It’s been a wild season of Australian Survivor: Blood Vs Water so far, with twists and turns, blindsides and betrayals galore.
One question that’s remained unanswered thus far, though, is: Where did the nickname Juicy Dave come from?
We first heard it at the third Tribal Council of the season, when Dave became convinced that he was on the chopping block (he was not) and nearly blindsided himself when he freaked out.
To recap: Sandra Diaz-Twine was on the chopping block, and as an alternative, she wanted to get Dave out. Sam and co. disagreed, and wanted to target the Queen. Meanwhile, Kate Tatham was the split vote for both of these plans.
Once Tribal Council kicked off and Dave flipped out, the majority alliance decided to switch gears and also target Dave. Lucky for him, he had a Hidden Immunity Idol, and the split vote saw Kate eliminated.
In the midst of all this chaos came the line “Blindside Juicy Dave has a ring to it”, and we’re not gonna lie, we’ve been obsessed ever since.
Where did it come from? We went directly to the source.
Speaking to POPSUGAR Australia, Juicy revealed that the nickname was born in the moment of that Tribal Council, and was originally meant to be “a juicy Dave blindside does have a ring to it”, as in, the blindside itself would be juicy, but then the nickname stuck.
“The tribe said they liked Dave but NEVER wanted to see Juicy Dave again!” he said, laughing. “Once JLP used the nickname Juicy in the rowing challenge the name was set in Survivor History”.
This got us thinking: what other Australian Survivor: Blood Vs Water secrets are there? We’ve been asking contestants as they’ve been eliminated, and we’ll continue to update this post as we chat to the remaining players.
Before we move on to the other players, we asked Dave if he had any other juicy secrets for us, and he revealed that going on Survivor was actually the first time he’d ever worn contact lenses.
As it turns out, this was a bit tricky for Dave, because he was “hopeless” at getting them in without having a mirror to see what he was doing.
“You can’t perform at challenges if ya can’t see!” he explained with a laugh.
“My main man Jay [Bruno] offered to put them in for me,” he revealed, calling him “a God send”, but soon enough, Jay was eliminated.
Then, “the lovely Amy [Ong] offered to help”, and “she was awesome but got voted out”, Dave explained.
Eventually, Dave “decided [he] needed to learn fast, as [he] was losing [his] alliance fast!”
Here are the secrets of Australian Survivor: Blood Vs Water.
Michelle Chiang
“Sam and I would sing a lot!” Michelle revealed. ”We’d do musicals, that’s how we would pass the time.”
Michelle recalled a time where she, Sam and Khanh performed “A Whole New World” from Aladdin, with her as Aladdin, Sam as Jasmine and Khanh as the magic carpet.
“He lay down on the dirt and put the red sarong over him, pretending to be the magic carpet and we were on top of him,” she explained, laughing.
Michelle said that there was “a lot of music and a lot of laughs” and “just belly laughing” that we didn’t get to see, but that made up some of her favourite times in the game.
Khanh Ong
Khanh said that while his secret “wasn’t really a secret”, the edit “didn’t show much of it”.
”I cried every time I saw my sister [Amy Ong],” he said. “Every single time. Like without fail. At every single challenge I was crying.”
Khanh said that “it got ridiculous”, to the point where “it was really annoying Josh [Millgate]”.
He laughed.
“Josh was like ‘stop crying, you’re gonna see her, why are you crying?!’ and I’m like ‘I don’t KNOW why I’m crying, I just AM!” Khanh recalled.
“It was so weird, I’ve never been like that with my sister, ever,” he explained. “We don’t just cry because we see each other, but every time she’d look over and smile at me, I’d just start crying.”
Jesse Hansen
Speaking to Jesse, he said that as a longtime fan of the show, he was surprised to realise that castaways often aren’t “giving 100% in challenges” for a number of reasons.
”It’s actually really interesting,” he said.
Jesse explained that in his final immunity challenge, he actually “hopped off early because [he] didn’t want the target of two Immunity Challenge wins out of three” on him.
Another reason people choose to step down from challenges early is that “you’ve gotta look after your body” and conserve your energy.
“Survivor is such a long game,” he explained. “There was a challenge where we had to swim and then climb up a big rope and then jump off and grab that ball, and that was maybe a couple of days after I’d split my chin open, so I had to be really careful jumping into the water to not split my chin open again, because if that got infected, that’s the kind of thing that can send you home.
“It’s one of the interesting things about Survivor,” he said, “you’ve gotta survive, and that means prioritising yourself in a challenge over your tribe taking the win.
“Survivor is brutal and the challenges are brutal, and it’s really hard on your body, so you’ve gotta learn to look after your body really quickly,” he finished.
Sam Gash
Similar to Michelle’s answer, Sam said that she “literally had a song for every occasion”.
Sam explained that with so much “intense gameplay” going on, her “whole thing was like, be a light when you’re around camp”.
Sam said that although we saw a lot more of her strategic gameplay, she also “chose to see the lighter side of life and to have fun” while she was out there.
“Khanh and I sang every musical under the sun,” she recalled. “I went skinny dipping with the girls.
“You know, there’s all these lighter moments that you’re never going to see because they can’t show enough in the show, but it’s those moments that actually build social rapport and help you in the game,” she explained, adding that “you can see [these moments] if you look for it” amongst her strategic game.
“There were those moments [within the edit] but when people get fixated on seeing you in a certain way, they don’t want to see you as multi-faceted,” she said. “All of us are not one dimensional.”
Australian Survivor airs at 7.30pm, Sundays and Mondays, only on 10 and 10 Play on Demand.
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