“I Did Not Choose My Emotions Over Strategy”: An Interview with Survivor: Cook Islands’ Candice

On the show, Candice appeared to make some pretty big mistakes. Now she can tell her side of the story, which she does right here – at length. Read on!

RealityNewsOnline: What are your thoughts on the role race played in the game?

Candice: You know, I think a lot of people were kind of shocked when we first heard that we were going to be divided that way. Once we go tout there, all that disappeared. We were playing with people. I was on the Caucasian tribe to begin with and made bonds with those people to begin with. I knew I could go back and trust those people, but not because of any color issue – if we’d been divided by shoe size, I’d be aligned with people who wear size eight shoes. But I do think that it was great, the people out there were all good people, fun to be around, and the color disappeared as soon as we hit the beach.

RNO: What was your strategy coming into the game?

Candice: I know that I have a strong personality and I know that when I want something I go for it and I can put people off. So I wanted to keep that to a minimum and I wanted to be controlling things through the backdoor and not be out in front. I wanted to play a strategic game. I never told myself, “I’m not going to tell a lie.” I’m a huge fan of the show – I’ve never missed an episode. I came out there to win, I didn’t want to end in second place or eighth place. I wanted to play as hard and strong as I could and be able to hold my head up high and be proud of how I played, and I think I accomplished that. I also want to add I didn’t want to come into the game with one strategy – I wanted to be as flexible as possible and have an many options open as possible.

RNO: The most obvious question is: Why did you mutiny?

Candice: That’s a great question. There are a lot of reasons. On the show, it looked like it was because I wanted to be with Adam, but there is a lot behind it. Becky and Yul had said they wanted to bring me to the final three, but I knew they wanted to bring Brad back over, and they’re very smart. But they would be dumb to take me because I was strategic all the time and strong in the challenges. I though they would want to take someone else over me, and they were worried I had an alliance with Adam and Parvati, so that made nervous that I would be on the chopping block next.

At the time, the teams were six and six and I know they normally merge around ten. I thought if I go over here and we have the numbers here – I thought Sundra would follow me, not Jonathan. It would be eight vs. four, there’s probably only going to be about two more people voted out and we’d still have the numbers even if we lost every challenge. I obviously at the time didn’t know we would lose every challenge after that or we’d be dealt this bottle that said two people have to go or that Jonathan would slip back – I thought they’d never take a traitor back. If any one of those things had gone differently, the game would have gone differently. I never could have predicted that; at the time it made sense.

It wasn’t to have fun with my friends, of course I said that to Jeff [Probst] – I wasn’t going to say I’m here to run the Raro tribe. I tried to play it cool. I didn’t want to come over and play like I thought I could run things, I had to be humble and under the radar at Raro. I used my influence with Adam and I knew that Adam and Nate were running the tribe. I was able to squeeze in and have my voice heard in a very serious way. I knew that coming into the mutiny because I talked to Nate, who told me that he and Adam were running things and they were really close and Nate was close with Parvati and Adam wanted the four of us to go to the final four. I knew they were receptive and were a good option if I felt threatened.

I felt like I could get to a certain point with Aitu, but I didn’t feel like I could win with them – there were a few too many cooks in the kitchen. Come over to Raro and I could have more influence. Once I got over to Raro, I didn’t really get to know those people that well because I was over on Exile Island, which was a great strategic move by the Aitu. I have nothing against them and we still keep in touch and are friends – we understood it was a game.

RNO: You just addressed some of this, but if you’d like to expand – many people have been saying you chose your emotions over strategy. How do you respond to that?

Candice: I would have rather had people in the game think that I was playing “oh I’m just a girl out here having fun,” because if they were thinking that, they were not thinking I was strategizing. If I could hide behind that, fine, great. As long as it keeps me out of trouble.

But no, I did not choose my emotions over strategy. It was a calculated risk and like I said, if any number of things had gone differently, I would have made it a lot further in the game. I wanted to make a move to control my own fate in the game – I didn’t want to get played by the game. I don’t think I chose emotion over strategy.

RNO: Even if you hadn’t mutinied, did you think it might be dangerous to be so obviously tied to Adam?

Candice: Yes, of course I did. Flica did her best on Aitu to tell everybody that Adam and I had something going on. I did my best to say no we don’t – we have something going on just as much as her and Jonathan, which stopped her in her tracks. That was definitely dangerous, since the time [Raro] sent me to Exile to protect me, it put me in hot water.

Before the mutiny, Becky and Yul were very worried about the connection between me and Adam, and me and Parvati, and I knew they were suspicious of it and worried I would flip at the merge. That made me very nervous they were maybe going to put me up next to go or something like that. I did know it was dangerous, but when Nate came over, Adam already had told everybody he had a strong connection with me – it was kind of beyond my control. People were talking about it and playing it up for their own benefit.

RNO: Do you think you have something lasting with Adam?

Candice: No.

RNO: OK, we’ll leave that one alone, then.