Survivor 49’s [Spoiler] Walks Back Bold Queen Sandra Comments: ‘I’m Forced To Eat Crow!’ – TVLine

TVLINE | If you had stayed with your old tribe and had gone to Tribal Council, what do you think would’ve happened, because the yellow tribe seemed really tight!
I think I would have been fine. Steven and I actually had an alliance that never made the edit. We were “The Early Birds.” We had a deal that we were gonna work together to the end, no matter what. We were gonna share information, we were gonna go to the end and we were gonna build fire against each other and one of us was going to win. Within an hour landing on that beach, I said, “Look, right now, the two of us have a 1-in-18 shot of making it. If we work together, we’ll get to the end, and now we have a 50/50 shot. We’ll make fire against each other.” And talking with Steven after the game, he was like, “Dude, I was so 100% on board with that. That was a real deal. I was in.” With Steven and I voting together, I would have been fine. I was making a massive contribution around camp, and I don’t think I would have been in any danger had the original six gone to Tribal.

TVLINE | Alright, Matt. We saw you say twice that you weren’t a fan of Sandra’s game. Two-time winner Sandra Diaz-Twine! Defend yourself! 
It’s one of the things that I’ve been vocal about for years. How can you play the game like that? How can you win when your strategy is “anybody but me”? And then there I am on the island saying, “Anybody but me!” [Laughs] When your back is against the wall… I’m forced to eat crow. Sandra, you are the Queen! You did win twice and it worked for you. It became my strategy, but here I am. It didn’t work out so well for me!

TVLINE | Shout out to Sandra! So, you didn’t play your Shot in the Dark. Was it because you trusted that Sophi, Jawan and Jason would follow through with the plan?
I thought about it and I thought, “You know what? I’m not even going to consider playing the Shot in the Dark,” because even though it’s a long shot — it’s a Hail Mary — I would be the biggest chump in Survivor history if those guys wrote down Nate and I played my Shot in the Dark and threw my vote away and the whole thing went to crap because I thought, “It doesn’t look good. It’s probably me going home tonight.” I’m gonna chalk it up to bad luck on the color of a buff that I drew out of that pot, but yeah. I would look like an absolute schmuck if they did write down Nate and I didn’t and played a Shot in the Dark. I just couldn’t take the chance. You have to get lucky in Survivor once or twice to win the game and I got unlucky with the color of buff I drew… It’s not unlucky, it’s just that there was that Hail Mary that hit the ground and nobody was there to catch it.

TVLINE | Do you regret telling the tribe about your past in finance, and do you think that had anything to do with them turning on you?
After watching the show last night, I’m like, “Oh, maybe I shouldn’t [have].” I never really thought they were gonna use this against me, but then after watching Savannah, “Oh, that guy’s smarter than he’s leading on, white collar sociopath,” I thought, “Well, of course they’re gonna use it!” When you’re playing Survivor, any information at all, somebody’s gonna grab it and use it to direct the game in the direction they want to go. Yeah, I should have just said, “No, I’ve been an airplane employee my entire career.” But I didn’t really think I had anything to hide. I’m proud of my past. I’ve done a lot of really cool stuff. You want to talk about it? Let’s talk about it. I made it eight days with nobody asking me what I’d done. I should have just said, “Nothing, man, just day labor. I just get by.” It might have been a better play.