the other option? Julia. I wanted Julia gone, but Julia won immunity. She won immunity. Right. And Debbie had been going back and forth to Julia in that episode. And then you had where there was the threesome of Scott and Jason and Ty on the other side. You guys had just all voted together to vote out Nick the previous rounds, correct? Yes, the girls.

Plus Joe. Yep. And Ty voted for Jason? Or is that this round? Yeah, actually, can we talk about that for a second? Yeah, sorry, you're getting me, now I'm getting, I go into this mode where I can talk about Korong and then I put myself physically in the space.

Yeah, the Nick vote out was super interesting because on the show, we saw it was Sydney's idea. She got irritated with him. And then Michelle and Julia went and turned on him. That was an interesting day. Neil had been medevacked. And I don't know how, but people started coming up to me with their ideas on the day of taking out Nick.

Michelle and Julia actually wanted to take out Jason. And they had approached me about taking out Jason. But what had happened was I'd already had a conversation with Nick where he said, you're going to do what I tell you to do. You're going to vote for Debbie and you're going to thank me later. And it's that one where I'm looking at him like, yeah, OK, this is like, you don't want to talk to me yet or any girl for that matter. I love you, Nick.

And then I went to Debbie and I gave her the option. And she's like, no, I'm never working with Nick. I'm done with him. That's it. Why? Why did she sour on Nick so quickly? Because Nick had brought up her name that she thought Nick was being cocky and Debbie, like me, doesn't like when people tell her what to do.

Debbie, the fellow Scorpio Italian women. Oh man, I love her. But anywho, then the girls had come up and they didn't actually wanna take out Nick. They wanted to try to preserve him and they wanted to go for Jason. That would be Julia and Michelle.

And then I told them, I'm sorry, but I can't get the numbers for you from the brains. It's Nick or it's a no-fly zone. Like that's it, he's gone. And then Ty came up to me like 15 minutes before we're going to tribal and said he wanted to take out Jason.

And I mean, this is a controversial move, but I knew that at that point that Ty kind of held all the keys to the game. I have some notes, but I knew that from Neil that he had found an idol. I knew that the beauties all thought Ty had an idol and I'd heard from I believe Sydney that Jason had an idol. I knew that the beauties all thought Ty had an idol and I'd heard from I believe Sydney that Jason had an idol. And I knew that Ty was kind of flirting with the boys and might have this rumored super idol thing going on. Right. So I decided to tell Ty I'll do my best to get the numbers. I can't guarantee it and let him hang himself out to dry by voting for Jason so that maybe it would alienate him from the boys and he would need another option.

Similar to what happened in this past season in game changers when your side had said to Brad and Troy and Sierra that the vote was going to be on tie when Zeke went home. Yes. And then ultimately that alienated tie. Yes, yes, yes. It was the same thing. It was the same thing. It was the same. Right. And then he didn't want to work with them.

And then he voted against them on the next voter, too. Yes. I mean, that's the thing for me. I feel like I someone writes my name down, especially in game changers. I was like, whatever. I mean, I'm doing anything I can to get numbers, but it really can. It can kind of make people a little bit of an island where they need someone else. That was a little bit of the rationale behind the Nick vote, which sets up the Debbie vote. The other thing going on is, so I had an idea

of where all these idols were. And I was also worried about my own head at that point. And Debbie had been talking to Ty, There's that scene at the merge when Neil is still there and we're sitting there early in the morning and Debbie says, Hey Ty, we're in an alliance. Yeah, you're with us. And I could just feel the air like going out of a balloon when she talked to him. And I knew I needed Ty. Like he held all the keys to the castle if he had this idol and he was working with the boys. And I knew that he was never going to work with Debbie. I mean, I actively had people coming up to me saying, I want to work with you, but you're working

with Debbie and I will not work with her. She's unstable. She wants to do everything how she wants to do it. Nick had told me he wouldn't work with me with Debbie. So I got, I mean, that was part of the reason of getting rid of him. But also then Ty wouldn't work with Debbie. And I mean, like Ty was so important. And so I decided at that point that she had been like flirting with this idea of Julia who was obviously playing the middle. But then I didn't know where all these idols were

and I didn't want to get knocked out. So I thought that the best strategic move at that point in the game was to make an emotional move because then it opened up and loosened people up so that maybe they would come work with me, mainly Ty. I wanted to work with him and I knew that with Debbie in the picture, it would never work. I mean, Debbie also at that point was stealing Scott shorts and throwing them in the lagoon, which you can see that Scott ends up wearing Jason's, sorry, Scott ends up wearing Nick's boxers or whatever. You can see, yeah, you can see a little wardrobe change

around the time Debbie goes home, the boys that hid the machete and the pots and stuff. So is this before they go on the war path and start burning things in the camp? Are you saying that they were sort of provoked? No, it was all at the same time. So I think the boys took the machete and the other kitchen items first. So there was revenge going on, right? They're going to destroy the camp. There were people that were saying, we're going to mess with their personal property. Yeah. So the boys messed, put the water on the fire, all that.

And then Debbie wanted revenge. It was war. I mean, it was war for the auxiliary captain or whatever she is. And she was going and hiding stuff. I actually came back from a walk one day and we had all the kitchen items around the fire, all our belongings around the fire, and then the shelter.

And I came back and the entire camp was moved. Like every single thing, including the rocks from the fire pit had been moved next to the shelter. So Debbie could watch the boys and watch what they were doing. And I mean, at that point, like the getting tie on my side and just also like the instability of what was going on, I decided to take out Debbie. So that move, I get a lot of flack for,

but if I hadn't done that, I think that the whole game would have, I believe that my game would have been different. I never would have worked with Ty. And just to go back to that point in time, Julia was your first target and she had won immunity. Where were you supposed to go with the vote in that round where Jason had

an idol, Ty had the other idol. They also have the ability to put together the super idol at that point in time before those guys have alienated Ty who knows if he would have given up his half. So you could have put votes on Scott or Jason and then Ty ends up using the super idol at that point to save one of them. And then ultimately your vote goes nowhere. So what are you supposed to do? Vote out Michelle or vote out Joe. So you got to vote for somebody. Yeah. And I mean, that, that was my rationale and the super idol at that point. I don't think we all knew for sure, but I trusted Neil enough. I got all that information out

of them. If I didn't get the idol, I got info out of them before he went. What about towards the end game in Korong where you look to be probably the favorite coming down the stretch. You have the very bad break with Joe Del Campo ultimately going out because just to reset that what at five you have yourself and Joe are sort of like an unbreakable pair with all due respect to Joe. He's probably not getting any votes in the finals. Right. And you have tie with you also who set to use his hidden immunity idol there at the final five and probably Michelle or Sydney is going to end up going home. Is that is that fair to say? Yeah, I think the final six is when Jason was still there. And I got a lot of flack for that vote on the final six.

I decided to take out Jason instead of taking out Michelle. And that's where we made Ty burn his extra vote. Who did you, you got flack from the fans or you got flack from the players? Yeah, the fans. The fans didn't understand. They say that like I lost my own game at the final six when I decided to take Jason out.

Was that after Michelle won or was that at the moment that it happened, people said, oh, she just lost the game by voting Jason out. Wait, who won the immunity at final six in Cologne? It wasn't Michelle. Michelle was up in the air. We could have taken her out. Was it Sydney?

It was Sydney. Yeah, that sounds right. With the immunity stacking. It was kind of like immediately after the show. And I've seen an analysis after that. People said, why wouldn't you take Jason to the end? You could have beaten Jason. And that one really bothers me in that I did have a head heart controversy thing.

I was in tears trying to figure out who I should take out. And at that, the interesting thing about Co-Rong is that Jason was an incredibly talented public speaker. When you were in a tribal council and Jason spoke, all eyes were on him. And he's a charismatic guy. He's so charismatic. And he really did have great relationships. As much as he can be aggressive and had the smelliest farts in camp, he was disgusting.

He was very close to Scott, he was very close to Julia. Nick has even said if Jason somehow made it to the end from that Braun tribe, which was like one of the worst tribes ever, he would have voted for him to win. So at that point, I saw Jason as a huge threat. Michelle hadn't done, hadn't done, hadn't made a move where I really thought she had a resume at that point. I think she had one immunity. And I remember thinking at that point, like, oh, she's a little more well rounded than

Jason. I'm a little afraid she could win immunities. But then if it's a strength immunity, Jason has us and we're cooked. And the other thing there was that Jason was never going to be taking me with him. Absolutely, positively not. So even though I was in a sense like in control for some of the votes for CoWrong, I wasn't really exactly anybody's ideal final three. And I did have to try to get there. Yeah, I wanted to manage the jury as best I could, but at that point, like Jason was an immediate threat

to me getting to the end. Look, everybody's a threat in a lot of these seasons and I can sort of identify with this same sort of thing in Survivor of the Amazon that, you know, at the final five, we had a choice to vote out Heidi or Jenna. I looked at Heidi as the person who was the biggest threat. I don't know that in the next couple of days,

Jenna's gonna go on an immunity run and ultimately win the final challenge and knock me out. But you make the best decision with the information you have at that point. You don't know necessarily Michelle's gonna go on and win these challenges and whatnot. So you do, you know, everybody is what we've seen over the years all, you know, there are situations where almost anybody can win against different people.

So you don't know. You don't know. And the other thing too, is I didn't realize the power of being an underdog. And in Korong, there was this funny effect of, I mean, it was an interesting boot order. Different people would become underdogs like every single day or every three days. And then after the final six, Michelle did become the underdog. It was day or every three days. And then after the final six, Michelle did become the underdog. It was me, Joe and Ty. I mean, that was my that was my ideal final three. And if it wasn't them, then you could plug Sydney in in there. And then when Joe gets medevaced and I don't have an opportunity to take out Michelle next.

And by nature, the jury tends to, you know, be pulling for an upset. You know, they like to see the person who was the outsider, who's, you know, throwing off the plan of the people that may have knocked them out of the game. I think that's part of it. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. I mean, I remember going into that. I wish the one thing the final tribal in Korong, Nick asked a great question.

And I thought that my answer to Nick's question kind of was like my entire game. He asked, I forget what he asked Ty, but he asked Michelle to show that she was smart and me to show that I was confident. And Nick had asked me what I did and I laid out everything that I thought I had been the person who changed my role depending

on what people needed that I was a person people came to with information. I mean, I don't know, people came to me constantly with information and I use that to make, to make my moves. I came up with the idea to vote people out like Debbie and I was the glue that kind of cobbled, dragged, had groups of people together. So I do wish that that had made final tribal, but there was so much that went on. And it was just so difficult to sit there knowing that I had no shot and like fight, like giving these people evidence of like, I was the glue. I was the glue in the vote to vote out Scott. This is why this person was left out. This person, I like went down to the nitty gritty mechanics of it, but there was still like nothing I could do.

Like Scott absolutely couldn't stand me and was never going to vote for me. I mean, I knew when he got up and did his obnoxious little dance that I was no, I had no chance. But that jury is still so interesting to me because the concept of like bitterness comes up and the Sydney vote has always been very difficult for me because I felt like I was really close to her. But having been in fifth place position on game changers, I now understand where Sydney's head probably was in that tribal and that she never was probably considering voting for me. I was

pretty annoyed at that point in the game and game changers. And I remember actively having to like settle myself and get myself in the right frame of mind. But all the jury discussion has been like, I love Michelle. We're fine. I'm fine with all of them for the most part. I'm close to Julia. I'm actually very close to Jason. It has been hard to hear all the controversy about Co wrong. And there

are some misconceptions. I don't you had to you really had to be there. Like it really was a bizarre crew. It was such a bizarre crew. And I know it's been hard on Michelle to like she won the game. Sure. She deserved to win the game. Here's the thing. None of us deserve to do anything. We put in a tape, we got put on a show. So I do find it a little irritating that anytime someone posts something on Michelle, it becomes like the pro Aubrey up vote. And if it's about me, it's like the down vote and pro up vote for Michelle. And it just hasn't been the most comfortable at times.

I could certainly imagine. And I'm sure it's a very uncomfortable wedge that gets driven between two people who genuinely like each other. And you know, it's a game and by the nature of the game, like one person does have to win. You know, you have to have you have to have a winner of the game. And it was a remarkably close game and you know, could have gone could have gone either way and it was just like but there was so much drama Coming out of it. It was and that's the thing for me is like I I feel like sometimes I want to tell people like I love you

I appreciate the support but like you're more upset about this than me and I lived it and I want to win I always want to win but let me tell you coming in second place. It has been like the best Lesson I could possibly have like you can do everything right I always want to win, but let me tell you, coming in second place has been like the best lesson I could possibly have. Like you can do everything right. I was always the kid who dotted my I's and crossed my T's in school. And I always thought if you worked hard,

it would just work out. And now I realize sometimes that like life happens by accident and sometimes you eat red meat and it's not a good day. Like these things just happen. And there is luck in survivor too. Sometimes you eat red meat and it's not a good day. Like these things just happen. And there is luck in Survivor too. That's why it's been awesome actually to have Sarah as a winner.

We've become pretty close and she's really self-aware about certain parts of the game that, you know, we can get into that. Okay, great. All right. So I'd like to start to segue into your journey, not even like the start of Game Changers, but a little bit of like that transitional period of going from Co-Wrong, learning about Game Changers, and ultimately deciding to go there. Get to Toronto's main venues like Budweiser Stage and the new Rogers Stadium with Go Transit.

Thanks to Go Transit's special online e-ticket fares, a $10 one-day weekend pass offers unlimited travel on any weekend day or holiday, anywhere along the Go network. And the weekday group passes offer the same weekday travel flexibility across the network, starting at $30 for two people and up to $60 for a group of five. Buy your online Go Pass ahead of the show at Gottransit.com slash tickets. Aubrey, at what point do you start to hear buzz that there is going to be this returning player season? So I was called for game changers three days after the cast was announced for Korong. So, okay. So, yeah, January to the general public. So before I even saw an episode of Co-wrong, I knew that I might be going out again.

Okay. And was there any hesitation on your part? I mean, there was no hesitation on my part to go back again. I had no concept of how controversial the end of Co-wrong would be. More than anything, I was super flattered because the teachers petting me on it. It was like, yay, I was good enough in Korong. They want me back. Yay, time to go. And I knew I knew that I lost Korong. So I still had the fire in me to go to go and play again. So what was it like for you to deal with getting ready to play the second time, but then also having your first time airing. And there were many high points of your game

which were shown. Was there a point where you were sort of like, was it bittersweet where you were watching? It's like, oh, yeah, that was a good moment, but I wish they didn't show that because I think you sort of want to come in with lower perception of yourself than come in with lower, you know, perception of yourself than coming in and being that person. Oh, she should have won. She was great.

Yeah, I was in a tough position as I knew I wanted to go again. But then I as each week rolled by, like the Scott vote out happened. That was pretty late in the season. That was like April 20th, that episode where I kind of convinced Ty to go against Scott and not play the idol on him. And I realized like, oh, this could be a little bit, this could be a little bit scary. Like here I am.

And the other thing I had working against me was that I was making these big moves on TV, but I also wasn't in the survivor community yet. So people didn't know me at all face to face. So what started happening is I think there was like this mystery of like, wow, this girl's making these moves. Is it the edit or is she really making these moves? How does she actually interface with people?

Like, how does she actually communicate? So I had like this kind of perfect storm of, oh, she's making moves. And I don't quite know how she does them because no one I know really knows her yet. Yeah. So it was like this weird shroud of mystery where I was like this person getting things done. And yeah, so it was tough as I'm preparing to go. And I got in the best shape of my life. I had my job still. I think I ran on adrenaline for months. I keep saying that I ran on adrenaline from January of 2016 to like hearts of reality 2016. And it was exhausting getting ready. It's crazy.

Did you have a lot of contact with the other people in the Korong four? Wow. Oh man. The Korong four was never, ever a thing. Never a thing. I get it wasn't a thing in the game, but in terms of just sort of chatter, what I mean, were you hearing from Debbie? Were you hearing from Ty and Caleb? Yeah, so Ty and I would communicate, but it was all about 32.

We were talking about the things we were seeing in 32 and he was pretty upset about the final six vote where I pulled the wool over his eyes. I tried to flush his extra vote, which it did, and he voted for Michelle, and he felt like I hung him out to dry on the vote where I decided to vote out Jason. So we were talking about that,

and we also did talk about 34 once we figured out we'd both be on it. And we said like, we'll see if our stars align, but like, I'm not guaranteeing anything. And we kind of went into it with this like semi-spoken, yeah, I'm kind of probably going to be avoiding you because we could see already on screen that we were like this pair and you could see the chemistry between us. So yeah, Ty and I kind of went in and it wasn't feeling so great. Debbie and I did not even say goodbye at the finale.

I had spoken to Debbie. We were fine, but I knew that she was like, she would still have my head. No matter what. And Caleb and I just exchanged a text like, hopefully we see each other out there. Hopefully we have each other's backs. But it was like one text. It really was nothing. And I really didn't pregame. I had a couple people reach out to me, like very generically about like, hey, like I wonder what the temperature will be.

How's your wardrobe going? Like two other people. But I, I very intentionally didn't want to pregame because I thought that my best strength going in, if there were in fact this many Korong people, was to be like this free agent who could kind of plug in anywhere, but little did I know that the Korong 4 would be such a thing. Do you wish you talked to more people

before you went to go play? In some ways I wish I'd spoken to more people before we went out, but in other ways I think perhaps I was able to get to five because I hadn't locked in. Yeah. And it ended up benefiting me to the degree that people, that the unknown part of me ended up benefiting me

and that I could kind of plug in anywhere if people needed me. But yeah, I mean, that's the thing about Game Changers. It was tough. Like I was not ever in plans. Yeah, there were a lot of plans and I only kind of realized it as the season went on. Like Troisanne and Brad, that like it kills me still that I had to like go against Troisanne at the final five. But like Brad

said to my face, when I met him, you should have won Co wrong. Monica thinks you should have won Co wrong. And so then we thinks you should have won Co-Wrong. And so then we built this relationship, which was genuine and authentic. And we talked about our families and relationships, but it still didn't matter. Like I was never gonna be in Brad's plans. And it was obvious that Troisanne was always in his plans.

I think it's hilarious. And when that tribal at the final five that we just watched at the finale where people, where Jeff goes, do you realize how close people perceive you and Brad to be? And that tribal at the final five that we just watched at the finale where people were Jeff goes, do you realize how close people perceive you and Brad to be? And Troisans like, no, it's like Troisans. Like it's a bit of an intense friendship. I didn't realize until after.

And then Sandra says that if she had gotten to the merge, she had to deal with Troisans and Brad to the end. So I just have, I've realized all this stuff and I'm like, Aubrey, man, if only you'd know. But the Troisanne and Brad thing ultimately like, I don't know what necessarily changes. You feel like that there was going to be room for one to turn on the other. I feel like that that was like a mutually beneficial relationship in the game where it was like, you know, Brad feels like that he can be Troy's and because he thinks that Troy's and maybe hasn't made a move or I'm not sure why Brad might feel like he can be Troy's. Troy's and feels like he could be Brad because Brad has pissed more

people off. So he's so he's coming in. So I don't really I understand what you're saying, but I don't really know if there's a scenario where it would have made sense for them to turn on each other either. No, it probably didn't. I mean, I tried to turn with them at the final seven and they were just unfortunately, it was contingent on Ty. It would have been me, Brad, Trois Anne and Ty, but Ty was still deciding if you wanted to be with the girls or the guys and we couldn't lock down Ty. And it just didn't happen. Let's talk about this group that you ultimately start with.

What were you thinking when you came in with them and saw these people? Because I had mentioned this when we got to speak the other day, where I was so excited. You were the one person who said, I would love to work with Tony. Oh, I wanted to work with Tony so badly. Like my strategy coming in was,

I knew right when Coe wrong ended and I got the idea of the magnitude of the reaction, I knew I was gonna have to play, like I had won that season and I had to play with the big threats. And the number one threat on my list was Tony. I used to be a journalist and my big thing was with the big threats. And the number one threat on my list was Tony. I used to be a journalist and my big thing was crime reporting.

And I always had the best rapport with the cops. And I wanted to be Tony Spencer. I really, really did. And I got out on that beach and I realized off the bat, like, oh no, like people like Sandra's claws are in that woman is unbelievable Even how she keeps her social circles after the game. It's stunning I mean I wanted to work with Tony and I went up to Sandra the first day and I said hey Sandra I've kind of gotten the vibe that you don't want to work with me. It had kind of gone back to me that she

Was telling people there's a co-wrong four and Aubrey should be first. Yes. And I said, I know there are four of us. I know that like I'm perceived as a threat, but that's why I want to work with you. And she so much has said to me like, okay, I'm willing to listen, but it's nothing personal. And I was like, oh, that's not good. Yeah, it's not good at all. And so I wanted to work with Tony, but I just made people so paranoid

and it just kind of all, it all kind of blew up. I mean, those first days on Manna were some of the most lonely days of my life. They really were. It's incredibly difficult. Like there's a great story about Sandra out there. I'd been talking to Sierra Easton and I really liked her, but it was getting back to me that people thought we knew each other from before.

Yeah, why? And I had, I don't know, I'd never spoken to Sierra before. I think we kind of are like a similar height and both have dark hair and we kind of look like we could be related or something to people. I don't know what it was, but she quickly realized, Sierra realized that people were kind of putting us in a duo and that had happened to her with kind of Wentworth and Abby, I think in 31. And so she went to Sandra and I realized like, great, I am fully cemented on the Tony side now because I talked to Tony and no one else will talk to him. And now I have Sandra coming at me harder. So we went to prepare the food and Sandra looks at me and she says, Aubrey, you were really close to people in your season, like Ty.

You were very affectionate to them. Go give Sierra Easton a hug, like you mean it. Can you do that in front of the whole tribe? So Sandra made me hug Sierra Easton like I meant it in front of everybody. Why? Was this like some sort of like hazing ritual where we need to see if you can do it? Yeah, I think Sandra was trying to get in my head because I was speaking to Tony and

I was like that odd duck with Caleb was also talking to Tony. I was like, okay. And then Sierra says Aubrey, the rice is ready. Portion out the food in front of everyone. And this is like on day two. So I went and I gave everybody two scoops on the bamboo. And then I left the bamboo on the crate. And I was like, you're not playing food games with me. And it was very clear from that moment on that I had been talking to Tony and I was sneaky and people didn't want to work with me.

So that was not a good start for me. No, not a good start. And then your tribe goes on to lose a couple of challenges early on. Were you nervous during this first vote during the Sierra vote? I was nervous during the first vote. I knew my name had been floated around. I heard from reading pregame press that the journalists had been there and they said that they heard my name being floated around and it was not good. and I knew it wasn't good. I mean, it was, I was talking to Michaela and, but I wasn't quick enough for her on telling her

exactly what I thought. And so she thought I was sneaky. I got pinned painted as being sneaky very quickly for being someone who went off and talked to people, which was super irritating because everybody else was talking to people. But for some reason, because I had chosen to speak to Tony first, I was like the black sheep in the family. And I was nervous. It could have been me. And it could have been me on the second vote too. People were not happy. I was the only girl at the well when we decided to vote for Sierra and the people who were in the water. I think that was Michaela and Haley and Troysen were not happy that I had made that decision with that group. So

it was almost me on that Tony vote out and the Tony vote out day was terrible because I knew it was me or him and they came up with the plan. There was a decision made. Is it going to be Aubrey or Tony after we lost that challenge? And I was so upset and Trojan was actually super sweet to me and people came up to me and they said, okay, it's your job. You have to act like you're going home so that Tony doesn't find an me. And people came up to me and they said, okay, it's your job, you have to act like you're going home so that Tony doesn't find an idol. And if he finds an idol, you're going home. So I spent my entire afternoon and I loved Tony

like crying on him that I was going home. And like, oh, Tony, you know, like the only play I have right now is trust to get these people to trust because I was trying to get Tony in a corner where if he started scrambling, it would put the target on his back. So he knew he couldn't scramble because it would have made it worse for him. But yeah, those first two were not good. And then I got swapped with Sandra and Varner.

Okay. Well, before we get to the swap, can you give us at least one good Tony story that we may not have seen on the show, living with Tony for six days. Oh my gosh, Tony tried to make this crab trap out of like all these morsels of stuff he found in the woods, like a crate, canvas, oh, and he and Caleb together with that crab trap and just in general, it was like the most hilarious duo I've ever seen in my life, like Tony and Caleb could have their own show.

Yeah. I mean, it was unbelievable. And the other thing too is Tony, when you're sleeping, you're like quietly sleeping and you wake up and he's standing over you. And it's like, what, what am I going to do in my sleep? I actually had a paranoia dream a night too, where I dreamt that I got up and went looking for the idol and I didn't know if I was awake or asleep. And I swear Tony must've been staring at me the whole time because I, I've never had like a paranoia dream in my life. I w it was like going insane. Yeah. Oh my gosh. I love him though. He's

so he loves the game. Like how was he this week? I worry about Tony because I feel like he's so down about the whole thing. Tony was great. I didn't see him and And I messaged him this week and I was like, Tony, am I going to see it at the finale? And I didn't hear back. Yeah. Tony was fun in the green room. He was playing cards with the kids. Like the pro pre-merge plays this game. Like I call it Egyptian rat skank or rat screw or whatever it is. Egyptian rat skank. Yeah. I don't know what it's called. Malcolm taught me, but I might be the front runner for the hashtag. Yeah. Okay. All right. So, all right. So you go to the swap and were you close with Malcolm before the swap or this really came after you guys got swapped with all of you from Mana and then JT? Yeah. So no, Malcolm and I were close. Like the

first night we talked and we just were like on the same exact wavelength about everything. And he pulled in Caleb, but K Malcolm is really good about kind of blending in. He had a good relationship with Sandra. She, he, he was her number one. So Malcolm and I kind of had this agreement that we weren't going to talk, um, but we'd kind of let each other knew we hear heard. So Malcolm and I were good, really good going into the swap. Okay. Yeah. So you end up on this group and are you feeling like, okay, my ship has come in now I'm safe because I'm in this group with people from my old tribe and then JT and JT will be the person that gets voted out. Or you were still nervous.

Oh, I was not, I was not in a good spot with that first swap because Sandra had it out for me. Varner, Varner couldn't stand me. I mean, when we were in the first group, I had a nice conversation bonding with him and he immediately scampered over to the rest of the tribe and repeated what I said. I was never in a good place with Varner. And then Michaela, who had made it very clear that I was deceptive and sneaky and she was very concerned about me. But I worked like super hard to try to earn trust with Michaela and talk to her. And I wasn't feeling great about that. But Malcolm, I felt great with and I made a point to become friendly with JT great about that. But Malcolm, I felt great with, and I made a point to become friendly with JT off the bat. I mean, I was the person that if we lost and JT managed to get anyone's

claws into anything, I would have been going home. So I was not feeling great about that, but I also did have the numbers. So I had to stay with that. Okay. So when you guys first ended up getting to that swap, we see everything going on with JT leading you guys out on the water and then abandoning you guys to go search for the idol. I mean, was it, what was, is just like disbelief that this was happening? I thought it was hilarious. I thought it was hilarious when JT went for the idol. It was so obvious what he was doing. I was kind of glad he was. I was like, go ahead, buddy. Like I don't blame you. But I also was making a point to build more

of a relationship with him than the other people there. So I was okay with it, mainly because it made Sandra and Varner and Michaela uncomfortable. And I was so sick of them at that point. Okay, so you were sort of on board with, when I spoke with JT in the exit interview, he was talking about like the reason why he did and why he played so hard at the combined

tribal council was that he felt like if he could just take Sandra out of the picture, he felt like you and Malcolm and him had control of that group of five then from that point on. Did you see things in a similar fashion? Yeah, I did. I was, as I said, I was working really hard on Michaela when we went to the second, when we were at the swap. And I, at one point had gone up to Michaela and said, hey, I would love to be in alliance with you

to the final two. And she looked right at me and said, you don't have the numbers, I don't wanna work with you. And I was like, okay. So yeah, I was with JT and Malcolm and Michaela had also expressed interest in working with Malcolm and JT at one point. So I thought we would have control and then Varner would be off by himself because he was glued to Sandra. So I would have loved to take Sandra out at that combined tribal. JT actually approached me that afternoon and I wanted to take her out. That would be my

dream but I didn't think we had the numbers to do it yet. Okay. Before we get to combine tribal council, what was your reaction to when you saw Caleb got voted out? Oh, when Caleb got voted out, I knew that I was in trouble. Yeah. That would have been me. Why? Because that was a monoperson or that was a corong person? Oh yeah. When Caleb got voted out third, I knew I was in trouble. He was a monoperson? Or that was a corong person? Yeah. When Caleb got voted out third, I knew I was in trouble.

He was a monoperson, and he was a corong person. And if I had been on that tribe, I would have gone. And when Caleb went out, that's when I realized that, in my mind, my relationship with JT was going to be incredibly important, because he had all the real intel from what was going on with Nuku. And when we first got to that swap, JT told us this erroneous story about what had been going on in Nuku that Suri had him against the ropes and he was all by himself.

But then as I got to know JT, he started telling me the truth about how Nuku was constructed. So Caleb, yeah, the Caleb going out, I realized that these monopoe people were determined to play along tribe lines and we were so dysfunctional and all I wanted to do was hop over to the other side. Then were you surprised to hear that Ty voted against Caleb? I wasn't surprised to hear Ty voted against Caleb. I know that one of the things that Ty kind of regretted from his first game is that he wasn't harsher on people that he felt very close to.

And I actually had a dossier thing like for every single person who went on game changers. And I had like sheets about all of them. I listened to all their exit interviews, what their hopes were, what their dreams were, what their ego was driven by their mistakes, who they were friends with. And I knew that ties big thing was like making good on the mistakes. Was that helpful for you to have that dossier? Oh, it was helpful for me to have the dossier of like what who people were. Except when I look back at Sarah's, I only have one line doesn't like people who

lie, which is pretty funny. So, yeah. For me, when I went back and I played Survivor All Stars and and you know, I think that we have this in common where we both are coming off of a season where, you know, we're very visible and, you know, get a lot of the Oh, you should have one person, and then come back and play immediately. And that's like the freshest season in people's minds. When we play, you obviously did a lot better reacting to that. But I had a binder that I had made of everybody.

But I didn't have podcasts and like all this other stuff to watch and seasons on demand and things like that. Well, when I was going through this a very long time ago. But you're right that the biggest weakness there is the person that there's not a lot of intel on. They can like, God knows what I had on, you know, Amber Berkich. Right, exactly. Sarah was this unknown and I,

that totally worked in her advantage in this season. She came in and she was the person who made the mistake at the merge, was really upset that Tony lied a lot, and she's got like this wholesome Iowa thing going on, and she knows how to play it up. Yeah. So let's talk about the combined tribal council, LaCosta. It's such a huge moment in the season, and you're there.

So talk a little bit about what your thoughts were about what it was going to be going into it when you first find out that this is a thing. Oh man. When I knew it was going to be a combined tribal. Were you more concerned that it was going to be you or you were concerned that it was going to potentially be one of your allies? I actually was concerned that I could be a target at the combined tribal because Debbie and Ty were on the other side and I had heard whispers that Ty and Debbie were trying to work together. I knew I wasn't working with other co-wrongers, but I thought they were.

And I mean, if you get Ty, who feels like I pulled the wool over his eyes with Debbie, who actually like spelled out medieval ways she was going to dismember my body during the season. I didn't think it was going to be good for me. Yeah. So we were kind of going in and we wanted to go for the person they didn't think we'd be going for. And then alas, that person was someone that JT was really working with and JT wanted to make a big move. He really, I could tell he was itching to make it. We went out looking for the idol before that tribal.

And that's when he came up to me and said, oh, you, hey, you wanna go for Sandra with me? You wanna go? And I said, yeah, of course. I can't wait to get her out, but now's not the time. And then when we got to that tribal and all those people started scrambling and talking, I mean, something I think you see during the season is during these really chatty tribals that are very unorthodox.

I made a point to sit there a lot of the time. Sometimes I have the buff over my face, which is like a very weird habit I've talked to my therapist about. Yeah, what is that? Is that like a visual sort of like I am putting something over my mouth to block so people can see, look at me, I'm not talking. Is that what you're going for with that? Yeah, I don't know if it was, that was so unconscious. But the reason I was sitting there quiet is because I'd been told to my face

that I was like the most deceptive, scheming person in the game. Like it still irritates me to think about it because they're all running around. And- Why do you let that bother you? It bothers me because that it was harder for you to do what you're trying to do in the game because people have this perception of

you. There was just this perception that I was the only person playing and I kind of felt like people didn't want to make a move. I mean, I sound like Sierra Easton now in 31, but people didn't want to make a move. And then I realized it was just like with me that they didn't wanna talk to me because I was told that I talked to Tony

on day 35 of this game. And that's why people didn't trust me. And it just was frustrating cause it's like I talked to Tony, he's gone. Like use me, like I'm a number. Just because I spoke to Tony doesn't mean like I'm tainted fruit. Like, please, you've gotta be kidding me. like I'm a number just because I spoke to Tony doesn't mean like I'm tainted fruit. Yeah.

Like, please, you've got to be kidding me. So in these like combined tribals, I would sometimes sit there like, hey, I'm here. And guess what? I'm not scheming. I'm voting for who I said I was. You can trust me. I'm not wishy washy. Yeah, I definitely have like a trigger with the wishy washy schemey thing.

And yeah, I just wanted to play so badly. but I wanted people to see that I was a stable option. But my reputation was terrible at that point. So going into that combined tribal council, if JT could have then gotten on the same page with you and Malcolm and said, Hey, look, this is what I'm trying to pull off. Would you and Malcolm have been on board for that? Or it was too risky in your opinion? Malcolm was not trying to get Sandra out of the game at that point. Or she was a major option for him.

Yes. Malcolm wanted to work with Sandra and he wanted to work with me because Sandra and I didn't get along. Because Sandra and I didn't get along. Malcolm wanted to work with Sandra, wanted to work with me because he knew he could always be in the middle and we were never gonna like align against him. So Malcolm definitely didn't wanna go for Sandra. Malcolm was nervous that he could be the target at the combined tribal and I like didn't,

I thought he was fine. We went through every possible permutation for like four hours before the trial of what could possibly happen. And we were like, worst case your name goes down, but we don't think it's going to. So then when that all went down, I mean like when Malcolm's name was read, that was the first time I was ever blindsided in Survivor. And I was like, you've got to be kidding me.

Like he was my number one and it, oh I knew that JT had ratted but had ratted out to the other side but I so desperately didn't want it to be him because like he was like the first person who was like really nice to me as a human being out there and I mean I know it sounds ridiculous but I was like I really want a friend and I wanted to believe JT and I also knew that you didn't you couldn't predict where these swaps went I was like, I really want a friend. And I wanted to believe JT. And I also knew that you didn't, you couldn't predict where these swaps went. I'm like, I got to be with this guy because he's friends with all these people. If he, I, I don't want to be on the wrong side of whatever's happening, especially if he is an idol. So yeah, it was terrible, but I just had to like, you know, take a walk, cry, get it out and start the next day. How close were you guys to going with someone different than Sierra at that point?

Sierra, we decided pretty early on in our coming up with plans for that combined tribal, if I recall correctly. Why Sierra? Why was she so important? Just because that you were thinking that they wouldn't play an idol on her? Yeah, we thought Sierra was the most risk averse person that no one would try't play an idol on her? Yeah, we thought Sierra was the most risk averse person that no one would try to play an idol on her. Was there ever a thought about going after Haley? I know she was a mana person.

No. Oh, man. I would have been fine taking out Haley. I really liked Haley, but she made it clear that she just didn't feel like she connected me. She actually came up to me. Haley came up to me early in the game and said, when are you going to be more weird? Okay. And I said, what? She's like, I thought you're going to be like fun and quirky and weird. And I was like, Oh man, like I can't be who Haley needs me to be right now. Like I'm just getting into this game. I was under

the perception that she doesn't like weird. Don't be a weirdo. Don't be annoying. Don't be inconsiderate. You'll do okay. Yeah. You would think, but Haley wanted me to get my freak on, whatever that was. I guess be a little weird. Don't be a weirdo. Yeah. Be a little weird. Don't be a weirdo.

And so Haley was incredibly close to Sandra and I would have loved, I wanted Mana out so bad. I was ready to kill them all off. I was set with them. Yeah. But like that's something that like didn't get, people don't realize, and that combined tribal, something that irritated me and another reason I sat there was because Sandra and Varner were all over Haley.

And I was like, you are telegraphing to them that the mana are so tight. What happens if you guys get in the minority on another tribe? You could tell the mono were glued together. It was like, don't worry, Haley, we'll let this one go. It'll be fine. Like there was never any thought of taking out Haley. And it made me laugh that like Varner and Sandra and Michaela would talk about like Haley and Troye's and like they were our blood family.

And I had to be like, oh yeah, I miss them so much. And I'm like, no, I don't care. Take them out. We should have taken her out. But I don't know. They wanted to play along tribe lines. But it was so funny. Like there was not really that much of an effort to ever make me feel comfortable. But they're like, oh, you're just one of our mana. Like guys, I'm flipping on you. The second we go. Do you think, and this is just like a big picture idea with these returning players season. We saw in Cambodia and with this,

whatever tribe they put these people into, people get really bonded to their starting tribe and they don't, for whatever reason you would think that with returning players, it's like counterintuitive. You would think that there would be less. It's like, okay, I've known this person for four years, but I have a different color buff with them. So they're dead to me at this point. I almost feel like they should not do swaps in the seasons. If people are going to be that bonded to the returning player season, then just play out the whole pre-merge then as mana.

I know it gives, it theoretically gives people a chance, but it just seems like more often than not, it just turns out to whatever the random number split is, then it's like, okay, well, it doesn't matter how you were doing the first six days, you're the odd person out. You get voted out after the swap in, in that instance with the returning players. Yeah. I almost think returning player season should just be one world. Like, one world. Like just put all 20 of them.

One world, okay, so you think there's no tribes. I was almost saying like a heroes versus villains where they sort of play the first 22, 24 days in their original starting tribe. That's another way you could do it because the audience sort of knows them, but that might be, you know, I don't know how necessarily,

do you just draw buffs before the challenge and then, okay, these nine people are vulnerable this time. Yeah. I mean, I think that could be a way to do it logistically. Yeah. Well, that would be fun. You know, I think maybe the pregame alliance is more of a thing there because then you could have, say, you know, if six people were talking, now there's sort of a voting block, but you don't know necessarily if they're all going to be immune. Lots of stuff to play with on the theoretical side of things. Oh, without a doubt. Do you have one thing in particular that you were trying to accomplish or at the Combined

Tribal Council, or you were just sort of like stone-faced of, I'm just going to concentrate on not screwing anything up and not reinforcing this image that I'm scheming? I wanted to not reinforce the image that I was scheming. And I also, when I saw that Sandra and Varner were going and being like playing very heavily with Haley in it, I wanted to make it very clear that I wasn't in the loop with all the mana because I wanted the Brad cold peppers of the world, even like the Debbie's and ties and Sierra to see that I wasn't married to you wanted to get to Nuku. I wanted to get to Nuku desperately because when Caleb went, I could see, I was like,

this isn't good. then Malcolm went I mean in that that point it's 10 to 6 and I wanted to just kind of show myself I was trying to highlight in a sense that I was a lone wolf but do so in a way that wouldn't ostracize me anymore. And you didn't have love for any of the mana people that were in the game at that point so it was you felt like it was a sinking ship and you know there was no there there for you. There was no place for me with Mana. I mean I did my best with Michaela, I repaired that, I was close to Malcolm. But yeah Varner really didn't like me.

That was actually a hurdle for me at the merge. People I knew he didn't like me. That was actually a hurdle for me at the merge. I knew he didn't like me. And people said, like, I've heard horrible things about you from Varner. And I wasn't sure what I ever did to him. But they were from very choice words thrown around, kind of nasty. And I did have to overcome that when I finally met other people. They're like, the whole thing with Zeke just happened and I know where it's coming from, but like some pretty nasty stuff was tossed around and people didn't trust me even more. So when you say the whole thing with, with Zeke, this is like post game you're talking about?

No, no, no, no. I'm talking about the whole thing with Zeke. Um, and then we merged and then Zeke told us what happened, um, with the tribal, with Varner. And then I was also said things about you to other players prior to that. Yes. Jeff had been kind of like putting my name through the ringer when he got swapped with Sandra and they were on the bottom of the second swap tribe. So that was another hurdle I had to overcome that only kind of exacerbated this Aubrey's deceptive. She's sneaky. She should have one go wrong. We can't trust her. Yeah. And even though my name wasn't

always down on paper, I was always that person. I said it was like a litmus test. Like at any time you could like test the acidity of the water on the tribe. And I was always like the, Oh, maybe, maybe Aubrey, we could always take her out. So I was always like the floating name that if nothing else works out, we'll take her out. Having this perception of you from the first season, does any part of you regret saying yes to Game Changers so quickly after you played in Korong? Yeah, it's definitely gone through my mind that in my ideal world, I wouldn't have played,

gone and flown out to play Survivor 10 days after the Korong finale. But at the same time, I don't regret it at all. It's hard to say no to that. I don't regret it. You can't, when opportunity knocks, you have to take it. And I mean, this was a completely different journey for me this time.

I was struggling for anybody to work with me, any numbers. It's almost like I started the merge having not had a pre-merge, the way the numbers happened and the fact that I hadn't been with most of the Nukus. So it was just a different game. And it was kind of fun to have a different experience after I was over the initial loneliness of having new friends, I found them at the merge.

So coming out of the Combined Tribal Council, are you feeling like you're a target there now? At that point, do you feel like you're at the bottom or do you feel like that JT's at the bottom? JT was pushing for Michaela to go out. At the next one, you mean? Right. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I was fully,

after Malcolm went home. I kind of was like, all right, here we go. Like fires under me, kind of like when Neil went and call me crazy. But I was investing a lot in my relationship with JT. I like playing with JT. I loved JT. JT. Like that guy really has a heart of gold. I think he's a very sensitive soul who does care about people.

I had an excellent experience with him. He made me these two dice die, I never remember, to make me a survivor backgammon board. I actually posted it on Twitter the other day. Like he- In the game or at the finale? Yeah, no, in the game he made me these like two little dice, these little out of wood, which were great because then when we swapped and we had one comfort Sandra and I rolled for a blanket or pillow and I won.

Beard something and I got a blanket. But yeah, he was, he was great. Um, and yeah, I, I, I was on board with him. I wanted Michaela to go and I, because you felt like that you wanted to flip to Nuku. He was your ticket to Nuku. Yes. Yes. JT was my ticket to Nuku. I mean, even when I tried to work with Michaela, I would try to tell her like at the beginning how she was being perceived, tried to work with her.

She always said like, you're sneaky. I don't get you. Why aren't you telling me things to my face? And it just was, it was just. I don't get you. Why aren't you telling me things to my face? And it just was, it was just like always a very challenging relationship. And I knew that it was time to start trying to make moves to get to the other side. But I was as much as I didn't get along with Varner and Sandra, I was working the entire time. Like I told Sandra that I wanted to work with her, me and JT to try to have that like threat alliance for

that next vote. But that clearly it was locked up in sugar gate, like very far. Very far before. How surprised were you after you saw that all play out on the TV show where Sandra ate the sugar? Oh my gosh. Sandra actually had told me she ate the sugar. She says it at the tribal council, right? Yeah. She, she, Sandra said she ate the sugar at the tribal council, but she had actually told me before.

And the reason she told me before is she told me that it would keep JT and Michaela fighting and that we would be safe. Okay. Because my experience is that Michaela was being a little bit challenging around camp. I mean, I was, I felt like I was waiting on her hand and foot. It was like, I was, my felt like I was waiting on her hand and foot. It was like,

I was, my temper's pretty good on Survivor, but I was getting frustrated. And every single challenge was making sure that she got to do exactly like, I understand Michaela's frustration in the game feeling ostracized because I felt ostracized. And when I've read her interviews in a very similar way, but we just couldn't see eye to eye. Right. Yeah. And we heard from a lot of people coming out of the season or different people on the show expressed frustration with her or Malcolm had said that, you know, he didn't love playing

with Michaela. I mean, can you cite an example of anything that she would, other than, you know, she was stubborn about what she wanted to do in the challenges? Yeah, sure. So the, the tribal where JT goes home, you see Jeff come to me and say, Aubrey, do you just not enjoy conflict? Like what's wrong? And what you didn't see was that just before that, Michaela had gone at JT and then turned to me and said, I don't know how people, where you're from talk, but you're deceptive. I don't know if that's just like a Boston thing, but I can't stand the way you're sneaky. I don't like the way you talk. And I felt

like pretty attacked. And yeah, it was not a pleasant situation I had to actively decide in that moment to defend myself or just kind of let it go and I thankfully Like let it go like just barely but it wasn't it wasn't comfortable And the thing that's hard is I think Michaela is super smart. She's super fun I had a great time with her in the green room and everything but But there was this, I think she didn't get to see 33 play out. And I think that she had this thing where if people didn't play the way she thought they should play, she'd like kind of call them out on it. And she'd call them on being sneaky.

And the funny thing is it's like, Michaela, you're being sneaky too. And you're doing the same thing. So just because it seems sneaky to you doesn't mean that it's any different from what you're doing. So that was super frustrating. But it was more like the personal attack aspect. I didn't really appreciate. And the attack on your Boston. Yeah, it was just like super personal. I mean, I don't even know what that means. Yeah, I don't know. That's fine to hate Tom Brady. Like, I don't even know what that means. Yeah, I don't know. That's fine to hate Tom Brady Like I don't know where that came from. I get it. I get it Yeah, but we did talk and we talked it out like the next morning after JT went home

I said to her I said, you know what Michaela? I mean imagine having to go to Michaela and explain to her why you wrote her name down Like if you see how passionate she gets on the show, you know, that's not a comfortable conversation and we did I said look We don't see eye to eye. I went to you and I said, I wanted to be in an alliance. And you told me you didn't want to because I didn't have the numbers. From my perspective, you have to understand

that makes me feel like you don't want to work with me. But I am open to whatever you want to work with. I'm in the same position. We're on the monobotom. But when we swapped again, she was the first person whose name I threw under the bus. Her and Haley, I was like Kelly, trying to throw threw under the bus. Her and Hailey, I was like, Kelly, trying to throw Terry under the bus. Like, come on, Sierra, Don Thomas, you want to work with me.

Okay. So you go to this tribe and you're there now with Brad, with Troy, with Sierra. Suri is now here. Yes, Suri is there. And then Hailey and Michaela are there too, right? And so we got to see in that Zeke episode with the whole thing with him and Varner in the other side of that episode,

you're bonding with Brad. And it looks like, I mean, it was just so bizarre because the first half of that episode is sort of setting up like Brad's like, well, I got my five going into the merge. It's me, Troye's Anne, Sierra, and Aubrey and Suri. That's my five. I feel good about this five.

Yeah, it was so weird. I've talked to some people in the cast about how in this season, it really felt like people played in the moment for like, this is my final three. This is my final five. And in that moment, I think Brad was like, yeah, I could work with these five. I had a good relationship with him. I immediately connected with Suri. It was like a soul, felt like a soul connection to me.

We were like, she was like, Aubrey, I've been looking from the outside in this whole game. And I said, I feel the same way Suri. And then we were just like talking about home immediately. We were very comfortable. And then Suri and I kind of worked together to kind of get close to cowgirl. It's what we called Sierra, Don Thomas and Brad.

And yeah, we just clicked. We got along really well. That was like a very client client client. That was a good, that was Troy's and I love him. We talked about aliens a lot out there. We both wanted to be abducted. But that's another story. You want to be abducted by aliens.

Why? I want to be abducted by aliens, but I want to be abducted just to watch with Troy's and just to see him Interact with them. Hey Yeah, he's so fun. He even he almost burned the camp down the first night. He'd walk around with palm fronds Burning in the jungle like hey take me to your leader Why is Troye's and so obsessed with aliens? I don't know you can ask Troye's him but he thinks he was abducted and my dad thinks he

was abducted. Your dad thinks Troy Zinn was abducted? My dad thinks he was abducted by aliens. So my dad thinks my dad was abducted and Troy Zinn thinks he was abducted. So we've kind of bonded. But they don't know? They're not sure? They're not sure. Like they've had very different experiences in the abduction department, but we've kind of, Troy Zinn and I have like bonded over the movie contact signs, abduction in general.

Yeah. Well, just to speak personally for a little while for like the good like five years, this was my greatest fear at night that I was going to wake up and then the aliens were going to be there and they were going to take me away. I used to watch like a lot of these like creepy shows that used to be on like Fox on like Friday. I don't know if it's like a tie in with the X-Files or what, but I was very, that was my, but Troy's and really believes that he has been taken to the ship. Yeah. Like he was like bolted to the bed and he was in a trance.

Oh yeah. Troy's in and I first in line when it comes to the abductions. What? Is it good to go? It seems terrifying. I don't want to go. I mean, can you imagine though being abducted with Troyezen? That's got to be fun. He's a little devil that one. Yeah, he is a little devil that one. He'll probably wear his green underwear a year later. Yeah. Is that what they're here to see? Oh, yeah, the aliens are totally here to see the green monster.

That one. We've heard so much about this. So. Is that what they're here to see? Oh yeah, the aliens are totally here to see the green monster. We've heard so much about this. So all right, I'm totally distracted. But that's Troy's end, you kind of get distracted. Yeah, so there was that five, do you feel like that if that group that you were with, like where we end up seeing like in that metamorphosis word scramble, you guys go to tribal council and now that five, that group of five has to vote and it's going to be either Haley or Michaela that goes home.

Steven talks about this a lot. He says tribal council bonds people together. If you guys had to vote out either Haley or Michaela that night Do you think that this season ends up going differently as a group of five that has voted together now going into the merge? I do not think the season goes differently if we had voted as a group of five at that point Okay, I think that those new coups were desperate to get back to their other new coups Mm-hmm. I think actually the biggest thing that would be different in the season is if Malcolm hadn't gone home at the combined tribal and then JT was still there. I think we went into, would have gone into the merge with a Culpepper, Malcolm, JT, Powerhouse. And like I would be Malcolm's side chick.

Sarah would be JT's and Sierra would have been Brad's. That's the big difference. Who wins the season? Who wins the season? Malcolm. Malcolm. Maybe, maybe not. I think you're making him feel worse at this point.

I know, poor buddy. Love that guy. I'm a big Malcolm fan. He's the best. He's the best. He's such a nice, genuine guy. Sometimes I'm like, you're too nice for Survivor. What are you doing? He has a heart of gold. He would. So when you guys get to the merge and then there's the vote between Haley and Michaela.

Yes. Did you have a horse in the race? Were you pushing one way or the other? I feel horrible even saying this. I feel like I sold my soul at the vote. I told Sierra Don Thomas, I would do whatever she told me to try to gain trust. I mean, I actually really liked Sierra in the game. We got along really well. I slept next to her, which made Andrea very jealous. But I told Sierra, because I knew she was close to Debbie, like that I have to be careful with this. I said, tell me who you want and I will go for that person. And when they told me Haley, I was fine with it. And Haley, I knew felt uncomfortable with me. So I was okay voting her out. I did feel bad. She came up to me right before the tribal and wanted Mana to stay strong. And Haley, I knew, felt uncomfortable with me. So I was okay voting her out. I did

feel bad. She came up to me right before the tribal and wanted Mana to stay strong. And I was like, there were four of us. Like, no, it's time to let this big Italian family have their bra. Like I literally felt like I went to a family reunion and the family was divorcing and I had to decide who was going to have me on nights and weekends. Like that's what I felt like I went into. And I was like, Haley, I'm sorry. Like our family just does not matter in this race. I have to send you home. Goodbye. So I felt bad. She went, um, I think she's great. I love her after the game. Um, but I needed to show my, I'm with Nuku now. Yeah.

My blood bond with them. After that happens, this is when Ozzy ends up going home and another blind side. I had no clue Ozzy was going home. I knew there was a lot going on. Sarah had actually approached me around that time and said she had went Sarah been winking at me the whole pre merge every time he got to got to a challenge like hey girl you can be my sister yeah oh yeah she was after me but she was after everybody but yeah I had no clue that the Ozzy vote happened I feel I still feel like terrible about it

I just had to like show that I was a number, you guys do what you want. I was trying to figure out what the heck was going on in Nuku at that point. I still couldn't figure it out. And I thought I was with Sarah. And when I made the agreement with Sarah, I'd be her number one. She'd say, we can be our number one,

but I might vote differently than you sometimes, which should have been my big red flag. And her big thing was if I tell you information and it gets to anybody else, you're out. And Sarah was the only one who'd come up to me and approached me to be with her. So the Aussie thing happened and I knew she was being fishy, but I didn't have anyone else yet at that point. So that was uncomfortable. Like that's so uncomfortable to me. Like I love Survivor. I was like knew every single vote and go wrong written down on paper except for the three that went for Sydney.

And here I am. And Sarah is like, sorry, I just had to do that. Couldn't tell you a thing. When things are not going your way and you're outside of the loop. I mean, how hard is that to, you know, not only just deal with that, but then in terms of I feel like that I would not be like sticking my terms of, I feel like that I would not be like sticking my neck out because I feel like, okay, well, I clearly don't know what's going on here.

Oh, I couldn't stick my neck out. Like I, I remember having to make the active decision, which like killed my soul. Like I can, I like grabbing my heart, even saying it, but I literally just sat in camp after that poll challenge where Ty beat Ozzy, um, shut my mouth, sat there and watched everything happen. And that's not how I play at all. But I just was like taking in for information and take it in. But I had no choice. I had to sit back. I had a show.

I wasn't scheming because that's the thing. The same way Michaela said she felt ostracized and that she had to play in a box. She's been saying I had to play in the box of I was the one who talked to Tony and I couldn't say a word. So I just let that happen and Ozzy went home and I was like, what the. And the funny thing with Ozzy is I Ozzy and I just like never connected. I actually had the Michaela and I had the great honor. I'll speak for myself of meeting every single player in this game, the way we swapped. But Ozzy was just like, Ozzy, you're awesome. And he's like, I've heard horrible things about you from Varner. And I was like, but

I'd be willing to talk to you. And then I said, yeah, we should talk some time. He's like, yeah, let's talk. And we like never did. So when Ozzy went, it was just like, you need to book an appointment. Yeah, bye,. Yeah. It was just, so then Ozzy happened and oh man, that was so uncomfortable the next morning with Zeke and Andrea. Well, this had all been going on and you, you weren't, I mean, how, how filled in did you get on, on everything? Was it just like, we, the way that the show handled it, obviously we spent a lot of time with the Zeke and Varner

situation at the tribal council. We saw the next day Zeke sort of said, Hey, just so you hear it from me, this is what happened. Right. And then it really wasn't brought up very much on the show other than Zeke has the best story. But was this sort of like some, was there a lot of buzz about this among the players or did everybody just say, okay, this is just,

this happened and nobody was mentioning it? Yeah, like you have to understand that. I mean, this was a huge moment in Zeke's life. Sure. And he was also knew he was still in the, he was still in the game and he wanted to, he had to keep playing. So he told us like, okay, this is when we'll

talk about it and then like, we'll move on. And that's what I think people did, but I think people forget, like he was poor guy was like dealing with this profoundly emotional thing that happened to him. And I always feel like I've had an interesting relationship with Zeke and that I met him in the game after it happened. So I just, it was tough. Like people would talk about it, but it really was like he has a great story. And he also was just like playing really hard. And I'm sure after that happened that he was like just gunning to do whatever he could. I can't imagine where his head was at that point.

But yeah, it wasn't like brought up anymore, which is probably better for him. And in some ways worse, because he just gone through this whole thing. But. And you guys are very tight with Andrea in the game, but you only meet her at the merge, right? Yes, yes, yes, yes. So did you, had you met her coming out of Korong?

How did you become instantly so tight with Andrea? No, I don't know what it was with Andrea. She had sent me a couple of Korong, how did you become instantly so tight with Andrea? No, I don't know what it was with Andrea. She had sent me a couple messages like, Hi, I like your season. Hopefully I see you out there. That's all it was. And no, I met Andrea and she was like, I have a girl crush on you. Yeah. And then it's just, Andrea and I operated a similar anxiety level, similar level of paranoia when we play Survivor. We like to analyze everything. Like, that's why I got along with Malcolm.

We like to run every scenario. Like, Andrew and I are constantly like testing the waters. Like, what's this person say? What do they say like that? What are they doing? And we just kind of like got along. Because Andrea definitely was someone on Nuku. Like she had allies on Nuku, but she was seen as kind of a gamer and a similar type of player in that way.

So it just was like a match made of heaven. And actually Zeke and I joke now that I killed him off so that I could like take his place in that Alliance. And that's kind of what ended up happening. Like I feel terrible saying it after Zeke went through all this stuff. But the next morning after Ozzy went home and Andrea and Zeke, like I'm telling you, I was sitting in the hammock. I call it the hammock of arrogance because I feel like people, people go after they sit in the hammock of arrogance and make a gameplay decision. But I was sitting there and Andrea and Zeke are all the way at the well,

which is like hundreds of yards away. And I hear just this screaming like, what is Alex going to say about this? And Alex is like their friend from home. Alex Forstenhauser? Alex Forstenhauser. He made it. Like, I love him. I've met him since I went up to him and like, Alex, it's an honor to meet the 21st player

on Survivor Game Changers. He's going to love hearing this. Yeah. But that was like so uncomfortable. But I was also like I saw him the other night. Yeah. He's yeah. Did he get locked out of the bar too?

Is that part of the bar? He got there. But yeah it was super uncomfortable. And that's when I kind of like had a prey on the well Zeke and Andrea are having an argument. I'm going to just kind of come right in here. But also like Zeke and Andrea's beef didn't help me either. Like, I would have loved to work with both of them.

So, like, help me have an in, but also hurt me. Had a good thing going. I mean, you guys had just at this vote that's about to come up, you know, there's all this friction. But you guys get back on the same page for one vote. And probably largely due to your contributions here with when Debbie comes to you and tells you about what Sarah has been saying or putting out there what she wants you to believe Sarah has been saying.

Right. Yeah, we did have a good thing going in that group and that could have worked. But good things don't last forever. Yeah, it was the whole thing with Debbie. I mean, Debbie was actually talking to me constantly about how she wanted to tar and feather me, draw and quarter me. Like she talks about all these medieval like she even told she apologized to me for not voting for me and go wrong. It was like a very odd relationship we had.

She sat me down in the sand at one point, grabbed my hands and was like, I'm with you Scorpio, like we're together on this. But then she was in that group of people and she came and she talked to me when I do the eye roll. And that was like the perfect cementing moment. Like we were all like Debbie's driving us crazy. And like, yeah, I went, came together with Zeke and Suri and Andrea and it was like the perfect cementing moment. Like we all were like, Debbie's driving us crazy. And like, yeah, it came together with Zeke, and Suri, and Andrea, and it was like perfect.

Like here we are taking out the six, or the power six. It could have been this like beautiful thing, but no, then we had to go and eat away at ourselves. Well, you guys get Debbie out of the game at that point. What is your relationship like now with Debbie? Because you now in two different games have knocked her out around a similar side. She had trust in you in both games. And you know, you're a key figure in her going out both times.

She wanted to draw and quarter you and tar and feather you and put you in the rack before this. She did. And now we're good. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. Debbie hates the last person.

So Sarah's told me, how do I get Debbie to like me? I said well you need to play a third season with her not win and Not yeah, and you'll be fine like Debbie's mad at Sarah now not me, okay So it just is like whatever sticks to me sticks to you that little analogy about glue Debbie and I are good I love Debbie. Here's the deal Debbie's done everything. she said she's done. She is, she cares about people profoundly. Like she is a good person. There's just a lot going on there. Yeah. I saw her this week and she seemed very friendly to me. She's great. I do. I love her. She was like my first survivor love. I did. I loved playing with her when we were on the same

page when she thought she was in control. That's it. Yeah. All right. So then Debbie is out of the picture. And then again, there's a new six in town and it's you guys. And then I think that, you know, there were a lot of people who were fans of different people on that side,

whether it's people that are fans of yours, fans of Suri, fans of Andrea, of yours, fans of Sarri, fans of Andrea, fans of Zeke. There was a lot of survivor brain power on that side, not to take anything away from the people that were on the other side. But I think that you had, on one side, there was a lot of people that you were excited to see

come back this season. And on the other side, it was more of people that were, you know, I'm not trying to disrespect anybody, but it was people that was the more of the, you know, how are these game changer people? I think it's so interesting you say that Rob, because there was a point in this game where I would say like, why doesn't anyone want to do anything?

Why don't they want to make a move? And with all due respect to that other side, like I remember on the boat the first day and Jeff was asking us about game changers and I made a point and I said, I think that in a game with so many unknowns, old school play is going to be very important. And Brad Culpepper told me that he very much appreciated that I said the thing I did about old school play. There was a side that wanted to play very old school, like here's our numbers, take out the other side. And so I think that made it a little hard at the merge to get momentum

going. Because you have these people who wanted to play like old school, pagonging, and then other people who wanted to like mix it up. And it was finally after Debbie went home that that kind of line was drawn in the sand of the people who were like the gamers and the steady people but of course the gamers are a little too frenetic and in their own heads and end up eating Their own in Zeke. Yeah, but Zeke had a go and Zeke went for me for me Like I remember that I talked in the woods with Zeke We wanted to get out Sierra Don Thomas, and he went directly down to the beach and told her, like, you know, in survivor, I'm sure you know, Rob, like

when you have a conversation, and when someone's going turning around and repeating it immediately, you know, when that's happening. Yeah. I mean, have you had that where it's like pretty obvious? I don't recall a situation where, you know, it was as obvious as that, but I certainly understand what you're saying. It's easy for me to sit here and talk about, I think reconciliation is something that's really underserved in survival, people getting back on the same page.

But I definitely understand where you're coming from. Just to go back slightly to what you're talking about, about old school thinking versus the gamers. And I think that's an interesting way to sort of frame it. I really thought that the direction we were trending was, even for as much as we hear about big moves, was I felt like coming off of Jeremy, who certainly made a big move to save Stephen Fishback with an idol at a tribal

council. But I felt like that him being the kind of player that was just a calming influence on everything, I thought that he that he would inspire more of the old school thinking. You know, when I talk about Michelle's win, I also feel like it's that same sort of thing. Not so much numbers and trying to overly strategize. I felt like that was the direction that we were trending. So it's interesting to have that sort of philosophical debate play out on two sides in this season. Oh, absolutely. And it very much was that.

The Andrias and Ceres and Zeke's of the world were like, why isn't anyone like, why is Brad necessarily like, I'll talk to him or like Troy's and was a great example, you go to him and you pitch something to him and you'd be like, I don't know, I get along with everyone. And you're like, my God, like, come on, at least entertain what I'm saying to you. Right. And it would be like saying to you. Right. And it would be like talking to a brick wall. Yeah.

It's just like two different philosophies of, you know, the ability to sort of separate. I like this person, so I'm working with them or I like this person, but I have to vote against them because it's going to advance my own self-interest. Right. And that was totally that was going on. You like Brad Troisant. I've heard maybe Sarah was in on like there were people who just they were there were there were blood alliances in that it was impossible to penetrate.

But Sarah I think that she was a person that then she, but she, she made those, but then, you know, voted against them. That was the unbelievable thing that Sarah did is she was able to play in a way that felt old school to old school players and game, gamey to game players. Yeah. She was the person that was the song of fire and ice that she was able to sort of bridge those two things. It's so unbelievable that she was able to sort of bridge those two things. It's so unbelievable that she was able to do that. She told me that she would not talk to,

she would do all her game talk one-on-one. And if there was somebody else there, she would play dumb. Where she was like, wait, so you're saying we should do this? I don't get it. Can you go over it again? And I just don't know how that girl did that. But she has this very like, she's

like, got this kind of like, blue collar feel and like the I'm your just good old boyfriend, but then also can morph into like Andrea, the gamers best friend. It's so crazy. Okay. So when Zeke ultimately ends up going home, you know, how involved in that are you? I was actually very involved in Zeke going home. It started with a conversation I had with Suri, Zeke going home, like the day before we lost the challenge. And I said, Suri, what if we did something crazy?

Like here, I was actually, I wanted to make a move. So maybe that's on me. I was like, I wanted to make a move. So maybe that's on me. I was like finally in the spot where I could have a voice in an Alliance. And I said, you know, Suri, as soon as we came up with the idea to get rid of Sierra Don Thomas, he ran down to the beach and he told her the plan. And I kind of was of the thought that in order to have a solid group with good chemistry, we were going to have to get rid of Andrea or Zeke because it was really bad, their relationship. And so I was closer to Andrea at that point. And I said that to Saree. Saree and I both said like, maybe we get rid of Zeke. We don't trust him. He's going to blow up our plan.

And you could tell he was ishing to flip on us. And so we told Andrea and then we told Andrea and I was like, wait a second, let's think this through. But Andrea was like, no, he's going home and that's it. So I was kind of in the middle there. Did that side want Zeke? We saw Sierra Don Thomas did not seem to be a fan of his. Brad had had a decent relationship with Zeke. I thought that Zeke wanted to flip the choice in Brad. And I still thought that Brad was entertaining Zeke.

And I had it in my head that Ty and Zeke were together. And then I've learned later that they weren't at all. I will say in the same way, Michaela said she felt put in a box and I felt in the box for being sneaky. Zeke was also put in his own box. Zeke and I have talked a lot about how there was a very strange vibe on this season where people were like, certain people were just like not allowed to play with the others or you would try and no one would listen to you.

And I think Michaela was one of them. I think I had moments of that and Zeke did. So from my perspective, I thought Zeke was going to flip with other people. Who knows if that was true or not? Well, the thing that you guys seem to have in common is that all three of you are probably people that they only know of from Survivor. They've never had an interaction with the three of you guys that wasn't, you know, directly from that where it's like, okay, well, I've met this

person. I met this person. I know how they really are. You know, you are people who are all coming in and we've only just seen them on TV or we've only just met them here. Right. Absolutely. I think that's what it was. Because Zeke and I did share the, why doesn't anyone want to like entertain what I'm saying vibe?

And we were very frustrated. Yeah. Okay. So after Zeke ends up going home, then the following vote, that's what? Sierra Don Thomas? Yeah. That was kind of a, that felt like a no brainer. We really did perceive her to be the head of the snake with Brad. I had, I had confessionals where I was calling her Kim Spradlin at the second swap.

Spradlin-esque? Yeah. The Ciara Dawn Thomas really had great, she is great at making relationships. I think she is often an underrated player. She, she's just chill. She kind of feels your pain with you. She gets along with the guys, she gets along with the girls. There's something steady about her.

I told her like sleeping next to her, maybe it's her height. I don't know. Like I always felt good with her and we saw her as the head and we needed to take her out. Which, you know, then the legacy advantage, which I saw, I saw Sarah playing that up and I knew Sarah was up to something. Yeah. And nobody wanted to listen to me. Can you just talk a little bit about Sierra Don Thomas? Because I'm wondering if she has the same thing that maybe Sarah has as well, where they don't for whatever reason have the confessional that engages the audience where that their popularity isn't what it possibly could be because they don't have the gift of the great confessional.

I mean, I think that's possible, Rob. I. Man, I'm like, when I met Sierra in the game on day 14, I was like, this is the best player I've encountered in the game. Yeah, she really was very steady, very confident. But then when she thought she was at the head of that six, she did get a little bit sheriff. Yeah, she did get a little overtly like cocky about it.

And I remember being like, come on, you were playing so great. Like, what the hell? Also, the other thing she kept telling me to that she was with me and I'm going to do what I say and you'll be fine. But after she did it to me twice, I was like, all right, Sierra, like you're a good player, but you cannot be hanging me out to dry on this. Like you have to know a player like me isn't going to take that. Yeah. So and then yeah, they just and Sarah, I think they're victims of like not being like they're like a good mac and cheese. Maybe

they're not like you're not getting nice spicy Indian food or something when they talk. Yeah. I mean, I don't think that either of them and Sarah probably had more of them this season, but they don't have the like super memorable confessional that pops. Yeah. They don't have the popping confessional, but they are good players. Yeah. Without a doubt. So, okay. Sierra Don Thomas ends up going home and then we start to get to this point where this is where I think I talked about this on the podcast and I talked about on the on the red carpet with Suri. I feel like that things really went wrong here when they got rid of Andrea. Oh yeah.

Not, it didn't go for Brad. And again, just like I was talking about with my season with Jenna, you don't know Brad Culpepper is going to go on a run here and win all the immunities. There was a, believe me, more reason to believe Brad was going to win those immunities than to think that Jenna was going to go on and win a bunch of immunities. But there are eight people left and Brad is vulnerable and you have this group of what the five or five plus tie. Right. And he never got that shot again to go after Brad.

I could not agree with you more Rob. Like I woke up the morning after Sierra went home and I saw Sarah with her antics and I knew in my gut I was like, all right, something fishy is up. I woke up, I went on a walk and I said, she could be kind of dumb or playing dumb, but that's what she's doing strategically. I think Sarah's the next Tony. It worked out fine for Sarah.

It worked out great for Sarah. But for Saree, I think that this was Saree's biggest problem. No, and I remember that night, like I love Sarita death. And I know it's really hard for her, like the fact that she didn't see through Sarah, but I was there and I'm like, guys, Sarah's being sketchy guys, guys, guys, do you see this? And I feel like I did have this weird, like Nostradamus feeling that Brad was going to go on a run.

Brad is like a professional Brad, Brad's a professional athlete. When he gets mad and he feels on the bottom, he was starting to get a little fired up and I could feel it goes into F you mode goes into F you mode. We had eight people left. Didn't I send Scott Pollard out eighth? Yeah. And so for me, that was the time in the game where I wanted to come alive. You have to understand, like, we only had an episode left. Yeah. After eight in game changers, been co Korong there were like five episodes left. There were still eight people. And like Brad, Brad had the fire. I'm like, guys, if you don't do it now, we're screwed. And then when they blindsided Andrea, like that's when

I, that was probably the worst game move I've made in Survivor. I came back, I was a mess because to me, I was like, my game is over. Like I knew it was over. Like you just you just ate one of your own and you've got Brad and Troisanne and like we had kind of invited Ty in for other numbers but Ty wasn't stable like I knew you were cooked. And the thing is that stinks is I think that Sarah baited Andrea into saying that she that Andrea wanted wanted Sarai out at final four. So I had had like a deal with Sarah that we wanted to be final two. And she's like, who do you want to be the third? Who do you want to be the third?

And she said, Andrea, she goes, you want it to be Andrea? And we had the conversation. And then Andrea said she wanted Sarai out fourth. And then Sarah went and took that information and told Sarai. And then Sarai never talked to me because Sarah also agreed Saree should go out forth. But like Sarah beat me to the punch. And I think that's part of the reason why Andrea went home. And I should have known that night because I went to Saree and I'm like, should we do

a split just to make sure? And she kind of dismissed me. And I will say, I confessionalism, I was like, I don't want to have this immunity necklace because I think it makes you complacent. And I think that's what happened to me. And I will say, I confessional sort of was like, I don't want to have this immunity necklace because I think it makes you complacent. And I think that's what happened to me. Like Andrea and I knew we both wanted Sarah out. There was that scene where Andrea is pretty firm on Sarah. I was even more so, except we could not get the numbers because people were so seduced by Sarah. Like so seduced, like Suri really, really believed her. And then Michaela was with Suri. It was just like, oh, it was, and Andrea had a conversation the night before

she went and we both said, I think we're both a little more like Amanda Kimmel than Parvati. And I'm okay with that. And like, just like kind of commiserating how the game wasn't going how we wanted. And then we were like, we really need to get out Sarah. And Andrea goes, I hope I don't regret this. I'm like, I don't think so. I think you're fine. Like it's logical to take out Brad right now. Like they have to see it. And then, yeah, it's hard, I think, to deal with where you're in a group and you're in this group of five and there's like a three and there's a two. Right. But there's like some intermingling there.

And then it's like, okay, well, I know this person wants to take me out at four. This person might want to take me out at five, but it's eight. I know. You can still, like, just because like somebody might want it, like, okay, I'm working with this person. I know they want to take me out at four, but you know, let me still move forward with them because there's still a lot of time left. There's still, you know, there's still this other thing going on over here. I know it must be hard to, you know, keep the focus on, you know, there's

still work to do because on survivor, it just seems like, you know, the people that you leave in the game, they always end up, you know, getting back, uh, you know, and it works out for Sarah, but for everybody else on that side. It worked out for Michelle too. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, that's, um, this, I don't know if this is every season, but like everyone was like, what's my final three?

What's my final three? So people were playing for their final three. Yeah. And I guess in that moment, Suri didn't see Andrea and her final three. So yeah, and nobody else did. So did you have a final three or you didn't care? I was going back and forth like I would have been fine with a lot of people. But my struggle was really just getting anyone to play with me.

Like, ideally, I would have been with Brad or Troy, but I would have gone against Michaela. I would have gone against Ty. I would have gone against Andrea. Hell, if Sarah wanted to take me, I was gonna try to tear down her moves Which I probably couldn't have done. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, so then Andrea ends up going home. Also you win immunity as you Was how was that? I was like the best winning immunity was amazing. Yeah, it felt so good like that morning I said, all right, it's time gonna win

I like visualize the necklace going on me and then it just like happened How do you practice that at all before that particular challenge? I practice stacking actual cards themselves, but I had kind of looked at all the stacking towers challenges before I went to Korong. When Sophie had won, Jerry had won, I think Sugar may have won one of them.

I don't quite remember, but I knew that one of the biggest pitfalls was running out of tiles. So that helped me. I knew that that was, I mean, and people were building like mausoleums. It was hilarious. Like they were like, Brad had like a condo. I'm like, what are you doing? Yeah. You only have so many tiles. Yeah. So that was so fun. Okay. So then we have the final seven. This is the non-transferable vote. Did you know about, this is like a little confusing because it's a shortened episode because of the the two travel councils. But you start off and you are talking with Ty and we finally see you guys reconnecting. And then

you're telling Ty that you're pushing him. He needs to make a big move. The big move, and stop me if I'm getting this wrong, but the big move you're pushing him to make is you need to go after Sarah. But you say to the audience that actually your big move might be actually getting out Ty. out Ty, then Ty ends up, or you say to Saree that Ty is going after Sarah and now Saree feels like I need to save Officer Sarah and Saree wants to keep you in the game and Sarah is saying, well, I trust Ty.

I don't trust Aubrey. I would rather see her go out of the game. I want to keep Ty around. And ultimately, Sarah says to Saree, hey, I like, trust me on this. Here's my, here's my thing. You can hold my thing. And that's when Saree says, oh, okay. Well now I have Sarah's advantage. If I take Sarah's vote away, then I can protect Aubrey and I can take Ty out and then prove to Sarah what I'm doing for her. Right.

Help me help you, Sarah. There are a lot of other things going on. Okay. One of the main things is that I was trying to flip with Brad and Troy, but that was contingent on Ty flipping with us. Yes. So that, we tried to make that happen,

but at the same time to take out Sarah. So the conversations I had with Brad and Troy are who do you want to take out? And the name that they brought up was Michaela. Okay. So Brad and Troy wanted to but they were open to the girls but I could tell that they were reticent to even think about taking out Sarah. But I wanted to flip with Brad and Troy, but we needed Ty to do that. And then at the same time as that's happening, Ty and I have that conversation on the raft. And I knew I needed him as a number. And he didn't want to say anything to me. Because anytime anything got said in game changers, it was taken and it was your downfall.

So I was so used to keeping my mouth shut. So I said, okay, Ty, let's say who we think the biggest threat is in this game. Ready? One, two, three. And he says, Sarah. And I'm like, yep, Sarah, agree. Then was I remember, there's a little bit of a discrepancy in people's memories on this. Ty went right to Sarah, pulled her down to the beach and was obviously in my mind telling her

that I wanted her out. So I at the same time pull Saree and say, this is what happened. So then the whole thing happens and it's a battle with Saree and Sarah over who they trust more, me or Ty. So then the whole thing happens with the advantage. We get to tribal. I think Ty is going home because I have it in my head that Ty's gonna just screw my game. I have this feeling he just was. I mean, it's in the realm of possibility.

Yeah, and he like, all I wanted to do was flip with him and Troy and Brad. I'm like, Ty, this is perfect. Let's do it. I'm not the same player I was in Korong. I can't get my feet under me. Like you have a better game than me right now. And so then we go to the tribal and all the stuff happens

and there's all the talking. And then apparently Sarah had been having the same conversations with Brad and Troy that I had been a little bit privy to, but because Sarah didn't trust Saree after the antics pulled at tribal, she's able to make that game time decision. Michaela and they flip and they do it. And I don't know if she talked about it in the exit interview, but there was a whole jewelry thing that I found about, found out about

after and I knew I was, I was toast. And then, Oh yeah. When, when Michaela went home, what you didn't actually see is I turned to Sarah. So you see how the argument starts the finale episode. I actually inadvertently started that. We're at that tribal and Michaela walks out. And so if I knew my game was over when Andrea went home, I really knew the nail in the coffin when Michaela went. And I turned to Sarah and I said, why don't you swear on something else? Because she'd been swearing on Knox the whole time. And you could say that was bad play

because I made it look like she was untrustworthy and then a desirable person to take to the final three. But I also wanted to appeal to the jury that like, I know what she's doing. And if I somehow make it to the end, that was my, sounds like a bunch of malarkey to me moment from Michelle. And Michelle Attell told me,

be quiet at camp and loud at tribal. So that's what I was. Like my jury management was actually, yeah, I thought it was great advice. My jury management was like on point, I think, to that point. And so then we started actually having the fight you see at the beginning of the finale at tribal.

And it was like, all right, does the jury want to see this? Like people didn't know what way was up. Can you just take us through your reactions to the non-transferable moment? Like as sort of like, were you in the loop on what Suri was planning on doing? I had no clue what Suri was doing. I had no nothing. You see Suri stand up and then ultimately everything goes down. Cerise stands up, she wants to play it.

Then there's a debate about can she? Sarah's like, no, you can't play it. It's mine. No, you can't play it. It's mine. And this went on for what felt like 20 minutes. And then I guess someone said something about non-transferable. Maybe it was Troisanne.

I know Troisanne, that's like a big moment. And then we discovered it was, I was like, can someone just call a lawyer in New York City or L.A.? Like, please. Like, I want to go to sleep. Get to the bottom of this. Yeah. So, oh, it felt terrible. Then then there was the scrambling and I just was like, felt out of the loop again. Yeah. So Michaela ultimately goes, goes.

And then you have the final six and this is now somehow you're able to reconnect with Ty and he's going to play an idol on you, which is going to save you at Advantage Getting. Yeah. So that night was really terrible when we came back and I felt bad because I had to like throw Ty under the bus, but I was kind of flipping between the boys and the guys and the girls and Ty kind of was too and I kind of Had to save myself and I remember Brad being like good for you Aubrey Like you're not the rat like you got saved because of this argument

I'm like, all right Brad but the next morning like I woke up and Ty and I like went to get tree mail and we kind of Cried on each other. It was just really hard for him. That was tough for me to see and Yeah, then we're at final six and we go through the maze challenge and it was so obvious When Brad chose Sarah to go on the chicken parm challenge Chicken parm reward whatever it's called and then siree tie and I just went back to camp sat on crates and cried together Yeah, they like 20 minutes. That you were going to lose?

Well, I mean, it was bad. Sarah has told me she knew she had it locked up at final six with people. Well, and that's the point where, you know, they're, yeah, they have this, they have a deal at that point now. They had a deal. But I mean, you know, Ty still has the two idols. Ty has the two idols. And the thing that kills me now is Ty told me he forgot that Sarah had the legacy advantage, but he knew that and we voted against her.

Right. Which is like, yeah, so then Ty, we had a conversation. I'm like, Ty, you you're going to make a move. Like they took Sarah on this reward. It did not take you. You are their fourth. Like now is your time. You need to make a move.

And so we went in the woods and Ty was also annoyed how Brad was like strong arming him. And I wanted to be like, Brad, did you not watch Korong? What happens when you tell Ty did what to do or someone tries to tell me what to do? Like that doesn't fly. So we went into the woods and I actually, Brad came down the path like a banshee. Like that's the thing that kills me about Brad He was so nice and I had such a great relationship with him and then like a switch flipped And he's like chasing Ty through the woods and I'm like Ty start crying start crying because we're talking about what to do with

The idol and he started crying and he's like, what's wrong with him? I'm like he's upset about last night and Brad like left us alone. And we decided like we were going to play it and we were going to vote for Sarah because it was abundantly clear she was running the game and then of course I then I go to tribal again and advantage getting happens and Suri goes home without having her name written down once. Yeah. It's terrible. But you were safe. I was safe.

It felt awesome to have an idol played on me, but it was also like, I love Suri. She's so, like she, I can't describe how wonderful that woman is. And it just sucked to see her go out that way. But then we went back to camp and I was like, hey, I know I'm on the bottom real badly. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I thought you had a good argument as to, you know, you're drawing debt at that point, but they had a good argument about, hey, like, hey, Brad and Troy are going to take each other to the end. You know, let's get rid of one of them. And ultimately, but you feel like that Sarah was the, the spoiler there in that I had asked Ty, he had said that they, him and Sarah made that decision. Yeah, you think it was because of Sarah Sarah's deal

Sarah's it was because Sarah had a deal with Troye's and and Brad right like it wasn't gonna work for me But yeah, I debated what to do in that situation. I went up to rad and Troye's and and I was like guys You might think you're gonna win. I'm like Brad I have been in control of like new votes this entire season. And he said at me, he looked at me, he goes, well, Aubrey, you got to the end again. You did the first time. I don't know if you're really not that much in control. You're doing something right. And so he was basically like, Nope. Even though I told him, I'm like, you realize you might not have the best story here. And

then the reason I made that argument also was like, I could have, I thought about other things I could have done to kind of go for broke, but Sarah and Ty were willing to talk to me. And it's funny that I ended up going out like the emotional intelligence person talking about math. I was like, so, you know, you have a 33% chance if he's not here or a 50% chance if he is like, yeah, I did my, I really did. I did my best. I also love that I like gunned at Troisan at the end there. And then he said he was

the only one who could win the game. He didn't think he thought he could win against everybody. Yeah. It was hilarious, but it was fun. I drank all their coconuts before I went and I was like, I'm so over you people. Um, yeah, it, it, it was, it was kind of liberating. I knew I went into my walk that day, bawling. I'm like, I'm going home. I'm going to eat all the food. And then when we're going to tribal council, Brad dropped his immunity necklace and just like had it strewn on the ground.

I was like, I'll take it. Do you want to give it to me? Like I was just being sassy. Oh, I have some questions for you from the listeners also, but actually that was your game. Anything from the final tribal council in terms of, I know we talked about this a lot in the exit interview and on the red carpet in terms of you like the new format.

I love the new format. You thought Sarah played a great game. I think Sarah played a really good game. I think that sometimes people might not realize because she doesn't. Sarah has Sarah's described to me that her humor is droll. That's the word she uses. Yes. And I think sometimes you don't get just how great she is because she seems a little bit dry on camera. But she I mean, people everyone thought they were her best friend, which is like kind of insane considering how ruthless she was able to play. But that group was not happy with her at Ponderosa at all.

But we were like constantly checking each other that we weren't being bitter. Yeah. Were you able to see sort of like the bookends of, you know, you started the game playing with Tony and then ended the game voting for Sarah? Did you, did you see the sort of connective tissue between those two? Yeah. I wasn't lost on me that I wanted to play with Tony. I thought he was amazing. And then the night before Andrew went home, I started saying to myself, Sarah is the next

Tony and that's how I ended it. And I thought it was pretty appropriate. Like she did play his game. It's crazy. She just, she's also been a very gracious winner. Like we've kind of had an idea that she won and she's been really great about talking about how she thinks it was a perfect storm for her in terms of luck and stuff, but she did play the hand she was dealt masterfully in my opinion. How tough do you think it would be for Sarah to play a third time? Sarah can't play a third time. Yeah. That's not possible. Did Tony prove, Tony did like crazy, crazy stuff, but like, uh, it's, can you not play that game again? Is it like, do you get one shot to play the, you know, the criminal game? Yeah. I think

that the game that's Russell Hans, I mean, Russell Hans got to play it twice because nobody saw it the first time, right? The third time. Then he went out right away. Yeah, I think that the game that's even Russell hands I mean Russell hands got to play it twice because nobody saw it the first time right third time then he went out right away Yeah, I think that the game that Tony and Sarah plays is kind of like a firework It's like you can't you can't ignite that firework. You get one shot one shot. Mm-hmm. Do not miss it Yeah, whatever the song is. Mm-hmm. Yeah It's interesting it really it is because there are other games. Like I think you can play Michelle Fitzgerald's game. That's repeatable. I do. And I kind of think like Jeremy, I think that's repeatable. Adam, Jeremy's repeatable. And I played some of the, some of the stuff that Michelle was playing. I think I was, I took some of that. I think

that's true that you do play a little bit like the winner of your season. I didn't have the blood on my hands. Yeah. Okay. Well, let's start off with a question from a Wes Dorn wants to ask you if you had more time to prep in between the finale of color on game changers, do you think you would have done anything more or different to prep pregame? I would have not been as good a shape as I was going into game changers. I would have had 10 pounds on me. Wow. Okay. Without a doubt. I was starving on day two this time.

Yeah. I was like all muscle. I was, it was bad. That's honestly prep wise that and maybe getting some more sleep. Like I was going in on sheer adrenaline in terms of prep. I did what I had to do. I also could have worked on my resting B face, but I can't really change that.

Cause I heard that I didn't give people eye contact in the pregame, but Sarah got that a lot too. No, I really, if I could magically extend time, so there were, there was another month between my seasons and I was less of a threat. That would have been what I would have done if I had a magic wand. Okay. Ryan Springer wants to know how much, if any, did a fear of going to rocks on a

tie affect the decision-making on your second season? So we heard in the pre-season like, Hey, Oh, big twist coming this season. A tie automatically goes to a rock draw. It never came up in the season. Was it something that was talked about a lot? I think that it wasn't talked about a lot, but I think people just kind of all sort of avoided the situation where they'd have to get into a rock draw. Yeah, so it ended up making for more lopsided votes or it sort of reduced the possibility.

Cause we did see where Sarah flipped from one side to another. Right. I think the fear of the rock draw is what in a way kind of spurred Sarah to go and hop ship to different alliances from time to time instead of sticking to one. That she navigated the waters by flipping instead of resulting in a tie. Greg Feltz wants to ask you, Aubrey, you played before season 33 aired, and without seeing Adam find an idol at the final five.

I knew this was coming. Did you or anyone else look for an idol at the final five, and do you think that there was one out there? Final five, it was so crazy when Saree went home that night and it really was a quick turnaround. It did go through my head to go looking for the idol. Um, I thought about making a fake one, but I've really genuinely thought my best chance in that moment was to appeal to Sarah and Ty because if I had said I had a fake idol and they had to split the votes, it would have been two, two.

And then we would have had a unanimous conversation and they would have sent me home anyway. So I did run that through my head. Yeah. Kevin Donnelly wants to ask you, what was it like when you found out that season 31 would actually be season 32? Oh man.

When we, so get out of Final Trib final tribal. Well and let me just you know give the backstory here. We will drop what are you talking about. So you guys went to go play in Survivor Call Wrong in the spring of 2015. Yes. But at that time I'm not sure when the decision was made. I think it sounds like you're about to tell us. So the Surviv second chance campaign ended up being run in April and May of said year 2015. So because they were going to, you know, launch this vote right from the survivor world to part finale, this other season, which was in the can, Survivor Korong was going to instead of be airing in the fall of 2015, was now going to air in the spring of 2016.

Yes. We found out that we were going to be switched with 31, the morning after Final Tribal. A nice email came in from the survivor gods and Jeff saying that congratulations, you're going to have more time to anticipate watching your season because we're swapping it. And, uh, yep. Yeah. There were a lot of mixed emotions.

There was like more time to prep and get excited for the season and the fun would last longer. But also have fun waiting and knowing like I the season and the fun would last longer, but also Have fun waiting and knowing like I knew I lost the whole time people where I worked didn't even know I was on the show I refused to admit it like we wanted to make sure to my family that said hashtag team Aubrey and on the back I don't know what you're talking about because I wouldn't tell anybody so then we just had to wait longer. So Yeah, it was a whole rough. a little wait. Yeah. Well, more time for mind games. Like that's, that's great stuff. Were you angry? That it was flipped?

Yeah. At that point, I was just overwhelmed and mad at myself that I lost. I wasn't angry. I was, I was okay with the extra time. Like in my head, I became okay with the extra time, but let me tell you, waiting is brutal. And I've become an expert waiter as a result of the time that we had to wait to watch 31. But it was like very difficult to watch 31. And I'd be like, don't go behind that tree. Bad things happen there. Like that's where plans are made against you.

Because I'm watching like Jeremy and Steven play on the same beach. Bayonne was Beauty Beach. And I'm like, don't go over there. That's where the plans are made. Like, and I hadn't even seen my season yet, but I'm like, that's my tree. That's my rock. That's the best place to go in the morning to do your business. Yeah.

Yes. Our Philly wants to ask you a question. The best. Our Philly says, you're known to be social media savvy and very gracious and interactive with your fans. What kind of reception did you anticipate from the viewers prior to Co-Rong and in the early days of Co-Rong? I'd love to hear any insight you might have about how the accessibility of the players

to the fan community these days affects the way they might reflect on their choices in the game and how they engage with the community afterwards. Well, that's a, that's a, it's a lot. It's a lot. Yeah. So I didn't really know what I was getting into in terms of the social media with survivor. It was kind of a learn as you go thing. Um, and please like help me keep on track here. I know there were a lot of parts to that question, but I didn't know,

I didn't have a plan for how to interact with people, but it genuinely, I mean, I'm a fan of the show above and beyond everything else. And the fact that people enjoyed interacting with me about the show I loved, like I wanted to interact with them too. So I just kind of went as I went as I went. And it was great. I mean, it is difficult sometimes when there's

an expectation and I always get into back and forth with several people online, a T-dub who will not reveal his identity, but he likes it when I sass him a little bit. But I do think that people have to understand that there are some people that don't have the social media background that I do. And like for a Joe Del Campo or a Troisanne, they're not going to interact the same way as I am. And I know people have heard this argument and they don't like it, but sometimes it feels like there is an expectation that people are supposed to respond to everything. Like you have to understand we're all people too. Like when Spencer comes back to Twitter after taking a break and says, listen to my podcast, like maybe he took a break

cause he genuinely needed to take a break as a person. And like, don't say like, oh, well now he wants something for us or like, oh, Malcolm never responds to a fan. You know what Malcolm's like climbing up a volcano somewhere, trying to do his writing career. Like it's nothing personal, but some people like I am a social media marketing person, but like my specific specialty was community management. So like, I feel like I know how to do that and I'm comfortable with it, but it's not comfortable for everyone. And you have to understand when you rewatch the show, you are in a sense reliving it and

it is devastating. And it is hard. And like wounds get ripped open and you don't always want to talk about it every week. So yeah, I love, I love interacting with people. Like I think that survivors should responsibly interact with people and be nice to people. But I also think that it's good to cultivate a community where like all the fans of the show, including me, are respectful to people online. Like don't tag somebody and be like, you suck. Your game sucks.

I had someone come up to me to my face and say, you're playing terribly this time. And I said, I'm sorry. Like I disagree. And they said, name one relationship that you've made. Because it is this was on the street. This is on the street. Those people on the street. Yeah, it's all good. And the guy came up to me and said, name one relationship. And I was like, JT, Malcolm.

And he goes, well, I think you're playing terribly. And I said, well, I disagree. And he said, sorry if I was aggressive. And I said, yeah, you were. Wow. I've never heard about that. I didn't know this was a thing. I've certainly heard about people on Twitter being

aggressive and confrontational. But now the people on the street, the vaunted people on the street that Jeff's been talking about for all these years, now they come up and they're just like aggressive. I mean, yeah, at times, but that's the other thing you have to remember. A lot of people are nice and a lot of people are kind. And I don't want to forget that like 95% of people are kind. Yeah. Usually people are, you know, don't have the cojones to say something mean to your face.

Yeah, but yeah, they do. That's the thing. That's funny. And it's, I have to remember that more people are kind, but the survivors, we've all talked about the fact that you do tend to hear that one negative comment. Yeah. And that gets to you. And my sensitive thing is definitely about the social game.

Like people tell me how to terrible social gaming Corong respectfully. I disagree. Like the reason I didn't talk to Scott and Jason was because that made me a desirable ally for the Ties and the Sidneys of the world because I tried to stay out of the drama and I didn't give them the reaction they wanted, which also might be the reason they hated me at the end because when they were mad and went aggro and poured stuff on the fire, I wouldn't have anything to do with it. But that's beside the point, but that's about social media and having a social game.

Yeah. A strange new world that we live in. We do. I'm used to just getting, you know, angry in-person messages and greetings from the former players, not the, not the fans. I mean, the former players are a whole other thing. I mean, people in Co-Wrong, some of the Co-Wrongers were going at each other on Twitter. You should have seen them in the pregame press. I was hilarious this season. I was like, is this pregame about the fact that four people from Korong are playing again

or that the 32s are annoyed about like, that's the thing. Some of these people on 32 who will remain nameless, but you can guess are more mad about the 32 jury than I am. Yeah. I'm just like, guys, you need to get over it. Like please get over it. Get over it. Okay. Speaking of social media, Paul Borges has a question for you.

Are the players today playing for the GIF? I know that I'm not playing for the GIF. People probably won't believe me. I always make goofy faces and been a wacko. But I do think some of the things Michaela did, she actually talked about that Kermit meme with the Lipton T. She would like talk about that out there.

She's like, I'm gonna Kermit meme you now, like joking. So maybe some players are playing for that. And I, cause this was a long discussion that I got into with Cochran about our players going out there with the intention of I am going to create a social media meme right now. I am doing this thing right now. I totally understand. And I felt like that, that was that was maybe a bridge too far.

Are people in the moment like, oh, I'm going, they're going to use this and this is going to be a meme, what I'm going to do right now, as opposed to just, I'm going to try to create something that's going to be good television. And also differently is here's something that happened on television. I'm going to turn this into a meme. But do you feel like, and it sounds like that you're saying that you are, if Michaela is talking about that in the moment, people are saying, okay, I'm going to do this right now. And then this is going to be something that gets sent around on social media. Yes. I think that the players now have, like, there's always a conversation with returning players about airtime, but

I do think that people also consider social media opportunities airtime. And that kind of was my airtime this time. So the answer is yes. I don't know in the moment if they're like, wow, this will be a great tweet. Can't wait to put it out there. What's my copy going to be? But yeah, I definitely think that that's an angle people are working. Alright. Speaking of Cochrane, Steve Chung writes in and says, What does your real boyfriend think of all this Cochrane talk? Oh man, Dan has been such a trooper through the survivor experience. It's very hard on the survivor loved ones. I'm not just talking about the ones that come

on the family visit. Yeah, it's been tough. I've had my relationship since before Survivor. It's been, it has not been easy going through Survivor. I mean, I come back from seven weeks away and I have a new father in Joe Del Campo. I've got like the creepy neighbor ice cream friend. I've got Nick Mayorano, all these people come

into your life and Dan's okay. I mean, I think it probably is a little bit like, Oh man, who are you dating next? Because now this season it's Malcolm. I guess I was dating Malcolm. Yeah, it's always someone new. Dan's okay. Okay. And that the Cochran stuff, he takes it all in stride. Dan does keep it in stride. He is a trooper. He gets a gold star for being a survivor family member. They need a surviving survivor for family members group. Yeah. Did you know that the Cochran thing was going to come up at the reunion?

I had a little bit of a hunch it might when I saw the episode last week or the week before. Yeah. And when I talk to Cochran, I always feel like with him about the reunion show, I can't really get a sense from him whether he likes when they talk about him at the reunion show or he doesn't like that they talk about him at the reunion show. Yeah, I don't think he wants to be the Rupert in the season.

Like he said he watched and Rupert was always there. I mean, he's a child of survivor. So I get I get the conflicted feelings. If that's what it is. Yes. Okay. Gregory McBean asks, set the record straight. Are you the love child of Cochran and Sophie or that Cochran's girlfriend? This is very incestuous and confusing that you branded yourself as the love child of Cochran and Sophie. Then ironically, or coincidentally, you go on to win the very challenge that both Cochran and Sophie had dominated. Or did Ozzie win that season? I think Ozzie won it, but Sophie said, drop

your stack. Oh, so I always remember it being Sophie. It's so funny. Yes. But I don't think she, I think Ozzy might have actually won and then, and then Cochran won and you have that this interesting lineage of that challenge. Yeah. There it's such an interesting lineage. At this point I saw there was some kind of family tree going around. Yeah.

I'm just going to like break the mold and say I'm Denise Staples stepdaughter. Yes. I'm going to jump over to that family. Okay. That's good because that sets up this question from David Baltazar, who wants to know what is the story behind this masterpiece? Let's hopefully you can see this. Let me play the clip.

OK, can you explain this? OK, this is you. Here we go. Okay, this is you. Here we go, show it. With Malcolm. Duh-duh-hah. Duh-duh-hah. Is there a story there? I,

Because Malcolm, I believe the original tweet that he sent when he posted that is, is no, you don't get any context. Just turn up the volume and ignore our googly eyes. Yeah, Malcolm, does Malcolm want me to show his yoga videos from that night? I could do that. Yoga videos? Malcolm Yoga.

Yes. Yeah. I went to Costa Rica. I was going on a trip. My aunt 70, Aunt Judy, some people have met her. It was her bucket list trip. And before I met her, I hung out with Malcolm for a week. We rented a stick shift two wheel drive car, which we named Skippy.

And we drove it around Costa Rica. And that was one of our pit stop nights. We just like danced around and Malcolm's fun. We did Malcolm things. We got a little goofy. What like what's a Malcolm thing? Climbing a volcano and riding? We jumped off a waterfall, which terrified my parents when they saw the photos, but there

was an active volcano that we went to. And the thing is I was the worst navigator in the car. Like I would be terrible. I'm like, take a little crooked left here and a zigzag here. And he's like, I'm driving this stick shift in Costa Rica and I don't know where I'm going. So we ended up on a cow path on the way to this volcano, like almost stuck in the mud with the two wheel drive car, like telling cows to get out of the way. It was fun. It was an adventure, but I don't think I'm going to be his GPS anytime soon. How is Malk doing after survivor game changers? Does he feel sort of like, is he in like the Tony mode of like, you know what? That's it. You know, like hand on the hot stove, I'm done with Survivor or is Malc sort of just

like, you know, my day will come one day I'll be back out there. I'm not going to speak for Malcolm on that, but I will say that the nice part about him is when we were in Costa Rica, we like didn't even talk about Survivor that much. So it was, I'll let him talk. What's that like not talking about Survivor? It's good. Yeah, it might let him talk. What's that like not talking about Survivor? It's good Yeah, it might be nice to be no I love Survivor But I think I'm gonna need a little I need to work on Aubrey Aubrey and not Survivor Aubrey for a little bit Okay

Mac Worthington wants to know what's your favorite thing to put coleslaw on or with now? Do you really like coleslaw that much? Okay So the story with coleslaw and I tweeted it was that I wasn't allowed to really have it growing up because my dad said It looked like cat vomit. Mm-hmm. So coleslaw was a banned food in the baraco household and I remember I had it with a lobster salad and like a lobster roll and I thought it was amazing only because I had never Had it and then when I saw it, I just I wanted to eat everything on that reward. Mm-hmm And I saw and I was like coleslaw. Where's that? I missed that and just blew up from there, but it's good. I saw it. I just, I wanted to eat everything on that reward. And I saw it and I was like, oh, where's that? I missed that. And it just blew up from there. But it's good. I love

it. It's great. But I'm more excited about eggs. I love eggs. Like scrambled, hard boiled. How do you take them? I poach my eggs. Poach? Yeah. I'm a master poacher. How do you poach an egg with steam? You boil some water, you put some apple cider vinegar in it, then you turn the water down and you gently plop them in and then you wait till the poaching gods say they're ready and

take it out. Out of the shell? Yeah, you crack them right into the hot water. Wow. Okay. All right. I'll take your word for that. Amy Thompson wants to ask you this weekend, I'm driving across country 2200 miles to move

to Oregon. What should I purchase at the general store before I leave for my journey? You might want to take some Epsom salt and anvil and some pennequin. Is it called pennequin? That's like the dried bird. All I know is you want to be a banker from Boston. You do not want to be leading that. OK, OK. This is from Matt, a senior real. He wants to ask you, there is no one more wonderfully weird than Aubrey, excluding herself. Who is the weirdest survivor that you've played with? That I've played with? Yes. I mean, Haley Ford definitely is like definitely a little goofy and Debbie's

goofy in her own way. But my favorite weirdo that I've played with has to be I mean, I think Malcolm's a little bit weird. He's weird. He is. Malcolm's got some weirdness to him. That's a good thing. He hides it.

He hides it. Yeah. That's the funny thing about him. Like he could have been on the Brains tribe. He went to Dartmouth. But because he's got the pretty hair, they probably would have put him on beauty. So there's a little weirdo in hiding under that hair. One day. One day. One day the true weird Jimmy T is going to come out. Oh my gosh. I think I love Jimmy T. Jimmy T doesn't live far from me. Yeah. Um, actually his nieces fiance is my trainer and we like figured this out and Jimmy T and I are like, can you sell me on a Boston know-it-alls? Oh, I think you

should do a Boston know-it-alls. You'd have people, you'd have people coming down from all the new England States for sure. Okay. You should do it. There's a lot of places. The attraction for me, mostly for New York, is that I can just visit my mom. It's like, hey, here I am. I'm a good son. I'm back. Yeah, but I mean, there's Rodney. You could visit Rodney. You could go to the Kowloon in Saugus, Massachusetts. Yeah, I saw him the other night. He lives in Florida now. Yeah, Rodney's. Oh, I guess so. You could go to the Kowloon in Saugus, Massachusetts. Yeah, I saw him the other night. He lives in Florida now.

Yeah, Rodney's bouncing around. I'm not quite sure. Okay. Michael Clark wants to know, more enjoyable dinner guest, Nick Mariano the person or Nick Mariano the character. Nick Mariano the character. More enjoyable. Oh, he's just terrible.

No, I mean, Nick love Nick is the best. He's like a creepy vampire some of the time. But I can confirm. Creepy Don Draper or creepy vampire? Nick's both. He's vampire Draper. Vampire Draper. I can confirm though.

He sleeps on a wooden board and I've tried it out. That sounds weird, but I've tried it out and it's super comfortable. So he is just like he does like eating a meal with Nick is a something to behold Yeah, why he eats plain chicken and then pours half a bottle of ketchup on a plate and dips french fries in it Like a baby. He's like a baby. He's like a baby He's like a baby. You come over and have lunch with Dominic. Yeah, Dominic and Nick can be dinner buddies, but like they are such... Nick is a goof. I love him.

I would love to see Nick play again. He'd be great. Yeah, what does he need to do? Make people feel comfortable. I watched the merge episode of Korong a couple of weeks ago, and I was like like Nick is so smart and knows the game so well, but he like makes everyone nervous. But I mean people were telling him and things in the game. The boys are like, we have an idol. We have to, but he needs to talk more about himself and he's not good at that. He's a great listener. Like Nick could be a therapist. He's really great. He was like, he was like

the therapist for all the girls on 32. Like nightly conversations. Or he could see a therapist. And Nick could see a therapist and be a therapist. Both. Absolutely both. But he really was like every night he had a different Korong girl calling him up. He would get like almost inflammatory with me at times about the final tribal in Korong, telling me what I did wrong, what I should have done, this and that. But yeah, he's a good one.

Yeah. He used to blog about Survivor for us. Yeah, he's great. And he helped me through a lot of the stuff at the end. I heard a rumor, I wanted to get this in, that those two guys in Korong, Jason Scott and whoever else at Ponderosa said, if I got to the end and Joe was with me, they were voting for Joe. I just wanted to throw that one out. Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes when people get aggro and mad and pour water on the fire, when you don't react to them so you can have a cool head, it just pisses them off more. Yeah. They want to get those two things in there. Okay. Megan Elizabeth wants to know, do you have any funny stories from behind the scenes

in Co-Wrong or Game Changers either from the Island Ponderosa or the reunion show? Any good Ponderosa stories from Game Changers stories at the Pondo? I do have two good in game ones. Okay. Okay. So there was a water challenge. I think there were 11 people left or 10 people left. It was right around the merge. And I didn't realize that we'd started and I am, we're all standing in a line and I'm out of line looking down the row. And Jeff goes Aubrey, what are you doing? And I said, I'm sorry, Jeff. I don't remember how many people are left. That was really funny. And the other thing is I found a coconut on game changers that looks exactly like Donald Trump I can tweet it tweet it tweet it. I can tweet I can tweet it

I found a coconut that looks exactly like Donald Trump. It has like you take it home with you I have it has a toupee. Yeah, and then when we got the merge pane I put two little eyes on it. And I mean this game changers is hard for me. It was very lonely at times I was struggling and then like Coconut Trump was like this fun. I was like, hey guys, it's Coconut Trump. And I'd walk around and it was kind of a hit with both the fans of Trump and not so fans of Trump. But I have it and I'll definitely tweet it.

You put it in your luggage? I just saw Coconut Trump in my luggage and he made it home in one piece. Wow. I know. Okay. You'd think he'd get confiscated, but he didn't. Coconut Trump is funny though. Just as the character, you're fired.

Yes. Adam Riddle wants to know, who from Korong do you think will play again? Who would you like to see get a second chance? I'd love to see Nick get a second chance from Korong. I think there was a lot more to his game that we didn't get to see and he loves the game. I would love to see Sydney play again, of course. I really love Sydney. I love Sydney. I still love Sydney. That's the, that's the one that hurts the most. Cause I love her so much. I have such respect for how Sydney runs her life. She was so good in that season as well. And she gets like overlooked. It's

always like Michelle, Michelle, Michelle, Michelle, Aubrey, Michelle, Aubrey, Michelle, Aubrey. But Sydney was great too. And I did an interview with her last year and I laughed for an hour. She's hilarious. Yeah. Like that's the thing is Sydney had a saying out there, keep it cute or keep it mute. And I would say that to myself the whole time I was out there. Yeah. Wow. Between keep it cute or keep it mute. And I would say that to myself the whole time I was out there. Yeah. Wow. Between keep it cute or keep it mute.

And then Michelle is saying like, hey, be quiet at camp and be loud at tribal. All this sage wisdom. Yeah. But Sydney really is a sage. I feel like she, how old is she now? I always think of her as like Gandalf in a 24 year old body. Gandalf in a 24 year old body.

Gandalf in a 24 year old body, wow. She's so wise. Okay, what else? From you? Yeah, from you. No, I just as, it's just been a crazy road. There's been a lot of misconceptions about Korong. It's nice to finally talk a little bit about, I feel like that jury's been a little chirpy

as they've been like, as things about the jury have come up in press and I've kept my mouth shut. I felt like I didn't really get to share my side of that, but I've always done things my way and I'm, people have questions, I'm willing to talk about Survivor. I'm glad I have friends from Koron because that was tough. I beat myself up for a long time. Which part? About losing.

That you didn't win? That I didn't win. And the most therapeutic thing was like, I'm friendly with Jason now. And after that finale, there was those Jury Speaks videos came out and like Scott Jason and Julia Had like the same exact video and Jason called texted me like four in the morning Apologizing about the things he said and I said no like I'm glad that you said this because I realized that I was screwed No matter what mm-hmm like I did not have a shot and

It's just been a good like positive lesson of like you can do your best and sometimes it's still not enough. Like I said at the beginning of Korong and I think now that I always admired people who came out as survivor and decided that they could change and be better people. And I've definitely made an effort to do that. The biggest lesson I had from Korong is that you can try your hardest and it still just doesn't, it's not enough. Yeah. And so like I am at peace with it it is nice to kind of fight back against the people who said like No, I like have rationale for why they did certain things But I'm allowed to have rationale for why I did mine and say what my perception of things is too, so

Yeah, I think I went into game changers in some ways I think I did play a better game like Michelle's game taught me a lot of lessons. Mm-hmm And it's been good. Well, I'm sure that it was a tough time going through everything with CoWrong and ultimately not winning and then coming back and then playing so I'm playing so quick. But I really do feel like that you are one of these people where, you know, survivor is not ultimately gonna be the greatest thing that you're gonna go on to do. And I'm sure you're gonna be very successful in something outside of survivor.

And, you know, this is gonna be a fun time that you're gonna look back on, but I don't really get the sense from you that a couple of years down the line, you're gonna be looking back at like, oh, if I just would have done this different in Co wrong, you know, um, because you seem like, uh, you know, you're a wonderful personality and it's been, uh, really fun to get to watch you over the last, uh, year and change. So thanks. Thank you for going through everything, uh, from your two seasons. This was well worth the wait. Thank you

Yes. Yes. I this was great for me to talk feel a little rambly. If anyone has questions, I Am willing to talk about Survivor, but please understand when I need a little detox. Okay one more question David Baltazar wants to Address something I posted about on social media. Sure, sure. As an Italian American. Oh my gosh. How offensive was the pairing of chicken parm and key lime pie? That's hilarious. As a dessert expert as well, right? What are they thinking with chicken parm, spaghetti and key lime pie?

You know what? I blocked that out in the green room. I was, I don't remember where I was, but I actually love key lime pie when it's frozen. I'm more passionate about that than coleslaw. You know something? Not offensive. Not offensive. Bing. I tweeted I was triggered.

You were? Why would you have cannoli? What's your what's your choice? I mean, who has Italian food and then on top of it, key lime pie. If somebody tweeted back to me, how about why not cheesecake? Why couldn't they go with a cheesecake and chicken parm and pasta? I would do the elephant. No, what's the name? Tiramisu? Tiramisu.

Sure. Or the, oh, the ice cream with the three, the Spamoni. Yes. I mean, oh, that's fantastic. With the littleumoni. Yes. I mean, that's fantastic. A little cherry. Fantastic. And again, that might get a little melty on Survivor out there. Sure. But I think there's a lot of different ways to go. Other than key lime pie.

I mean, I'd eat anything out there. I was the one eating the fish eyeballs. Like that was a funny thing in a Jury Speaks video. Haley was like Aubrey survives because she eats anything. Yeah, that's correct. I mean, Aubrey, what's the hashtag today? Okay, we have a lot of things. Oh really?

Well, a lot of things dealing with Nick and my Rhino between the vampire Don Draper and creepy Don Draper. I love the story about Troye's and the alien abductions. Although we could personalize it something about you, Obs, there's the Egyptian rat skank. I don't know. Malcolm and I still debate what that's called. You are the social media expert though.

What do you got? I got a creepy Don Draper. Creepy Don Draper. Oh, he's going to be so excited. No, I know. I'll give that little one to Nick. He's so excited. Such put some extra ketchup on the plate tonight. Ketchup on that mayo. Ketchup on that mayo. Hashtag ketchup on that mayo. Well, this was a great catch up with you. Yes. It was awesome. Thank you.

Micatharsis. Yeah. So what are you heading home? I'm headed home on Monday. Okay. Yep. So a couple more days in LA Monday, then I got to go figure out my life. Any immediate plans for the summer? I need job hunting is my full focus right now. Want to get back into the journalism or the production. I've been doing short videos for the web when I was doing journalism and I want to get back into the journalism or the production. I've been doing short videos for the web when I was doing journalism and I want to get back

into that creative media. And yeah, I'm a creative soul. If somebody wants to reach out to you about an offer, they know somebody, they know something. Yeah, please reach out to me, tweet me. I have a portfolio set up, AubreyBrocco.com, no E in my first name. I sound like I'm plugging something here, because I am. Okay, that's okay to do. You're plugging you.

I'm plugging me. Yeah, I am open to any creative ideas with writing, production stuff. And I'm just excited to see where the next chapter brings me if I stay in Boston, if I end up in LA, who knows what's going to happen. But I'm excited to kind of continue my journey and have Survivor as a fun like party trick. Yes. Things I did.

It's like my coffee table book of Survivor stories. Yes. And I always have coconut Trump. You always have coconut Trump if all else fails. You know, people could come and you could have like, you know, people come visit coconut Trump. I do. I'm going to charge admission.

Yeah. I do have a good going to charge admission. Yeah. I do have a good, I do have a good little collection. I have like a survivor room of stuff from Fiji and Cambodia. I got a lot of stuff out of there. Neil even got me a machete because I actually lost the brains machete and I have that and he signed it. So, okay. Well, Aubrey, thank you so much.

This was such a great pleasure. You could follow Aubrey on Twitter, if you're nice. What do you mean if I'm not? No, if people are nice. Oh, no, no, no. I'm fine. I know I've been a little sassy with people, but you've got to understand. I can take all of them.

Oh, and then you have that video of Malcolm and I. Yeah, you can be mean at me. I don't care. I'm probably drawing more meanness saying that, But people, for the most part, are nice. I have to just remind myself that that's 90%. And then Aubrey, thank you so much. Hopefully, will you watch Survivor Healers versus Heroes versus Hustlers?

I'm saying I won't watch 35 because I need a break. But I probably secretly will lurk like I do on Reddit. OK, all right. Well, I guess secretly lurking rules out podcasting, but at some point I do hope we can talk survivor again. I'll always talk to you. I'm good. All right, everybody, we got a lot more coming up here this week in the survivor off season. And don't forget the 2000th RHAP episode is right around the corner as well. So stay tuned for that. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast, robhasthewebsite.com slash iTunes.

Looking forward to reading your comments on robhasthewebsite.com. Take care, everybody. Have a good one. Bye. Bye. Michael Clark wants to know more enjoyable dinner guests. Dick Myrano. Dick Myrano. That's the hashtag for the show. I have to cut that. Dick Mayo.

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