“I Don’t Feel I Had a Choice” – An Interview with Survivor: Micronesia’s Chet

After this week’s episode, I was very angry at the way Chet appeared to just give up and leave. Indeed, you can tell by what I said at the end of the recap. But we all know that certain storylines get edited in certain ways – we just didn’t realize quite how much Chet’s story had been edited to make him look like a quitter. While his injury wasn’t quite as bad as Jonathan’s, Chet explains just how bad it was and what the medics had to say to him (yes, despite us not seeing them, they did visit him). Chet also discusses his strategy and answers some of the other questions you want to know about. So read on!

RealityNewsOnline: Hello, Chet, and thanks for taking the time to talk to RealityNewsOnline! Starting at the beginning, what was your strategy coming into the game?

Chet: It’s kind of interesting. My strategy was truthfully to be he funniest person ever on Survivor, so that people would want me to stay around. I could see when I came into my game, obviously we didn’t know it would be Fans vs. Favorites, I picked up that I was on the stupidest tribe ever besides Tracy and Kathy – and I’ll throw Erik and Alexis a bone. Tracy and I were told one of us were going because we were the oldest. We took Kathy in with us which was wonderful. Our strategy was to stay a threesome, three votes always going the same way. People wanted us to stay because we didn’t care who we voted for as long as it wasn’t one of us, so if somebody was organizing a coup, they would come to us. And to the shock of pretty much the entire nation, I stayed on until the seventh.

RNO: You don’t seem like a very physical guy, and yet you’re a fan of the show so you know how it can get – what was your plan to overcome any possible physical liabilities?

Chet: I’m going to correct you. I would not say I’m not a physical person, I’m not an athletic person. Was I ever big in sports? Absolutely not. Did I hate gym class? Absolutely I did. Could I outwit people? Absolutely. I coached pageants and I have the best track record. I could read people. Like I told even Jeff, everybody who was praised for their physical abilities, they went before I did. So maybe they didn’t read that Survivor manual and I did.

RNO: When I talked to Joel last week, he said he thinks you’re a great guy who understands the game of Survivor. But he also said he doesn’t think you did a single thing to get yourself as far as you got. What do you have to say to that?

Chet: Just look at him, what does that tell you? Can you look up the word “neanderthal” in the dictionary? Let’s discuss Joel. If there was anything I could not substitute for him with a draft horse, he was out of his league. I’ll stop there.

RNO: Why did you decide to not go along with Tracy's plan? You could have done it, then withdrawn immediately after the vote.

Chet: Because I didn’t want to be withdrawn. I wanted to be voted out. My injury was not as serious or life-threatening as Jonathan’s. They wanted to pull me that morning. I asked if I could try that morning. If we could not win, I could go that way [through Tribal Council]. They asked, “then you’re going to throw the challenge?” I said, “You haven’t been watching us.” It worked out the way I was hoping it would. After it was over, I felt I was the luckiest person in the world. I played and went out without being blindsided or having immediate or quick ill feelings that I wasn’t aware was going to happen, and I liked the people I was with at the end.

RNO: They wanted to pull you out?

Chet: That would be the medical team. My foot was being looked at for the prior five or six days. Actually the last two days – you couldn’t tell, but Jason and I spent two days and two days on Exile Island – that’s when my foot got worse. We were checked over when they picked us up. I know enough about medicine that what they were talking about was accurate. To be brought back into a challenge and find out that Jonathan had left due to his injury, a light bulb went on and I knew to get my act together. And I chose to be voted out by people who for once were nice to me.

RNO: What exactly what wrong with your foot?

Chet: Jonathan had an open wound, mine was encased. A piece of coral was in my foot – the infection was in my foot. I was on oral antibiotics. In that climate, you need intravenous antibiotics. What I knew was I needed to open up my heel, which is why I asked Cirie for a fish hook to open it myself. I’ve done that before. I could tell I needed to get that pressure out of there. The next day I did have surgery on it and was on intravenous antibiotics for ten days. [Note: For those of you who might still be doubting Chet, Jonathan confirmed in my interview with him that Chet was indeed in the same hospital as him and went through what Chet described.]

RNO: Why did you vote for Erik?

Chet: Number one, Tracy and I made a pact we would never vote for each other. In the past, Erik had told me he was going to vote for me because he didn’t want to go against Joel. So I just returned the favor – we told him we’re voting for you because we felt that we should. We knew he would not get voted off. When I voted, I said he’s a class act. He can scoop my ice cream any time.