“They All Stabbed Me in the Back” – RealityNewsOnline’s Exclusive Interview with Survivor’s Erik

I don’t think I’ve ever gotten to ask fewer questions than I did with Erik – and yet our interview went longer than most. He gave a lot of detail and information in his answers, which help to explain what happened to him in those fateful few hours and minutes leading up to Tribal Council, as well as his mindset in some of the things he did and said. Read on!

RealityNewsOnline: Hello, Erik, and thanks for taking the time to talk to us here at RealityNewsOnline! Obviously, you were extremely surprised at the outcome of the vote we saw last night. And on the show, we heard you say you had the immunity idol ready if you felt you needed it, but of course we know you didn’t use it. Were things that well hidden from you before and during Tribal Council?

Erik: Oh yeah, absolutely. One hundred percent. The thing is that I made a comment that I don’t regret not using the idol because you can’t protect yourself from something invisible and this was invisible. I knew going into the game, somebody like me is probably going to be out through a huge mistake or a huge blindside. I remember always kind of having my head on a swivel. Then we go into Day 21 and there’s no talk about my name anywhere until literally five minutes before we go to Tribal Council.

I’m on the beach talking with Brett about this fantastic strategy we’re going to put into second gear. I walked down to the beach and back from the beach and everything had changed. There was no indication that I personally was in trouble. I think that whole comment that if I need to use the idol I will is something you say every time you go to Tribal Council when you have the idol.

The thing about the idol I said before I left is you can’t use the immunity idol, you have to be the immunity idol. I know it’s Survivor and a cutthroat social game, but there has to be some sort of loyalty with somebody who has your back so you can know to use the idol. The only way to get an indication you need to use the idol, especially where the entire plan went down in five minutes, is you need to have somebody to give you the heads up. I knew it was a tricky play with the idol and my entire plan was not to use it to save my ass but to bring somebody further along in the game. I thought there was an 85 or 90 percent chance I was not going to use that idol, I was going to give it to somebody down the road.

RNO: What we saw was a frenzy of scheming and plotting at camp leading up to Tribal Council. Take us through the last few hours.

Erik: There were two frames of thought. First and foremost we wanted to set precedent with the fact that we needed to get rid of Foa Foa. We didn’t want to make the same mistakes that Timbira and other teams had made in Survivor past.

The way Russell had come over so aggressively, we all knew that was going to be an issue. The fact he threw his idol around made us think the first priority was to get rid of the idol. Laura and I said we are going to put the word out as if we’re going to vote Natalie or Russell but we’re really going to vote Jaison.

Of the four Foa Foa, we believed he was the most deserving to leave. We were very tough on them, and I especially was tough on them, but my Russell and I wanted to make them appear as if they were the worst team in Survivor history and beat them in every challenge. We wanted to be tough on them.

Once they got to our camp, Laura was nice and very hospitable and Shambo told me to turn off the dogs and I agreed. I was like, you guys are good people, we’re all in this together but you’re on the lower end of the stick, it’s not personal. But of the most deserving people game-play-wise, Jaison was on the end of that list. It seemed he had checked out at the time. If we pick Jaison, it won’t be personal, we’ll say we’re going with Russell so he’ll play the idol. The thing we were concerned about was he would use it as a Foa Foa idol rather than just for himself.

That looks like it’s going to work, but John wanted Laura out so bad because he was terrified of the Laura/Monica alliance. I walked over to him and he said we’re taking Monica out.

Along the same lines where I fell personally with Jaison having checked out, if I looked at our tribe, Monica leaped out at me. Not only did I realize she was a weak player, but she was not contributing to camp life or game play or helping us have any advantage in the merge. She told me she [knew she] was on the lower end of our tribe, so I felt she was most likely to flip. Others thought it was Shambo, but Shambo was loyal, she was not going to flip.

We tried to get Monica out the day our Russell went out, so it would have been a tribute to him. She was on the chopping block for the last nine days. I’m thinking I’m not going to go against that.

Second, John was a key component of the guy alliance, so unless he’s making a huge mistake, I’m going to support that. I had his back on it. It should have been easy – it should have been the guys voting the same way, and John swore he was tight with Russell and Jaison. So you could see they were all ready to vote Monica. I was going to play double-agent and vote the way Laura wanted me to vote and the next day Laura would be confused and it would hide the guy alliance. There would have been some sort of confusion.