As Jeff Probst said in last night’s episode, “Survivor can get anyone on any given day.” It’s an attitude Danny McCray knows well, considering he played with an “any given Sunday” motto for six years as part of the NFL. His season started on a hot streak, earning win after win as part of a dominant tribe and a majority alliance at the merge. But it all fell apart for him over the past few episodes, and by Day 23, the pipes were calling for Danny. From the first few minutes of season 41, Danny proved himself an asset for the Luvu tribe. He and Deshawn Radden formed a tight bond while doing a grueling task to get supplies for the tribe, creating one of the most critical partnerships in the game. Despite getting some attention for advantage hunting, Luvu’s win streak gave him the time to cement himself at the top of the tribe. That included making decisions like attempting to throw a challenge and boot Erika Casupanan, worried about her craftiness and the possibility of a women’s alliance on the other tribes. Unfortunately for Danny, his fellow players disagreed with his intentions, something that would echo to his final days in the game. At the merge, Danny and Deshawn connected with fellow Black players Shan Smith and Liana Wallace. Along with Ricard Foyé, they created a new majority that carried through the first few votes. But there was tension simmering under the surface between Shan and Deshawn, and it came to a head on Day 19, when everyone except Liana and Shan joined up to blindside the pastor. Danny won an incredibly moving Immunity Challenge on the 24th anniversary of his father’s passing and hoped the others would use this opportunity to take a shot at Ricard. But again, his competitors had other plans, sparing the flight attendant a trip to the departure gate. Instead, sights were firmly set on the duo of Danny and Deshawn, forcing the two to turn on each other. And though Deshawn dropped a “truth bomb” about Erika at Tribal Council, his relationships won out over Danny’s lesser status as a threat. But despite his disappointment, he walked out with the satisfaction he left everything on the field, a wink in his eye, and the simple final words of “Go Cowboys.” Now out of the game, Danny talks with Parade.com about his relationship with Deshawn and how he compares their games, how he navigated Luvu in the premerge, and how Survivor allowed him to change his feelings on his father. You said in your final words you weren’t surprised it was you. But when Deshawn brings up Erika throwing Heather under the bus at Tribal Council, did that give you any hope it was him over you? I wasn’t that surprised. I had known the relationships had with Heather and Erika when we were on the Luvu tribe. It was Sydney and me, and then Deshawn, Erika, and Heather. I knew they liked him a little bit more than they liked me, and that vote would go his way and not mine. Even with the “truth bomb,” I didn’t think things would change. You and Deshawn decided to vote for each other. Was there a point in the day where you tried to throw the target onto someone else and recruit another person to your cause? I had a relationship with Xander, so I did speak with him. I talked to him about possibly voting out Heather, because I thought that was the only person I could throw out. I felt if she was out and it was the four of us against Ricard, we had a great chance of beating him at an Immunity Challenge and getting him out of here. My pitch to him was, “Keep us strong. We can have all hands on deck to beat Ricard.” And he wasn’t going for it. So when Deshawn and I finally sat down to talk, neither of us wanted to be tempted to write somebody else’s name down. If I wrote Xander’s name down, then Deshawn could write my name down and stab me in the back. So we just figured at that point, let’s keep the temptation away. Our run was good, and we go out how we go out. Let’s go back to the start of that run. What made you two become so tight a pair, starting from doing that “Sweat” challenge together on Day 1? So the sweat challenge was huge. Two things happened during that. Naseer going to say our names made us even stronger, as the two guys on the tribe with Naseer on the outside. But what you didn’t get to see was that Deshawn would often go on these crazy rants and have these crazy ideas and have a conflict with everybody on the beach. And I would be the person to go talk to him say, “Hey, man, this is not how you want to be right now. You have to back off and try to communicate with this person.” So when you see him go to talk to Shan, I was in that conversation first. I said, “Hey, look, we’re going to try to make this work. Make sure you guys can communicate so we can make this thing work.” I think that’s why he said there was a big brother/little brother thing. I did my best to look out for him and help him keep his emotions in check. We see Erika talk last night about being worried that the jury couldn’t distinguish her game from Heather’s in the end. Did you ever worry about that with Deshawn, considering all the moves you made together? Deshawn and I are really close. But I think we played two totally different games. Deshawn ruffled a lot of feathers. And he had a lot of people on the opposite side of him who did not like the way he played the game. If you hear Tiffany’s exit interview, she thought Deshawn bullied her. He turned his back on Evvie and Shan. Liana obviously had an issue with him. People didn’t have those same issues with me. I did have relationships with those people. So our games are totally different. I felt people would be able to separate them if we made it to the end. As you mentioned, Naseer throws your name out a couple of times in those first few days on Luvu. Did that change the way you approached the game? It was more about staying calm. I watched a lot of Survivor. And you see this on TV all the time. Somebody said somebody’s name, and everybody freaks out. And it really doesn’t even mean anything. So I didn’t even take it seriously when Naseer said my name so quickly, because he didn’t know me at that point. He was just trying to hurry up, play the game, and do what he saw on TV. So I didn’t panic. I knew that we had time to build a relationship and see where things would really go once we were all able to slow down and start talking to each other. And as you can see, it worked out. He never said my name again! (Laughs.) You mentioned before that you knew Deshawn had stronger relationships with Erika and Heather than you did. Let’s drill into that, starting with Heather. What was your dynamic like in comparison to her bond with Deshawn? So I’ll say this without saying too much. But Heather and I had an issue while we were on the beach. And we’ve hashed it out; Heather’s great. We just had a miscommunication, to some extent. But she and Sydney really did not like each other while they were out there. So my plan was to tell Deshawn, “You make sure you handle Heather. You need to make sure that Heather’s cool. So if we need her, we’re able to pull her.” And then my job was to keep Sydney from going off the rails and trying to go against Heather. So I think it just fell that way for us. Deshawn was the watcher for Heather, and I was the watcher for Sydney. And Sydney ended up not making it to the end, so it didn’t work out for me as well as it did for Deshawn. Moving on to Erika, you and Deshawn decide to throw a challenge at one point, feeling she was too dangerous to keep around. What made you think that way? Listen, I never felt that way, to be honest. But what I did know was if I wanted to have a strong alliance with Deshawn, there would be some give and take. We had a lot of conversations about why we shouldn’t and why we should. And finally, I was like, “Listen, we’ll do it this time. But the next decision being made, I get to make the decision.” Deshawn had a plan to get Erica out. So that’s absolutely fine. I’ll do what my partner wants to do at this point. You had said a couple of times that you were worried about too many men being voted out of the game, which seemed to be another reason you targeted Erika. What made you think that was happening? So actually, Deshawn brought that to me. That’s why we actually wanted to try to throw the first challenge. It was interesting to see that they were putting that on me so much. The show put that in my head. It was more like we got to the challenge, and I saw another man was gone. Deshawn saw a male was gone, he gave me the signal, and then we decided to throw it. I think that’s why you don’t see us talking about how we did it until after the challenge. Because we didn’t know how we would do it until it happened. Suffice it to say you were not happy with the hourglass twist, specifically reversing the group immunity. Talk to me more about your reaction, and what was it like trying to get your head back in the game after that? I think a lot of people thought that we would be upset with Erika. But we were more upset with the actual game and the fact that they put her in that position. A lot of people were thinking that Erika was going to go home after that because she had made this big decision. But I’m saying to Erika, “We understood that this is the only decision that you had. Don’t worry; we’re not mad at you.” As I’m doing the foot challenge! (Laughs.) I’ve seen a lot of people assuming that I was throwing some of those individual Immunity Challenges. And my plan was not to be this big threat and go out there and win them all. But Jeff actually took that away from me because I was not able to get back into the competitive spirit after that. My mind was like, “You can win, and then you actually lose. So should I go hard, or is it even worth it?” I was going through a whole bunch of my mind. So my competitive spirit wasn’t there for a long time. That one challenge where we’re balancing on the beam trying to keep the ball on that plate is the one where I kind of snapped out of it. But by then, my feet were off from the beginning of the challenge, and it didn’t work out. On that note, you told me in the preseason that you wanted to change the perception of what a threat is, trying to show players that it’s not the big guys you should worry about, but the people good at puzzles and sociability. Do you feel like you were able to succeed in that goal? I would say yes, to some extent. I was planning on doing that at the beginning. But I didn’t know that my social relationships and the social capital that I had built were going to put me in a situation. I was able to be in alliance with Shan, Liana, and Deshawn, and then have Sydney and relationships with Xander and Tiffany. Eventually, Evvie and I even talked about doing some stuff together before she got voted out. But of course, I was like, “Look at how fast Evvie did that puzzle! We have to get her out. I’m not good at challenges.” So I think it was twofold. The social game was a little bit unexpected from how well it went for me. And then the fact that Evvie killed that puzzle so quickly that I didn’t even really have to explain how big of a threat she was. You mentioned Xander a couple of times, and your relationship isn’t something we really saw on the show. You two went on that summit with JD on Day 2, and last night you surprisingly said you thought he would have voted with you against Ricard. Talk to me about your dynamic. So what they didn’t show was that at the marooning, I kind of bumped him a little bit. I wanted to show him that it was going to be a physical game. So we got to the top of the mountain. And the first thing he said to me was, “Man, I respect the way you play. I see you coming out here to play hard, and I really respect that.” So we bonded on that. I think where our relationship got strained was that the game split us into two groups, and we voted out Evvie. What they didn’t show was Evvie and Xander came to Deshawn and me and said they were voting me out. So I had to switch it on to Liana. And in order to do that, I had to ruin my relationship with Xander by saying, “Hey, listen, I’m going to vote out Liana like you asked me to. And we’re going to be able to work together.” After that, he never really trusted me like he did at the beginning of that merge. At that point, I didn’t think that I could win him back over. But he got me, and I respected that. He got me, and I got him. We heard a lot from Deshawn’s perspective about the conflict in voting out Shan, particularly when weighing the competition of the game versus “the culture” that comes with the Black alliance. What was your viewpoint on all of that with the Shan vote? I don’t think my feelings were the same. Deshawn and Shan had this back and forth where they wanted to stab each other in the back. I would only break the alliance if somebody betrayed me. What they didn’t show was, in that episode, everybody’s thinking that we would blindside Shan by trying to take out her closest ally and not tell her. While Deshawn, Liana, and I are having this conversation, I tell them that I’m going to tell Shan. I’m going to give her the opportunity to say yes to voting Ricard. And if she doesn’t, then we’ll figure out how to move forward with it. So what they didn’t show was Shan and I have a conversation. And Shan agrees to vote out Ricard. She then goes to Liana. And Liana tells her that we’re trying to blindside her. I think it was a miscommunication on how Liana said it that made them freak out. But that’s why I was so upset with Shan. It was like, “Shan, you and I just had this conversation. I gave you an opportunity to say no. And then you ran back to Ricard.” At that point, I felt like she had chosen Ricard over the group. Let’s get to last week’s episode, when you open up about your father’s death and the resentment you learned to let go of on Survivor. Was there any event or moment that caused you to come to that epiphany? I hadn’t talked about that with anybody. I didn’t plan on talking about it when I went out there. And the only way that I would have been able to talk about it is if I made it to that day. It was May 4th. And on that day, everybody in the camp was saying, “May the Fourth be with you.” And that’s how I realized it was that day. It clicked to me. I thought, “You need to think and process this and figure out what is really going on this day. Because you usually go get a drink, hang out with friends, watch TV, or hold conversations to keep your mind off of it.” But at that moment, Survivor didn’t allow me to do that. I was able to sit there with my thoughts, knowing what day it was, and I just figured it was time to let that go. There was an outpouring of positivity from fans for the vulnerability you showed. What’s been your response to that? It was huge. And it’s so crazy. There have been so many people reaching out to me, telling me about how they lost a parent and how difficult it was, whether it was a year ago or 20 years ago. And how it helped them come to the realization that parents are not superheroes. Those types of things happen. You can’t blame them for things that are out of their control. It was a huge relief and very inspiring to hear some of the stories they shared with me on social media. You said after this experience, you would visit your dad’s grave and talk to your mom more about him. Has that happened in the months since you came back from Fiji? I think it’s been great. I had to have that conversation with my mother. It was something we’ve never really talked about. He passed when I was eight. So we kind of dealt with it, and then we had to move forward to figure out how to survive as a family. So having that conversation with her and having her understand how I felt growing up as a little boy was huge. As far as visiting graves, we have big plans to have a weekend out there in Alexandria, Louisiana, where he was born and where he’s buried it. We’ll make that a big day. It’s a really good thing. It’s more than a million dollars. I think I got something that will probably save me a lot of heartache for the rest of my life. Next, check out our exit interview with Liana Wallace, who was voted out in Survivor 41 Episode 11.
