Sandra Diaz-Twine may have won the title of sole survivor, but it was paranoia that reigned supreme on Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains.
Sandra remembers being approached before the villain’s first vote.
“Randy (Bailey) came up to me and said, ‘We decided we’ve got to get rid of Parvati (Shallow) first.’ And I was like who are we? I’m not even a part of we, so I’m already screwed. And he said, ‘But she’s a winner’ and I’m thinking well you must not have watched my show.”
Parvati seemed surprised to be the target of the vote but got used to it when the target stayed on her.
“Everyone was coming after me really hard at every single vote. There was no vote where it wasn’t me as a target.
“It’s always a compliment being labeled a threat in the game of Survivor because it’s a social, physical and mental game. You have to be smart, charming and physically competitive to really get far,” she added.
The paranoia was so rampant that showing people strategizing took up more time than showing them actually surviving.
Unlike previous seasons, we never saw fan-favorite Rupert Boneham out fishing and providing for the tribe, but it happened every day.
“There was so much of the soap opera, of the conniver side, that the survivor side that I loved in Pearl Island and All-Stars didn’t make air this time,” said Rupert. “It’s a really empowering thing to catch a fish with your bare hands and I was doing it all the time.”
Rupert was injured on day one and suffered two broken toes comprised of three broken bones. He wasn’t given anything for the pain because in order to do so he would have to leave the game.
“When they said I needed medical attention and they said I needed to walk out of the game I told them you could cut the darn toes off I’m not walking out of the game. I did not go off and leave my family and my mentoring program Rupert’s Kids to only play one day,” he said.
But he was able to put the pain aside and enjoy a lot of the time he spent on the island away from the tribal madness.
“I would walk away from the tribe and leave them to their craziness, to the connivers’ side of the game, which is the side that I don’t like. I went out every day in the ocean. I would tell people I’m going swimming in my fish tank. I go out as much for the adventure as I do to try to win a million bucks,” he said.
In his three seasons, Rupert has lasted a total of 100 days, longer than any other male competitor.
Survivor’s original black widow, Jerri Manthey, also found an escape when things got crazy on her villain tribe.
“They didn’t really show this much but almost every day when things got chaotic and people were going at each other’s throats, I would just exit stage left. I was like, ‘I’m going to go lay in the sun on the beach, if you guys need me that’s where I’ll be’,” she said.
“And eventually they started vying for my vote. They came to me on a daily basis and it was a really powerful position I put myself in by removing myself from the drama and the chaos,” she added.
The disdain two-time champ Sandra had for super-villain Russell Hantz was shown a lot, but rarely did we see how hard she worked to get him out of the game.
“Because he took away my alliance, all I could see was revenge. He keeps telling me I’m going to go home because I won, so before I go home my mission is to get rid of Russell,” she said.
Sandra remembers trying to work with her Pearl Islands tribe mate Rupert to get rid of Russell.
“The day Rupert went home, I said, ‘Rupert, we can still get rid of Russell.’ And Rupert said, ‘Me, you and Colby (Donaldson)?’
“And I said, ‘Rupert, no, just me and you.’ Because I felt that if I gave Rupert my idol it didn’t matter where Colby’s vote went.
“Jerri, Parvati and Russell would vote the same way and they would be cancelled out because they were going to vote for Rupert. But Russell comes up and I can’t give Rupert the details about me having the idol, which I’m glad I didn’t because he turns around and tells on me.”
Rupert says Sandra had misled him in previous votes and he found it hard to trust her this time.
“If Sandra would have actually told me she had the hidden immunity idol that would have been a totally different story,” said Rupert. “I didn’t think I could believe her because she burned me so many times.”
As the last two heroes standing, Rupert and Colby were fighting to stay alive and one thing they did was apparently make a deal to go to the final three with Russell.
“What they didn’t show was when Russell walks away, Colby and I are laughing and saying that guy is full of it,” said Rupert.
“But we were honest. We would take him in a second to the final three because we know Russell against Colby and I would never get a vote,” he added.
Eventually Sandra also saw the advantage of keeping Russell around.
“After a while, I was like this dude is a goat and I want to go to the end with him. Parvati had a rope around his neck. He thinks he ran the show? If Jerri, Parvati or Danielle (DiLorenzo) ever would have given him up he would have gone home. Those girls kept him in the game. He should thank each and every one of them. That’s the reason he stayed around,” said Sandra.
Russell, who thinks Sandra’s game play sucks, believes he played the game right according to America.
“Do you not think I had a good social game? I had them all eating out of the palm of my hand. They listened to everything I said. I looked at Jerri and I said, ‘Danielle’, and guess who she voted for? Danielle,” he said.
But those people that Russell perceived to be eating out of his hand didn’t give him a single vote at the final tribal council. But when America voted, he did receive $100,000 both seasons as the Sprint Player of the Game.
“Twice I got robbed. So you can’t tell me there is not a flaw in the system. There is and somebody needs to fix it. Hopefully, on Season 21, they get it and at the end of the day they vote for the person who played the game right,” he said.
“There are only three criteria: Outwit, outlast, outplay. That’s the criteria you vote for. It doesn’t say out socialize anywhere. Because somebody came up with that for weak people.”