“If You’re a Female, It’s Over” – An Interview with Survivor: Fiji’s Rita

RealityNewsOnline: Hi, Rita. Thanks for taking the time to talk to us here at RealityNewsOnline. Let’s get right to it. What was your strategy going into the game?

Rita: My strategy was very much people-oriented and seeing the dynamics between all the personalities that were going to be involved and how they were going to interact vis a vis my personality. The next was keeping it a very mental game – as we say, every mind is a world of its own. I was trying to get into everybody’s mind to see who I could get forward with and who I needed to leave behind.

RNO: How do you think you did in getting into their minds?

Rita: I think they unfortunately, it’s a little bit of story of my life, they got stuck on the superficial first impression of me, which happens to me unfortunately often, where people think because I model and I’m in the beauty industry that that’s all there is to me. In a game like this, they don’t get to know me.

Part of the comment [on last night’s show] was getting to that step. Even though I’m in that industry, that’s not like me, I just use a bit of lip gloss. I’m not superficial, not the image you might be perceiving of me.

There was a lot of talk of me being the sexy one, the hot mom seducing the men. That was not my plan. I knew I would be out much sooner. I am not sure I was successful in getting into their minds. I was more of a listener, in spite of the accusation last night which was blown up completely out of proportion. If you remember all the episodes leading up to last night, I don’t think you would really say I had been annoying and talking so much throughout the season, compared to Rocky who had been doing that since day one.

RNO: Speaking of which, how did Rocky keep getting by, despite the fact that he seemed to cause so much friction at camp?

Rita: It’s interesting, the friction that is coming across as we view it wasn’t as pronounced when we were there. We saw him as entertainment. The only person feeling the brunt of his personality was Anthony – he was the one being attacked over and over. The rest of us thought it was kind of funny. Of course, I didn’t think it was so funny last night when I saw him saying that about me behind my back. When it was about Anthony, it was in front of everybody, but he did it behind my back and didn’t want to give me a chance to defend myself.

RNO: What was his problem with Anthony?

Rita: Exactly what he said. He felt Anthony was wimpy and not pulling the weight he should have been pulling. He felt Anthony was copping out and being too sensitive. The girls were being stronger and giving more to the tribe. Anthony was a very frustrating player for us.

RNO: So you felt similarly?

Rita: Oh my gosh, I was very frustrated. The one that comes to my mind is the balance beam challenge. I was smoothing by everybody and when I got to Anthony he was so stiff. He couldn’t do it. I was feeling that way as well.

RNO: Thus the reason you were so surprised at the vote?

Rita: Absolutely! I really thought it was going to be Anthony. If you added up the things that were done and not done, my total of things detrimental to the tribe were pretty insignificant compared to Anthony. I had no idea Rocky had gone behind my back and created that whole plan. Obviously he was paranoid and thought that because he lost that mental challenge for us he might be on the chopping block, and he needed to detract attention and focus it somewhere else, and unfortunately I was the one he chose. And of course Anthony was crazy paranoid too because he thought for sure it was going to be him at that time.

I sensed something funky was going on so I tried to strategize last-minute and get Anthony to join with Michelle and Yau-Man to vote one of the stronger ones off. As annoying as he was for me, he was a better long-term, who I could win against down the line. So I wanted to give him the chance to vote off people who are stronger than he is and he has a chance to go into the individual challenges against less strong people.

RNO: Did he pretend to take you up on it?

Rita: He kind of agreed because Michelle was very in agreement with it because we’re getting to the point of the merge. The more strong people we can start voting off now, the better. He said he’d talk to Yau-Man and instead he went straight to Mookie and spilled the beans. That’s when I looked at Michelle and said oh my God, I’m dust. I think he told Mookie, “She’s a schemer, look what she’s trying to do.” I saw him do that. But it was too late for me to save my butt, because three minutes later we went to Tribal Council.

RNO: Why did you decide to go against both alliances and vote against Earl a few Tribal Councils ago?

Rita: At that point, I had not been allied with Earl. He asked me to align with him after that happend. I voted for him because I did not feel adamantly about voting either off. I preferred keeping Anthony on because he was weaker – I felt I needed him down the line. I didn’t want to vote for Sylvia because I didn’t find her as obnoxious as some did. I thought we could learn from her. Unfortunately the younger people were intimidated by her knowledge. Earl, I knew nobody else was going to vote for. It was a safe vote. We’d already been through a couple Tribal Councils and adding that torture to all the losses, I just said I didn’t feel strongly enough to change somebody’s life tonight. Voting for Earl was not going to hurt anyone. Had I voted for Anthony, it would have been a tie.

I do wish, everything is in hindsight, but I wish I’d gone back and pretended Sylvia voted for Earl. I would have gone back and played it off like it wasn’t me.

RNO: Looking back and revisiting your final words, do you think you were too nice to play the game?

Rita: No, I don’t. I think that wasn’t in the end what did me in. At the moment you come off, you’re so emotional and don’t know what to say. I just know I am by nature a gentle and nice person. But if I look back, I think I played a good game, a strong mental game, I was very observant. The only thing where my being nice might have been to my detriment was when I went to Anthony and thought I could trust him to make that last minute shakeup. It’s hard to vote someone off that you like and care for, and I was hoping to achieve that with my nice and gentle nature. Apparently I didn’t. I take it for what it is, it’s a game. I’m very proud to have been on the Survivor side and not on the Fantasy Island side. Whatever is said of me, I never broke down, I never cried, and I never asked to be voted off. Mookie had been asking to be voted off continuously, which is another reason I thought of him [to be voted off].