One step at a time. It’s a motto that Survivor host and executive producer Jeff Probst greatly admired in Heather Aldret. As the oldest person in the game, she showed the value in never giving up, no matter what or who was thrown your way. As her fighting spirit stayed alive, so did her torch, getting her all the way to the final four. But much like the firemaking challenge she took part in on Day 25, that flame got snuffed out suddenly, sending her to the jury one day before the end. Though Heather would occasionally drop the ball in challenges (one time quite literally), she was part of the dominant Luvu tribe that kept her away from Tribal Council premerge. But she still made waves in the game while donning the blue buff, whether it was making up fake dreams to target Sydney Segal, or finding the most important person to her game in Erika Casupanan. In the first vote she was vulnerable, she became concerned when her name was being thrown around as a decoy. So she took matters into her own hands, starting a whisper-fest at Tribal Council that caused a lot of smoke, but ultimately no flame. After that night, Heather and Erika became public enemies one and two for Shan Smith and the new majority. But she became part of a new coalition that struck at that group, now flipping her to the majority while dismantling the power structure. Despite any “truth bombs” being dropped, Heather and Erika’s bond seemed unshakable, and final challenge winner Xander Hastings hoped to take them both to the end. Hoping Heather was a firemaking ringer, he sent her in against Deshawn Radden, another one of her tightest bonds. And in the most climactic showdown yet, Heather lost out at the Final Three by mere seconds, but still burning with pride for the game she was able to play. After the Survivor 41 finale, Heather talks with Parade.com about her relationship (and jury vote) with Erika, her various conflicts on Luvu, and how her family has reacted to watching her journey. In the final Tribal Council, were you always going to vote Erika? Or was there something she particularly said or did that night that gave her your vote for the money? I felt strongly that it should be Erika, because I was a part of her journey from the very beginning to the end. I felt like I didn’t need somebody to explain what she had done because I witnessed it. So I felt confident with my vote, because I was a part of it the whole way. There wasn’t any assuming something happened, or somebody had to prove anything to me. I did not know about some of the things that Xander had done until I saw it on television, because I wasn’t around him to know it. And I even talked to him about it later. I asked him was, “Why didn’t you tell me when we were out there?” And he goes, “I didn’t think that I needed to. I was still in the moment of the game.” And some of the things weren’t talked about at final Tribal. But there was no question about my Erika vote. I didn’t have to assume she played better than somebody else. I saw her game. So I felt really confident about giving that money to her. Talk to me about that bond you made with her, playing every day together and being the pair to make it the furthest in the game. What made you so tight? I think it just started on the beach one day. We realized that we were on the bottom of Luvu; we were kind of left out of the conversation. Deshawn and I were still close. But the other four would get together and talk and just be friendly with each other and not include us in that. And it wasn’t done purposely. But we knew we weren’t included in the fun and games. And so we kind of felt a little left out. You want to try to do something. Let’s try to make some moves and further our own game! And so it was decided right then and there. When she got sent off to Exile, I think that was a massive bonding for us. I generally worried about her because she did not have the skills to go out there. And it broke my heart watching her leave. When she got back, and I heard how she endured it personally–a lot of that wasn’t shown–I was so proud of her. And I think that’s what connected us. She realized that I was trying to convince people don’t vote for her because she was an easy vote out what she came back. And people were like, “Oh, I heard she’s sneaky.” And I was like, “Actually, she’s not; she’s great. You’ve got to get to meet her. Don’t make this an easy vote just because you don’t know her.” And I meant it. When she got back, I felt like I was part of keeping her in there. There was just this appreciation for each other, for helping each other when we needed it most. And so it just continued throughout the whole game. I was feeling down and weak in the last part of the game; I was breaking completely going in that last challenge. I was crying before going in there, like I couldn’t even function. I was so depleted of everything. And that’s when you should be the strongest. She told me, “It’s just a couple more days. You should get to experience all of this. Take a breath.” We would just keep each other in check. And that was really valuable out there. We really trusted and liked each other. That being said, we saw a couple of rounds prior the “truth bomb” that Erika was debating not taking you to the end. Did you ever entertain that thought as well? What you didn’t see on that was Deshawn actually came up to me before that Tribal and told me everything. I was very close to Deshawn. And as he was like, “I’ll let you know, we had this conversation.” I was like, “Wow, that came up earlier than I thought it would.” I’ve watched this game long enough. And I know there will come a time when you need to do what’s best for your game and split. But it wasn’t that time for us yet. We had a plan of how we’d like it to go and meeting certain people to make that happen. And we weren’t ready to cut each other out because then we would be both doomed. So he told me that prior to that Tribal. I was so confused and upset because one of my good friends just tried to hurt my other good friends. I just couldn’t process why he would do it. Is it do to hurt her? Because you’re not going to get my vote by hurting my friend. And when we got back on the island, I wasn’t ready to talk about it for about 12 hours until the next day because all that was so dramatic. We got to that next island; we didn’t have anywhere to sleep. We didn’t even know where the water well was, ad it was freezing cold. All that just compounded it. But I was never mad at Erika ever. I was upset with how that was done. I didn’t like how he did that to hurt her. But I talked about it with Deshawn later, and we’re good. Okay, Heather, I have to talk about this “made-up dream” secret scene. What made you decide to fabricate a dream about Sydney to try to get the target on her? (Laughs.) Again, what you didn’t see, of course, was Deshawn had come up and told me earlier, “Listen, Sidney doesn’t like you. She talked [expletive] about you. She is basically tolerating you to get through this so she can move on.” I had been sharing my clothes with her at night to keep her warm and was sweet to her. But he said, “She doesn’t like you. I don’t want you going back to camp and losing your mind and freaking out.” I had to process it all. I knew Sydney and I were very different. But I didn’t know that she hated me. So I thought that night, “What can I do to communicate to her that I no longer want to work with her without throwing Deshawn under the bus?” And so, the next day, I came up with a dream. I was like, “Oh my god, I had this crazy dream.” Now I’m kind of laughing about it; you can go and listen. It was done in a joking way, like, “No more for you; I’m not going to trust you.” A And when it aired, I got a text from Danny going, “You made that up?!” We just didn’t talk about it again after that. And thought I was bat [expletive] crazy! (Laughs.) And so we were in this group chat, and I asked Deshawn if what he told me was true, or if he was just doing it for game. But he said it was true. And I never went back on my word. I didn’t go throw him under the bus to her. Maybe his game would have changed, or mine would have if I’d done that. But I didn’t. I said I wasn’t going to, so I looked like the kook having the weird dream! (Laughs.) Speaking of Sydney, it seems like a fair amount of Luvu members like her, Naseer, and Danny talked about having personal conflicts with you. How did those end up happening? They’re not going to put everybody together that gets along. I think about it as a family get-together at Christmas. Everybody’s invited, you sit around the table, and you have to endure certain personalities. But after that many days of 24/7, it gets hard because you can’t walk away from it like you do in real life. If somebody starts to get on your nerves, without being disrespectful, you can say, “I need a timeout. I need to drive to the store; I’m going to dinner tonight. Take a break.” We can’t do that there. And so it just gets a breaking point. With Naseer, you didn’t see a lot of it. But he was very condescending in the way that he spoke. Like when you saw that time when he says, “Sure you didn’t write my name down.” He talked to me like that often. And when you’re talking that way, you don’t really want to work with someone. So I wasn’t rude to him, but I ignored working with him because I didn’t like being talked to that way. That was my way of avoiding a situation, just not being a part of it. Sydney is very dynamic, dramatic, a great personality. It’s over the top, and it’s really fun. But after a while, at my age, I just got tired of it. I got tired of hearing the stories and “Look at how hot my body looks.” It was really funny at first, but it got old. And so again, it was one of those avoidance things. But I remember reading somewhere that she says it got bad that we have to have a mediation of some sort. There was no mediation. I don’t know where that came from. I know that Danny tried to get us all together before the merge to say, “Hey, let’s all agree to work together to go in with numbers.” And I said, “I don’t know if I can agree with that right now.” Because I felt in an alliance, Sydney was a liability. I didn’t feel confident that she would stick with it. So I wasn’t going to pledge my allegiance to the group. Danny is great. But towards the end of it, he started just to get tired. You could just see it all of us who are getting spent. And he’s the most patient man in the world. From my perspective, it wasn’t awful. So being called “demonic” by Sydney was kind of wild. I don’t know if that was from the dream; I haven’t talked to Sydney to find out. But I was shocked by that one. I knew that we were different. But when I saw the things she was saying in her interviews, I actually told Erika, “I don’t remember doing or saying some of those things at all. If I did, I need to call and apologize.” And she goes, “Well, I was around all the time, but I don’t remember some of those things either. So I would hold off on that.” And then more of her stories came out, and I just let it go. But I didn’t think she hated me that much. We have to talk about the Tiffany Tribal Council, where you stand up and start whispering, afraid the target was on you. What made you feel that way, and how did that night change your game moving forward? What you didn’t see–it always starts with “what you didn’t see”–is there was talk of Tiffany going home that day. I went to do a confessional, and then they did lockdown, and you couldn’t talk anymore. And Shan suddenly came up to me about using me as a decoy. And that’s the little part you see where I’m like, “No, don’t use my name.” And then we couldn’t talk anymore. So I felt like something had shifted with a plan. And I didn’t feel good about it. I actually liked Tiffany. I was just getting to know her, and I wasn’t ready for her to go home yet. I was enjoying her personality out there. And so when we went into Tribal, I knew it was going to be Tiffany, but something didn’t feel right. So I told her, “Just sit there and be quiet. Let me see if I can flip something.” It just didn’t feel right. Then Liana looked at me, and she was like, “What are you doing? Why are you messing this up? Stick with the plan as it is. And if you don’t, we’re going to start voting you out.” And Shan points back to my seat and is like, “Don’t mess with it, or you’re going.” And at that moment, I was like, “Okay, I’m going to stick with the plan. But I’m going to remember this. And I’m not going to work with y’all again.” And so I sat down. That is why I voted Tiffany, and Tiffany and Evvie put my name down. And they told me later it’s because Shan started saying to people, “Write down Heather’s name.” She told Deshawn too, but Deshawn was not going to do it. I didn’t know about the Black alliance at that time. I didn’t understand what was going on and what he was really struggling with. We were friends, and him being told by his alliance who to vote for really put him in a compromising position, which I didn’t know about at the time to understand where he was coming from and why he was so conflicted. So no, I did not go in there to shake things up or make a mockery or anything like that. I really thought, “Let’s keep Tiffany and get out Naseer.” You see how Naseer talked to me in the next episode, asking, “You wrote my name down, didn’t you?” And I was like, “No, I didn’t.” And he’s like, “Sure you didn’t.” That was the way he talked to me a lot. He never believed me that I didn’t write his name down. But we saw that Xander did it. I kept my promise. I didn’t write his name down. But I did want him to go. (Laughs.) One of the things Jeff told you in the finale as words of encouragement was to think about how your kids would see you on the show. How has your family reacted to watching your journey play out over 25 days? Well, they didn’t get to see a lot, because a lot of it wasn’t shown. And what was shown was so dramatically edited. I’m the struggling old lady. Listen, I am 52. I’m never going to outrun Xander. I know that. So by the end, I wasn’t stressed anymore. I want to enjoy this; I want to remember it; I’m not going to beat them at this point. So I played hard, but I knew I wasn’t going to beat them. My kids were excited that I put myself out there to do something I wanted to do. So many people my age think it’s kooky and nutty to get set up the way that I failed. And I was willing to do that because I wanted to experience a game. I love the game, and I got to experience it. So my kids are proud that I did it. They were the ones that encouraged it because I talked about it all the time. And they’re thrilled about that. They quit reading comments like I did because it hurt them as well. Some of the comments about me just taking up space out there and not being a part of the cast. A lot of that hurt, but they know the truth. And they’re proud of me. And how did you feel watching that back, especially with some of the responses to that challenge moment early on? So during that challenge with the balls, it sucked in real life, but watching it back was bad. But I actually did not say after that challenge that I was proud of myself. That confessional came from something later with a swimming challenge. It was something that I was terrified about. I was proud to do that. I almost drowned years ago. I never in a million years would think that I would be able to jump off that ramp. And so that was taken out of that confessional and attached to that challenge. I never said I was proud of myself. I never said, “Look at me.” I said, “I failed that. And I let everybody down. I let my team down, and I’m not proud of myself. I just lived my worst nightmare.” I did not remember the clapping. I didn’t do it on purpose to try to get “joyful love.” Who would want to do that on purpose? That’s everybody’s nightmare out there! I lived it. Truly after that, I shook it off. And it’s just like, “Okay, I just lived through my biggest nightmare out here. So I can only go up from here.” I was able to grow another inch because I was able to live my biggest fear and move on. Next, check out our exit interview with Survivor 41 third-placer Xander Hastings.
