'It felt below the belt, even for Survivor'

The following contains spoilers from Wednesday’s episode Survivor 47.

Twists and turns indeed play a major role Survivorespecially this wild and shaky new era. But even more important in this game? Happiness.

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Luck was definitely on Rachel’s side in Wednesday’s episode. After the merged tribe split in two, the former Gata member found herself on a losing team, surrounded by all the former Tukus, making her a sitting duck when it came to Tribal Council. But after Sol found a timely Safety Without Power perk during the reward and bestowed it on Rachel, she high-stepped back to camp, leaving the remaining Tukus to eat one themselves. What Tiyana might be the Anthe happiest player of the week, when all four of her tribemates turned on her and voted the flight attendant from Hawaii out of the game. (Read our full summary here.)

Below, Tiyana spills some tea on Sue and Gabe, and reveals which alliance members she feels most betrayed by.

TVLINE | You were super emotional before the vote took place. What was going on in your mind?
TIYANA HALLUMS | I think it would still hurt because I was with those people for thirteen days. So I was equally scared for myself when I had the chance to go home, and I was also terrified of them, which was such a strange, contradictory emotion that I’ve never had before, because normally you never care about yourself and others cry. Usually it’s one or the other. But I cried about both at the same time, because even though Gabe and I were opponents, it still sucks. I spent 13 days with this person and that’s all we had there. That was our support system, that was our community and it would have been the worst thing to see any of them leave. The emotions all came into play that we were all so close and stumbling at that last moment was just heartbreaking.

TVLINE | How did it feel to be just one spot short of being on the jury?
I really felt like I was going to throw up. When I saw my name a second time, I knew it was done because that wouldn’t have made sense. I knew Gabe would take my name down, but when I saw the second ballot in front of me, I knew I was going home. At that moment I honestly blacked out. I think a lot of people can resonate with that when they play Survivor. You black out because you think, ‘Holy crap. This was too early. This isn’t my time to go. There is no way this is real.” You almost distance yourself from reality. As you could see from the previous episodes, my face says it all. So that was all that was going on in my body, both this burning anger and sadness and all those things, devastation, all at the same time. The emotions were very real.

TVLINE | How did you look at it all and how do you feel about it now?
As I get further and further away from the island and from playing SurvivorI forget everything that happened. Sometimes I have to think to myself, “Am I remembering this correctly? Is this how it went? Is this how the conversation went?” So when I watch it back, it’s almost surreal. I almost distance myself from even being on Survivor. It’s kind of a mix between: ‘Have I ever played Survivor?” and also all these different scenarios that I wanted to do differently or all these things that I wanted to say. It goes back and forth, and Survivor Just now living here rent-free in the back of my mind. Unfortunately and fortunately. (But) I think looking back was a great ending at the same time. I felt like I was instantly teleported back to the island and I felt every emotion all over again.

TVLINE | Let’s talk about the Rachel of it all. Was she the absolute vote if the advantage had not been played?
I think she might have gone home. However, that wasn’t what I wanted to do. It was pretty clear in the episode that I wanted to use her as a number, because there would be no point – I’ll die on this hill – if all five of us voted Rachel out, because it would make us look like liars, that we actually had no cracks and we are actually Tuku strong. Then the six ounces would pick them off one by one, because why would I work with a Tuku five that seems so tight when I could just take them out and make them a little weaker?

So I wanted to work with Rachel personally, but it seemed like sometimes I didn’t have anyone to play with. When I think back with my alliance members (who I didn’t have, who didn’t exist, my imaginary friends), it felt like I was back in kindergarten waiting for someone to play in the sandbox with me and have fun times at recess and no one wanted to play with me. I wanted to build a big castle and do cool moves and all this stuff. But when you’re stopped over and over again from putting forward ideas and they were, as Gabe said, wounded birds (that) just flocked to Gabe and did what he wanted… there was really nothing I could do. So of course I didn’t want to see Rachel go, but it probably would have ended that way because I didn’t have the numbers anyway.

TVLINE | Why did are people flocking to Gabe? Why do you think you couldn’t convince people to vote him out?
That’s still a great question to this day. I have absolutely no idea because in recent seasons when someone tries to be a dictator or tell people what to do, it doesn’t go well because everyone is trying to play their own game. As an alliance member, a bit like the Reba Four (from Survivor 45), they were loyal to each other. Loyalty is an extremely popular commodity on the island. However, it was they who worked together. They kept coming back to each other and saying, “Are you okay with this plan? Do you have any other ideas? What’s another name we can write down just in case?” But when it came to Gabe and the two injured birds he collected, it was almost like it didn’t matter what I said… and you saw that when Kyle tried to tell Sue, “Hey, Gabe said you’re just a goat. You’re just a pawn for him to use.” She didn’t hear it at all. She wouldn’t even be receptive to that information.

Honestly, right after the TK vote I should have been a lot more unhinged than I was. I had nothing to lose at that point because there was no way I could have convinced any of them to do anything differently. So yeah, to this day I have no idea why, because I know Caroline is such an intelligent player. Every time we spoke, I felt that she was a good member of the alliance, that we had good collaboration skills. It felt like me and Kyle had really good collaboration skills, but I don’t know. I don’t know why King Gabe ruled Tuku. I didn’t want to be a wounded bird, so that’s why I had to go, I guess.

TVLINE | Who do you feel most betrayed by?
I probably feel the most betrayed by Caroline and Kyle, I would say. When it came to Caroline, that exact episode, she actually broke out at me and said, “You would never write my name down, right, Tiyana?” This means everything. To get so close to the jury, I couldn’t even live with myself,” blah, blah, blah. And I was like, ‘Hey, I got you. I would never write your name down. You wouldn’t write my name. We have each other. It’s okay.” So it felt below the belt, even before Survivor. It’s a game. Obviously you have to cut your throat, you have to make decisions that work for your game, and I don’t blame her for that. But she could have cried to Sue. She could have cried to Gabe. But she chose me and ultimately voted me out.

And then Kyle, every time I told him a story, it always made sense because I really trusted him. I always made sure he was aware, so to see him also write my name down and not bat for me was crazy too, because I would have gone for them. I think those two were probably the biggest heartbreaking, knife-twisting moments.

TVLINE | Did you believe Sue was 45?
Oh, absolutely not! Nobody believed that. And I don’t know why that was a problem. I don’t know why she decided to lie about that, because it’s way more impressive to say you’re 59 than 45. And I think, ‘Wow, that’s so cool! Great.”

And what I wanted to say about Sue irritated me very quickly: a little bit of tea. Sue kept saying that she is the strong, independent woman, and that’s great and that’s what matters to me. But when it came to life on the island, almost every day she would have a breakdown, like crying, or she would be sick, or something would happen, and I was constantly the one comforting her and being there for her. So I don’t know if it was gameplay or what. I want to make it crystal clear that I never discounted her because of her age or because she was older than us or anything else. I judged her for her behavior. I don’t know what her gameplay was. To this day I still don’t know what was going on, but whatever.

TVLINE | Was there a parallel universe where the women could have played the game to the end? Could that possibly have worked?
(shaking head) Knowing what I know now… I thought for sure they had my back because we shared a lot of very emotional conversations and things like that. We all got emotional together and we were vulnerable and stuff like that. It was so moving, so powerful. (I thought) we could really go far. It didn’t matter. Whenever Sue had information, she ran straight back to Gabe. I think that was a good description that Gabe gave because it was like a little bird that kept running towards him. King Gabe with all this information. Unfortunately, I didn’t want to be a wounded bird, and Gabe hit him right on the head when he said at Tribal Council, “Sue will do anything we want her to do.” We have no control over T.”

TVLINE | Finally, a very important question: what do you dress up as for Halloween?
(Laughs) Great question, indeed! I actually have a Moana costume that’s sitting in my closet collecting dust. So maybe that, or we’ll go for something even funnier, maybe like a Smurf or something hilarious. Something absolutely out-of-pocket and random.

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