“Biggest Blunder Ever” – An Interview with Survivor: Micronesia’s Erik

As with Jason, I knew we had some tough questions for Erik. And I let him know up front that these wouldn’t just be softballs. But Erik handled the interview well and even laughed at times about what happened. Read on to see what he had to say.

RealityNewsOnline: Hello, Erik, and thanks for taking the time to talk to RealityNewsOnline! You seem like a nice guy, but as I told Jason when I interviewed him, I have a few uncomfortable questions for you, and people want to know. We’ll start with the obvious question: Why did you do it?!

Erik: Well, there is no one answer; there’s no genius answer that will make it all make sense. When I talked to James about his blunder after all of this was done, he said had this moment where he faded out and made an error. Mine was more trying to feel out people in terms of their emotions and strategy. It bit me in the ass in the end.

From a strategic point of view, my thought at the time was [I couldn’t win]if I made it to the end with two girls next to me because the girls had the majority on the jury. They didn’t show too much of Cirie talking me into this harebrained scheme – they showed a lot of Natalie – but they were talking to me about being a bloc of three because we had talked about Amanda and Parvati going all the way to the end. I thought it would have been beneficial from their point of view to come with me. That was one of the major strategy things I thought would happen – I thought it would be beneficial to them to do that.

In terms of what else was going on, they didn’t show a lot of this, but I was pretty emotionally distraught for a while. Amanda was livid with me, she was angry one day and driving me crazy the next day. All the girls were against me, which I hadn’t experienced until then. I was like, why do my friends hate me?

RNO: You saw what happened to Jason – he trusted the very same people when they told him he didn’t need to play his immunity idol, and was sent packing. How could you trust them?

Erik: A very good question. They didn’t show this either, but I had made an apology to Natalie and I had talked to her right before the immunity challenge, because she told me, “You are a dumbass – we could have done this together. You just spit in my face.” There was a huge scene where we were talking and I was apologizing and I thought we had made peace there.

Natalie is one of the most underestimated Survivors in terms [of being manipulative]. When she told me the plan, I said there is no way in hell. But by the end of the day she had worked me over and I had done a 180. I got played, she’s very good.

One other thing I have to mention is that with Cirie – those were the two people who I feel pulled this on me, Cirie and Natalie – I thought Cirie’s word was good, which is ridiculous watching the season. Up to that point, I had not seen Cirie lie; either I was in a different place when it happened [or I just didn’t see it]. She kept her word with Jason when I thought everybody would vote him out. Every time I talked to her previously, she kept her word, and she said she guaranteed she wouldn’t vote for me, “When have I ever done wrong on you?” And then she did wrong on me.

RNO: You’re a huge fan of the show, so what would you have said if you saw somebody else do what you did?

Erik:(Laughs) I would have been screaming. I was telling everybody before, I was the kid on the couch telling people on the screen, “You’re an idiot.” I turned into the idiot who’s doing that. It’s such a reversal. You could have never gotten me to do that if I were in my right mind. The game is totally different. Everyone who’s sitting on the couch saying, “I can play this game better,” you have no idea what you’re talking about until you’re out there.

RNO: What did you think of James’ comment that he was no longer the dumbest Survivor ever and Parvati’s comment when she cast her vote saying that you were?

Erik: (Laughs) I have to agree. Biggest blunder ever. I have the crown. And James yesterday gave me a big hug – he was like, “Thank you sir, thank you little boy, thank you for taking the crown.” You have to laugh or else you’re going to cry, there’s no other way to get around it.

RNO: Going back to the beginning, what was your strategy coming into the game?

Erik: My strategy coming in was you need to adapt to people and situations. You need to go in with a clean slate and not have any preconceived notions and look at what’s happening and adjust to it. It was a very passive, under the radar game, but it worked for a great deal of the game. And on top of that, I wanted to be friendly. That comes naturally to me and you have to go with that. Whatever you do naturally well, you should work into your plan when you’re on the show.

RNO: How did your strategy change along the way?

Erik: At certain times I needed to be more aggressive, obviously when the Ami situation came. I had a few days where I was going back and forth and looking at options with Ami. Ozzy was a major ally with that. The women wanted me out and he didn’t. Ozzy was the one who kept me in the game, he was the one who saved me.