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�I Could Have Made a Good Run of It� � RealityNewsOnline�s Exclusive Interview with Survivor: Tocantins� Erinn

by David Bloomberg -- 05/18/2009
Erinn seemed doomed, but managed to make it to third place! How did she manage it? What was her plan if she had made it to the final two and had to convince the jury to give her a million dollars? How did she feel about being told over and over again that she would be easy to beat in the end? And why did the Timbira tribe dislike her so much?

We kept hearing about how easy Erinn would have been to beat � but she had plans if she had made it in front of the jury instead of being on it. She also had plenty to say about her time in the game and some of those with whom she played, so let�s get to it!

RealityNewsOnline: Hello, Erinn, and thanks for taking the time to talk to us here at RealityNewsOnline.

Erinn: No problem, love to.

RNO: We heard a lot about how your original tribemates disliked you � but why did they dislike you so much?

Erinn: I came into this whole experience on the heels of a really bad breakup. I was really having a tough time with it. I couldn�t function in my normal life, let alone in this crazy existence. One of the things I was really afraid of was, going through so much, that I didn�t want anybody to see how vulnerable I was to use it against me. I didn�t want anybody to take advantage of me. I didn�t want to talk about it.

When you�re going through it, it was debilitating and all-encompassing. It was so hard to talk about anything. The thing I do when I don�t know what to talk about is I talk about anything and everything and sometimes I can�t be shut up. If nothing else, I�ve learned that from this experience.

Also, I didn�t want people to know how well I knew the game and I�m a smart girl. I figured I�d stick around a little longer by not being a threat. It became apparent that there were no other puzzle people out there � every puzzle challenge we won, I had a hand in. You want to be valuable but not too valuable. I didn�t want to be a threat in any way, but I did that almost too well, I think. On the other hand, you had somebody like Sierra who only wanted people to know how smart and prepared she was, and those two things really clashed.

RNO: Along those lines, how did it make you feel to be referred to so many times as the easy one to beat if you�d been taken to the end?

Erinn: I think there was so much talk of that � as much as that was being said, it was being said to me like it was in interviews. When it came right down to it and I had to figure out the final three, how I would beat each of those guys, I had definitely worked out different scenarios for each one. I could have made a good run of it. With Stephen, I am on equal ground. I could say these are the people I�ve been with and I�m one of them, it�s because of them that I�m here and they�re there, on the jury. And Taj, I knew I had a vote from. As much as there was talk of being the easy one to beat and as much as I tried to convince them of that, I think I could have had a good showing.

RNO: So what would have been the rest of your case to the jury if you had made it?

Erinn: I would have made a different case for each of the guys. For Stephen, I had really thought it would be easy to go in and say this guy has ridden J.T.�s coattails the whole way here, he aligned with the guy who was making the moves and I did this on my own and had to keep coming up with new ways to stay in the game when I was doomed from the beginning. To go against J.T., it would have been so easy to say this guy screwed you all and I haven�t done anything � you could make a lesser of two evils argument. I think it would have been really easy to say they betrayed you, you thought you were friends with them, I never told you I loved you and then stabbed you in the back like they did. I never made you any promises.

RNO: Did you see anything on TV that, if you had known about it prior to voting, would have caused you to change your vote over to Stephen?

Erinn: I didn�t vote for Stephen for a lot of reasons. There is the first argument is J.T. is going to do such good things with this money that you want to give it to him.

When we went to Tribal Council, I gave Stephen an opportunity when I asked why I shouldn�t vote for J.T. � I had told him before that he had my vote no matter what but he couldn�t give me a reason not to vote for J.T.. That coupled with the fact that I wanted him to own up and say, �This is what I did, these are the moves I made.� But we didn�t get that, he didn�t want to offend and lose votes so he didn�t get credit for what he did.

Going back, he was the brilliant end of the two of them, saying this is what we�re going to do and vote out this person and this person. I wish he would have told me that because I know my vote would have changed and I think some others would have too.


RNO: You said at Tribal Council that scrambling never works... and then it did! Did you know you made some headway with your argument that Taj would be tough to beat in the finals?

Erinn: The thing about scrambling is that I worked on that for a long time. It wasn�t a last-minute scramble, it was planting the seeds over time that she is a huge threat and would be hard for all of them to beat. She�s never upset anybody or made anyone mad. Everyone is going to walk out of here friends with her and they would have handed her the million dollars. Coupled with that, she doesn�t need it! (Taj in the background says everybody needs a million dollars!)

We are all about the money and she just wanted to come out to do it (Taj contributes: �And to lose weight�). To go through all of that, I had had talks with J.T. and Stephen two or three days into the merge where we said this is what we�re going to do. And it was a lot of spending time getting to that. So when it came down to that, I was not horribly surprised that it was me.

RNO: Describe your feelings about Coach.

Erinn: (Laughs) I think that Coach an enigma of a man. He is just � his ego is bigger than he is and he has created this mythical character for himself. There are also a lot of sides of him you don�t see, which is unfortunate. He is a good guy wrapped in layers and layers and layers of experience and ego and legend. When you compound all of those things, of course he�s going to pass a lie detector test because he has told the stories so much that he believes them. He is impossibly arrogant and horrible to be around at times, but he has this character he created for the game and he�s a really irritating guy. Those things coupled, oh I had a tough time.

I really do think his stories are based in fact, but they have been made to be so much bigger than they are. A lot of that is half the reason that I kept him around. I never felt like Coach is the next to go � I didn�t have that feeling like I had to vote him out. You always knew what he was going to do � it was so predictable. He had created this character that was so big and noble and honest and chock-full of integrity. He wanted to be that guy whether he was or not, so you kind of have to take him at that. So even if he hates me, he probably won�t lie to me, so it made him not so big of a threat.

RNO: Was there anything you saw on TV that surprised you because you didn�t know about it while you were out there?

Erinn: Not really.

RNO: We�re about out of time, so do you have anything else you�d like to tell us about your time on Survivor?

Erinn: There is one thing � I read your interview with Sierra where she said I was digging for days and days for that immunity idol she had placed. Here�s what happened. I walk to treemail and see this clue and read it and whatever. There are like six potential lone trees. I walk, dig my toe in the dirt, see this clearly isn�t it, etc. I think I spent ten minutes looking around. This doesn�t seem right to me. When you look at this, it was a brilliant plan but the only flaw was she placed the idol in an area where it was full grown grass that had been there for years and years. If CBS had buried an idol, it was like five years ago and it didn�t take me more than ten minutes to figure out.

RNO: Thanks again, Erinn!

So Erinn realized in exile that her happy place was back with her ex-boyfriend.

Gotta laugh at how Taj was playing for 3rd since the merge and perfectly content to lose to the guys, but is really bothered at being outlasted by a pretty young girl.

Taj was in a good mood despite saying that Stephen and JT's betrayal "really hurt my feelings," because it was "completely unnecessary." ... When she watched the episode, she said it was "refreshing to see last night how they felt bad" and "I hope it hurts good"; "what really pissed me off was they ruined my whole goodbye speech," saying she'd planned a dramatic exit for her third-place finish. Instead, they "blindsided me and ruined my moment," she laughed.

She said ... "I had to come up with a plan" since Joe and Spencer, who were "completely smitten by Sydney," wanted to keep Sydney "because they thought she was prettier."

Taj was the real coattail rider postmerge, while Erinn was playing to get past her and make the finals.