TVLINE | Savannah took you on this steak reward in the finale. Were you surprised by that?
Yeah, I was shocked. In one of my confessions, I was like, “I wouldn’t have taken me if I was her.” Like, what? It was never personal towards Savannah. I saw a snippet of, I think Sophie Segreti’s interview with Mike Bloom, and she talked about how much I couldn’t stand Savannah? I was like, hold on. There were moments in the game where it felt like this weird tension that I didn’t understand, but me and Savannah actually had two [conversations], I think a part of one of the conversations was shown in the extra clips. There was a whole other conversation where Savannah came back to camp and she went down to the beach. When I walked back up to camp, a couple of folks were like, “Hey, did you see Savannah down on the beach? It looked like she was crying.” And at that point, me and Savannah, we had already had the conversation that’s shown in the extras for one of the episodes, and that conversation actually didn’t go super well. A lot of it was edited out, but I was like, “OK, there’s just gonna be this weird personal tension that will resolve after the game, but I gotta try to get my head back in the game.” And in the game, she is a huge threat, just objectively so.
But anyways, I walked down to her to check her on the beach. I’m like, “Hey, it doesn’t feel like I should be the person comforting you, but you’re alone right now. You’re crying. Do you want space or would you be OK if I come sit with you?” She was like, “Doesn’t matter.” And I was like, “I’m gonna come sit with you then, so I hope that’s OK!” I sit with her and she just opens up about [how] it’s a hard game, and we’re talking about personal and social dynamics, and I opened up to her about [our last] conversation. I was like, “I came to you in that moment explaining that I felt kind of hurt by some of the stuff that… people were also feeding this fire. Fueling this fire. They were like, “Yeah, Savannah was looking at you when she was making the chicken comments and was trying to get a reaction from you.”
And so, when I initially brought that up to her, I just wanted to resolve it because that was gonna conflict with the strategic side of the game, and I was like, “I need personal feelings and game feelings to be separate,” and she got kind of defensive, which [I’m] not talking crap about her for that. But then when I approached her again on the beach when she was crying, I brought that up. I was like, “I understand, Savannah. When I approached you that one time, I walked away feeling like I was the crappy person when I had initiated that conversation to tell you how your actions impacted me.” And she grabbed me, and was like, “Sage, sometimes you have to just literally grab me, I tell my boyfriend this at home, and say, ‘Savannah, it’s not all about you.'” She’s like, “My default is to make it all about me. Sometimes I need somebody to literally just grab me and say, ‘Savannah, you gotta think about other people.'” And I was like, “I respect that.” Accountability goes so far with me, and in that moment, I was like, “Everything else, that’s in the past for me.” We can move forward because you were willing to just own it in that moment and say, “Sometimes I have a hard time thinking about other people’s feelings,” and I’m like, “That’s OK. You’re aware of it. That’s the first step, and I appreciate you sharing that with me.”
TVLINE | You said on the show that it’s difficult for you to fake emotion. Was that a detriment to your game overall?
Oh, that’s a complicated question because my strategy going into “Survivor,” I didn’t want to play as a character. I wanted to play as myself because, I didn’t always know this, but over the years I’ve come to realize how I’m perceived. People oftentimes think I’m stupid or ditzy. So many times in my life people will say, “I thought you were gonna be a b-tch,” and I think it’s just because, genuinely, my resting face. If I’m just sitting here, I’m chilling, but my chilling face, people perceive as like, “Oh s—t.” I’m literally OK. Just ask me. I’ll tell you exactly how I’m feeling. All that to say, if I know how I’m being perceived, I know how I can use that to my advantage versus playing a character where I don’t know how that’s perceived because I’m not that person. It’s gonna be more of a deficit for me. But it all comes down to the group that you’re playing with, and I think unfortunately for this group, they weren’t able to see beyond that surface level presentation. They didn’t value the strategy behind that.
TVLINE | I was really rooting for you and Jawan while I was watching, and I hope you’ve had time to heal and that you’re feeling good about everything now.
Yeah, dude. It’s part of the journey. It’s over. I’ve always been more excited about the journey itself than the outcome for anything in life. So, I’m ready for new journeys.
