So I have to start with the obvious question. You got to wear these awesome red, white, and black pants throughout the season. Did you walk out of Tribal Council with Jeanine’s idol in them?You know we can’t pass idols during the votes. So that was tough. You see her feel she’s in trouble. She’s reaching back for the idol. In reality she wasn’t actually reaching out for the idol, she was just patting my leg making sure I was doing fine. That wasn’t like, “Give me the idol.” During Tribal, I was just like, “I think it’s me. I think it’s me.” And Jeanine was just like, “You’re fine.” So that was not a “give me the idol” type of situation.What made you believe that it was you?I knew I was catching four or five going in. I know it’s gonna be like, “Why didn’t you play the idol then?” (Laughs.) I hear your follow up question is coming. But so going into Tribal we had the 4-4 split plan on Ryan and James. I never would have expected Cody and Jesse were gonna come for me at that point. Cody, I kind of knew didn’t fully want to work with me. But I was like, “I don’t think he’ll take a shot that early.” I didn’t think it made sense for him to take it early. Because for me, I’m a shield for you strategically, like they’re gonna take me out later. So I don’t see why you give me out now.But to go back to your question, I knew Coco was putting four on me. And it was I kind of had hoped Ryan might not vote for me, but in the end he did. And then right before Tribal, I see Sami talking to Cassidy. And then Sami gets up from the conversation and goes to talk to James and Karla. He walks right past me and I’m like, “Alright, that’s five!” So I’m talking to Owen and I’m like, “Okay, undo the split. Put a vote on James instead. Baka needs to vote for James. We can’t do this split because this is way too fragile.” And a 4-4 split is super fragile itself. All it takes is one person to flip. And that was that was a concern of mine because I trust these people enough. I don’t want to be paranoid in the first merge vote. I don’t want to blow things up because his name was out there as a fake target. But I’m talking to Owen, and we didn’t get the chance to finish that conversation, because we got pulled for Tribal at that moment. So during Tribal I’m actually talking to Jeanine as well. I’m like, “Okay, go for James. Don’t ask questions. Vote for James instead.” And she’s like, “No, no, I think we’re fine during the split”. And we got called out for whispering. So we didn’t get much conversation there. So it was just a lot of trying to undo that. It’s weird. At that point. I really thought Owen was going to do the the vote. I was like, “Okay, it’ll be 5-5-2.” In the end, it wouldn’t have mattered anyways, because Jesse and Cody were against me.But there was a lot going on that day, especially near the end. It was just a time crunch for me. I wish I had five or ten more minutes or conversations. Things could have gone differently. And I wasn’t used to the time on Baka. It’s a small thing about being on Survivor. But on Vesi we get used to when the sun gets to a certain position, you’re going to Tribal. I’m not used to the time on Baka, and also the challenge was super late, so everything was just thrown off. So it was out of nowhere, just go to Tribal. I’m like, “The sun is literally in the sky. What do you mean? It’s not nighttime. We’re leaving in five minutes. I need to have conversations.” So yeah, that was a disaster.It’s interesting you felt you’d be getting some votes. Because I’ll admit from the viewer’s perspective, your name seemed to come out of nowhere last night. What made you feel that way?So I don’t think it made air. But back on Day 2 or 3, Cody always called me the strategist on Vesi. And I was like, “Okay, please don’t take that outside of Vesi, for the love of God.” And Jesse told me this, so I was very aware of how he perceived me. And that’s why, even from that moment, I was like, “Hey, listen, Cody’s just gotta be against me. But I can still try and salvage this if I don’t come for him.” Because I really wanted to work with him at this point, even though I knew he saw me as concerning. I was like, “If I can get to eight or nine and win a few challenges based on puzzles, I can try and save myself and be a shield for them going forwards.” I just didn’t think they’d take the shot so early.But another thing. Like I said, Cody called me a strategist all the time. He goes to Coco. That bus ran over me. He told all of Coco, “Dwight’s the mastermind over on Vesi.” He ruined my game early, with the entire Coco tribe. That’s why you see in the episode I was like, “I want to go because I’m more diplomatic one.” I just didn’t want him going! (Laughs.) I’m just like, “You’re not talking to these people.” And then he did.You talk about not really wanting Cody in your endgame plans. Did you have anything in mind at the moment you were voted out? Would it involve some sort of Baka-Vesi combination?So to be clear, Baka/Vesi actually started a lot earlier than the merge. It started on Day 7 to be totally honest. Wow. So on the turtle puzzle Baka tried to help us on that one, and we still lost. And then during the decision of who to send on the journey, I looked at them and said, “Send Noelle.” Sami and Elie see that and immediately tell them, “We’re sending Noelle,” because I asked him to. I was like “Okay, they did this for me. They got us this Steal-a-Vote. They tried to help us on the puzzle, even though we still [expletive] it up.“So the next puzzle I was like, “We are helping Baka on this puzzle if we can.” We help Baka win, cool. Baka/Vesi is kind of established. Before we hit the merge, I was saying we need to work with Baka, a rally the troops kind of speech. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that. And in parallel, over on Baka, they had the same conclusion. So it was like a mutually beneficial alliance. I realized, if we do Baka/Vesi and we’re down five to four, we have Noelle’s Steal-a-Vote. So even if, let’s say, in a perfect world, we do Baka/Vesi and take out all of Coco. Then we had a Steal-a-Vote to take control of the game after that. So we were not giving up numbers in that situation. And I was I feel like we were a lot more united after our two votes. We didn’t have drama on Vesi. The only job we had was Cody called me a strategist all the damn time. But we got along all super well. It was nice. They’re super great people, and I love being around them.Let’s go back to the early days of Vesi. You risk and lose your vote on the journey. And while you didn’t seem to be in danger of going, it did give Jesse this opportunity to essentially go against what you want without you having a say. How did not having a vote affect the way you approached that first Tribal Council?So to give more context of why I went on the journey. The episode made it look like I was kind of coerced into going. That is not true. So the boat arrives. We’re all just staring. No one wants to go. And early on, I was like, “Yo, Cody is a problem for me. I want him gone first.” I told this to Noelle and Justine. So then the boat comes up and Cody’s like, “I want to go,” and I’m like, “Actually I want to go. I’m not letting this man get an extra vote. You are not getting on this boat. I am going.” And then we get to the journey. I thought it would be a 41/42 thing, getting an extra vote or something. And then I realized, “Oh, you could lose your vote.” And I realize there’s no world in which I can go home. Maybe it’s just overconfidence. But the structure on Vesi was pretty public. Immediately. Noelle and Justine were close. Nneka and Cody were close. And Jesse and I were close in the middle. So there’s no world in which I was to go home. I’m not catching Jesse’s vote ever. Even though he lied to me on that vote, he was never going to vote for me. So I knew even losing my vote, I will be safe. And if I get an advantage, I just gained even more power in my tribe. So it was a selfish decision because it unfortunately did send Justine home. But it’s a selfish game. And at that point I did feel like Jesse would have voted with me to take out Nneka or Cody. I was wrong about that.After that Tribal Council, it seemed like your relationship with Noelle got tighter, while it got more strained with Jesse. Was that actually the case?So to be clear, I was actually closer with Noelle to begin with. So what I just said about the whole dynamic, that was the public knowledge on Vesi. Noelle and I were like this Day 1. (Crosses fingers.) We were super tight. So that was no concern of mine really. Right before Tribal actually, Jesse pulled me aside and says, “I think I’m gonna go Justine.” and I was like, “No, don’t. Do not do that.” That’s why I was so mad at Tribal. Becuase I have no vote. What am I gonna do, tell Justine? Because then she plays her Shot in the Dark and then I go home, or some weird scenario. I was mad because I feel like he should have told me before. I really have no power at this point. I have no vote. I’m defenseless. If you want to work with me, tell me. But we talked about it afterwards. I was like, “Okay, you know what? It’s Day 4 or 5. You’re scared. I get it, whatever. Let’s move forward.” First, I was frustrated. But I’m not going to tell off the guy who’s a part of the three-person majority. That’s just game suicide. You’re working with people. Even if they lie to you, you keep a note of it. But you have to move forwards. That’s just a thing of the game. You can’t hold a grudge for 20 years because someone looked at you the wrong way, because that’s how you get voted out. So the Vesi situation looked really interesting if you had gone to Tribal Council at the merge. You were basically split 2-2, Noelle has a Vote Steal, Cody had an idol, and Jesse had no vote. What do you think would have happened had you gone back?It depends on when we went back to Tribal. If Jesse still had his vote, there were two plans. I need to pull up my notes again. I took notes when I got home of what I would have done. So if we thought we had Jesse’s vote, it would have been 2-1-1. Cody voting for Noelle. Jesse voting for Cody, thinking Noelle I also go to Cody. And then Noelle and I voting Jesse out. But then if Jesse gave me the slightest inkling he wasn’t gonna vote with us, I was like, “Okay, we can play a Steal-a-Vote.” And even if they have the idol at this point, which we’re assuming they do, because I would have told Noelle, and Noelle would’ve told me if we had it, we’re left assuming their side has the idol. If you steal the vote of the person you’re voting out, if I understand correctly, you can’t lose the situation. Let’s say we steal Jesse’s vote and put two votes on Cody and one vote on Jesse. If Cody plays the idol, then it becomes a tie, the one person on our side can vote out Jesse. If they play the idol on Jesse, we have two votes on Cody and Cody goes home. The only way they survive was they play an idol and Shot in the Dark. This is what I was going through my head out there. I was just like, “We cannot lose.” I should have just thrown the damn skee ball challenge and we’ve been better off.You had someone already doing that on the other side!(Laughs.) Yeah. But I felt confident going back to Tribal on Vesi. I genuinely think if we keep going back to Tribal as Vesi, I’m fine. So it kind of sucks that we kept winning challenges. I brought to the merge with me the people I want gone. But like I said, you can never you never say, “I wish I just lost more challenges premerge.” Because so many people probably thought the same thing and it doesn’t go their way. So who knows? But with the Steal-a-Vote, I felt confident.Lastly, I want to highlight a secret scene from the first few weeks of Nneka doing your hair. You say how that was a vulnerable moment for you and it really represented you opening up. Talk to me more about that moment of literally letting your hair down on the island.Oh my god ye. It’s weird still having an afro. I never really had my hair this long in my life until COVID, because I’m like, “What am I gonna do? Get a haircut every other week?” But I talked about getting my hair twisted before. Before I left my mom was like, “Can I twist your hair up?” I was like, “No, I want to leave it like this.” So to have Nneka do it on Day 6. We were so close out there. It wasn’t getting shown. But I have not let anyone else in my life touch my hair like that. So for me to open up like that and let them do it, it was a lot of personal growth. By nature, I kind of just keep my circle pretty tight up. So for me opening up in that regard so soon from me, I was like, “Okay, I can be a bit more open to people in general.” And it just sucks voting her out the next day. But that meant a lot to me to do that. And it took all of Day 6, I kid you not! It was not a 10-minute process. It took us four or five hours. We woke up and she was like, “Let’s braid your hair.” And the woman is a damn magician. She did this with a pick made of a stick and water. And it stuck until like I was vote out, over a week. Who else can do that? No one else in the damn universe can do that. So I am eternally grateful for doing that. And it made my day and made her day. That’s my favorite day out there by far. So I’m so glad it was a secret scene at least. I’m gonna have that video forever.Next, read our interview with Elie Scott, who was voted out in Survivor 43 Episode 6.
