‘Survivor 47’ star Tiyana Hallums feels ‘gypped’ by all the twists: ‘So many things didn’t go my way’
Tiyana Hallums’ final episode on “Survivor 47” was a rollercoaster ride.
The 27-year-old flight attendant appeared to be sitting pretty when the final 12 were split into two groups and she ended up with all of her former Tuku tribemates, with Rachel LaMont as the sole outsider.
However, Sol Yi sent the Safety Without Power advantage to LaMont which allowed her to leave tribal council — forcing the Tuku 5 to turn on each other.
Hallums tried to rally the votes against Gabe Ortis, but the rest of the Tukus voted her out unanimously.
In an exclusive interview with The Post, Hallums said she felt “gypped” by all the twists that led to her elimination. She also revealed that she knew about LaMont’s advantage before tribal.
Read Hallums’ full interview below.
New York Post: Were you confident that you’d be safe when the tribe was split into the two groups?
Tiyana Hallums: I was not feeling good because I personally felt like I was getting stonewalled a lot from Sue when I would just talk any sort of strategy with her. So I felt like when it came to my old Tuku tribe, we were not getting anywhere. I didn’t know at the time how close Sue and Gabe were. That came as a shock when I was watching it back. However, I was really excited to, regardless of the outcome, work with different people. I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, I can make so many different connections with this little rock draw.’ Turns out I ended up right back with my friggin tribe that I wanted to escape.
Heading into tribal, was the plan to vote out Gabe not going to happen? Was Rachel going home?
That’s what I was feeling for sure. And something that happened actually before that tribal council was that Rachel told me that she was going to leave. And so in my head, I was like, ‘Okay, I know Rachel’s going to leave.’ And my hope was that Kyle and Caroline were going to know the plan that I literally just told them and I was like, ‘Wow, it’s so perfect. This is going to be good. I’m not going to be blindsided.’ And it ended up not being the case.
However, if Rachel were to have stayed, I think that she definitely would have been going home because I could not convince someone to make a big enough move, even though I said repeatedly over and over again, if we come back with five and we are united, we’re screwed. Like, there’s nothing that we could possibly do to convince the six that we’re okay or that we could break.
So you didn’t tip anyone else off about Rachel’s advantage?
No, because I thought genuinely that Kyle and Caroline were going to have my back in that situation. We have a contingency plan that we talked about, but that ended up not being the case. So even if Rachel were to have stayed, I think that she would have been voted off. So she was right to take that advantage, obviously.
But if she did stay in that random consequence, I would have honestly put Gabe’s name down still so that even when we’re going back to the merge beach, they would still know that I have been consistent. I wanted Gabe out. So I wanted to fully put my hands up and be like ‘I am not part of this Tuku 5, use me as a number’ kind of thing.
Were you aware that Caroline was so loyal to Sue and Gabe?
No. I think that Caroline is so intelligent and I think the world of her. And so that’s why I thought our conversations were a lot more productive and a lot more brainstorming. It felt like a good alliance that she reciprocated. I felt as if I was being heard. She felt like she was being heard and we kind of brainstormed ideas together. Whereas when it came to Gabe, he was kind of just barking orders and I didn’t want to be a injured little bird. I didn’t want to be just pawns in his game because I wanted to play my own game. And I thought that Caroline also wanted to play a strong game because she is a strong, independent person and very intelligent as well. So I thought that she didn’t enjoy when Gabe was just telling us what to do, but that ended up not being the case.
And it was kind of frustrating because even when I tried to bring that to anyone’s attention, it was like Gabe could do no wrong with Sue and Caroline. So I didn’t really understand that. So it was really tough to navigate for sure.
There were several twists that led to you ultimately getting voted out. Do you feel cheated by the show a bit?
I feel like it definitely makes for great TV, for sure. However, I did feel so upset because there were so many things that just didn’t go my way. But that’s also ‘Survivor.’ l was never fully comfortable ever, which you can never be in ‘Survivor.’ So with these twists, I felt kind of gypped a little bit and I would love the opportunity to frickin play. Like actually get to show what I could do in the merge. However, I think that the Survivor Gods just weren’t with me on that. And maybe it’s not my time now. Maybe it’s my time later. Or maybe I can come back. But yeah, I just think that it was like back to back things that were not lining up for me. So that’s what makes me really sad to think about for sure.
Would you have stuck with the woman’s alliance that you talked about until the end of the game?
Absolutely. I think that it would have been so cool to see because we haven’t seen it really in this new era. It gets chopped off right before it starts to get going. I really did resonate a lot with Teeny. I resonated a lot with Rachel. You saw that I wanted to work with her. I was in love with Genevieve. And also we had our own little anchors. I was really close with Kyle. Genevieve is now forming an alliance with Andy and starting to get that relationship going. Teeny had Sol and I also had a good connection with Sol. We really had our hands in different places and I thought it would have been so powerful to go into the merge with that.
“Survivor” airs Wednesdays on CBS at 8 p.m. ET.
