by Troy Rogers
The second week of the new season of Survivor,
Heroes vs. Villains, was filled with a few surprises
that no one saw coming. Although the Survivor
Villains dominated the first week and won the
new Survivor immunity to see Hero, "Sugar" Kiper,
become the first Survivor voted out of Heroes
vs. Villains, the Heroes went into self preservation
mode early. When James spoke out against his Survivor
tribe mates over an inability to follow direction,
the Survivor Heroes formed their alliances. While
James had his sights set on Stephenie LaGrossa
of Survivor Palau, fan favorite Survivor, Rupert,
also eyed Stephenie as potential trouble within
the Heroes tribe.
As a result of James and his vocal Survivor outbursts, the Survivor Heroes quickly became a tribe divided, which was revealed at Tribal Council after the Heroes lost their second Heroes vs. Villains immunity challenge in a row. With the Heroes of Survivor split into tribal factions, Stephenie couldn't overcome the challenge of being a Survivor target when Cirie and Candice became swing votes that led to Stephenie becoming the second Survivor to leave Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains.
The day after Stephenie had her Survivor torch extinguished, we went one-on-one with one of the strongest female competitors in Survivor history to find out what went wrong and how she felt about coming under fire from both James and Rupert.
THE DEADBOLT: I assume you weren't the only one talking during the challenge. Why do you think James singled you out?
STEPHENIE: James was really a loner and kept to himself within his own little alliance with Amanda, J.T. and Rupert. When we lost that challenge and he was kind of flipping out on everybody, I thought he was just flipping out on me at first until he looked right at me - "But if you all would have shut the f*** up, we would have won!" And I was like, "You know, I wasn't the only person talking," meaning we were losing the challenge. J.T. was the direction for us and he wasn't giving good direction. We were sunk, we were losing and we weren't even close. So we all kind of tried to think, what do we do now? This isn't right. Let’s move the plot, whatever it is. So he flips out on me. One thing led to another and he started bringing up Palau. He just lost his stuff. And even when I'm voted, he’s still yelling, "shut your mouth." I mean, clearly a gentleman.
THE DEADBOLT: When he said you were the only person left on your tribe, did you tell anyone that it wasn’t you, that it was your former tribe members that were the problem? He had it backwards, right?
STEPHENIE:
He was saying that to them when he was lobbying
to get me out. Once I heard it, it was in Tribal
Council. And there was so much going on in Tribal
Council. I was talking back to him. But it just
got to a point where he was so dumb that it
was actually pointless for me to keep to his
level and argue back. He said, "You’ve lost
everything that counts." That’s like me saying
you’re so intelligent you got voted out with
two hidden immunities. It’s no bearing. I think
that it just proves the lack of intelligence
on his part. He’s always saying how he was never
strong mentally, he never really played a strong
mental game. This just proves it .
THE DEADBOLT: How do you think Tom and Colby will fare after they put themselves out there, defending you at Council?
STEPHENIE: You know, they put themselves at risk for sure, but the three of us were already at risk. We tried to pull in Candice and Cirie. The line with Tom was to try to go with the other people and I think they were just voicing their opinions out of being human, out of "enough is enough". James is a bully and obnoxious and there’s only so much it takes in hearing him and his nonsense, so I think they chimed in. I don’t think it’ll end their game in any way. If their game ends, it’s because they were already a target. It’s not going to make it any worse.
THE
DEADBOLT: What were you thinking when we
saw Boston Rob go down?
STEPHENIE: Yeah, that was a shock! I was on the other tribe, so I don’t know much about it. I actually just read Jeff Probst’s blog and he had some sort of a flu. So anything can happen, even to the strongest out there. It’s crazy.
THE DEADBOLT: What was up with Rupert? Was he just jealous of you?
STEPHENIE: I don’t know. I don’t know Rupert. I never met him outside the game. I tried to talk to him, too. I was, like, "So, what do you think about tonight? Who should get voted out?" He was like, "Let’s just enjoy ourselves. Let’s not get into all of that strategy talk." So right then and there I knew he didn’t like me for whatever reason. Colby said to him, "Listen, you’re really being a little unbearable out here. You've got to take it down a notch." Rupert is the only one that can make fire. Rupert is the only one to boil water. You can’t do anything without asking Rupert, King Rupert. It was obnoxious.
Colby
said he told him that and then he (Rupert) said,
"Who said that, Stephanie? I think she’s bossy."
So Colby told me that, and I said, "Talk to
the guy." So from day one he didn’t like me
for whatever reason. We can make our own assumptions,
but what else is there to assume unless I threatened
his popularity? I wouldn’t know what else, because
I didn’t know him personally. He’s never even
met me. I don’t know why he had it out for me.
THE DEADBOLT: Even though the villains are more cutthroat and conniving, how do you think you would have done on that tribe?
STEPHENIE: I don’t know. I think they have their alliances as well. I would have liked to have gone there. I really like Jerri and Boston Rob. I liked Coach.
THE DEADBOLT: It would have been interesting to see. What did you make of the chickens just walking out of the jungle into your camp?
STEPHENIE: [laughs] I don’t know, they just happened to be there. So whether it was luck or whether they were planted, I have no idea. I do know that very early on in the game, Rupert wanted to eat all of them. We weren’t hungry, so - But then again, there’s no arguing with Rupert, which made it uncomfortable. I think by the time I left, there were two chickens left.
THE DEADBOLT: So if Rupert wanted to eat them all, I’m guessing he would have been the one who wanted to cook them, too?
STEPHENIE: Oh, yeah. Well, you weren’t allowed to cook without Rupert’s approval.
