Courtney Yate’s elimination on this week’s Survivor came as no surprise, but what did come as a surprise was JT’s move to give his opponent/villain Russell Hantz his immunity idol, on his suspicion of a villain all girl alliance. Some are calling this one of the dumbest moves ever on Survivor.
In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, Courtney,29, discuses being eliminated, what she really thinks of Russell and shares her thoughts on JT’s big move.
Excerpts from Courtney’s interview below:
Let me start by asking, are you allergic to challenges?
I am, in fact, allergic to challenges. It’s actually in my contract that I play the least amount of any Survivor.
I hate not seeing you flounder around with limbs flying everywhere, and then last night you finally partake in a crazy challenge, yet instead of seeing you we had to watch Colby and Russell have a chat.
I know! I did a fine job during that challenge. And Amanda was proud of me and you know, you can’t catch a break. They always want to highlight me when I’m messing up, but when you do it good it’s glossed right over!
How often do you think about how different everything could have been had Tyson just not voted himself out of the game?
You can’t spend your life looking backwards, and being in this community you end up seeing these people who three years later are like, “Well, at the final 7 if this person had done this…” and you’re like, “Wow, you need to move on.” It didn’t work out. I had an amazing time. I’m lucky to be on the jury. I’m honored to have been asked to be an all-star. I think it’s insane that someone thinks of lady all-stars and thinks of me! I was more disappointed for Rob and Tyson actually than for myself, because those boys were playing really well and…well, I guess I don’t feel sorry for Tyson.
I don’t think we saw you and Russell have a single one-on-one conversation the entire time you were out there. Did you have any conversations about anything — like did he ever take you aside to tell you how awesome he is?
He did. Russell and I had a lot of conversations. A lot of them weren’t camera worthy because they were all about how much could he get for his autograph and how much money he could get for going to different places. And I was just looking at him going, “Russell, no one cares about your autograph! I think you have a different idea of what is going to happen.” Because he only had 10 days between the two seasons, so he’s like, “I’m Russell Hantz! I’m king of the world! I’m big!” And we were all like, “No one cares! The instant this show is off the air no one is going to know who you are! They’re going to see you in line at Burger King and go ‘Didn’t I used to work with you?’” Besides that we talked about Popeyes chicken and what we would eat in New York. Russell is fine. I think he figured out early on that he couldn’t Russell minf— me so I was just useless to him so we’re perfectly fine. I don’t have any hatred towards Russell. I think he’s a great player. He’s the evolution of what the game is. He’s redefining it around himself and everyone’s delighted with it. So how can you be mad at that?
Did you know that J.T. had given Russell the idol?
I did not know. I found out after. I mean, poor kid. He did what he thought was the right thing. He didn’t know. He was making a move and trying to keep his group together and I think he knew he had a big target on his back. He made a big move trying to save himself and stay ahead of the pack. I don’t think he has it in him to be a more subtle player.
Interesting that you only lost four pounds while out there.
It wasn’t very hard. There were coconuts everywhere. There were bananas for the most part. In China there was literally nothing to eat so we sat around staring at each other all day dreaming about food. Plus, once you’ve been through it you know that you can do it, so it’s not this terrifying I’m-actually-going-to-wake-up-and-be-dead-tomorrow feeling…and then they’re just going to film it.
Thoughts on last week’s Survivor – It was somewhat shocking to see JT make his “big” move by giving Russell his immunity idol. The idea behind the move itself was pretty smart but what made it stupid was the assumption made by JT. At this point in the game, JT’s an all star and has yet to see Russell’s season, therefor making him unfamiliar with Russell’s MO. He only knows Russell is a villain. For JT to completely just assume that there was an all girl alliance going on is what made the move dumb. In a game like Survivor, you can’t just make an assumption like this and run with it. You have to look at these things from all angles. He didn’t even seem to have any doubts about this move. I will say though that Russell had a big advantage going into this all star game. His season had yet to air on TV, giving him a major advantage as the other players knew nothing about his gameplay.
TELL US – WHAT WERE YOUR THOUGHTS ON JT’S MOVE? DUMBEST IN SURVIVOR HISTORY?
