Chatting to POPSUGAR Australia after his elimination from Australian Survivor: Blood Vs Water, Jesse said that his blindside was “definitely a shock!”
“I knew was gonna be copping votes, and I knew it was gonna be a 4-6 split, I just thought it was gonna be a 4-6 split the other way and that Josh was gonna be going home,” he laughed.
In a move that shocked Jesse and viewers alike, Jesse’s long-time ally, Samantha Gash, not only voted to blindside him, she stole his Hidden Immunity Idol in the process, after claiming she was helping him to hide it from the other players.
Reflecting on the move, Jesse said that although he did believe his relationship with Sam was strong, he underestimated how “fractured” the relationship between Sam’s husband, Mark Wales, and Jesse’s brother, Jordie Hansen, had become.
“What you got to see is that both of us chose our blood over our water,” he said, adding: “I fully respect Sam’s move and it was the right decision for her.”
In fact, Jesse said he believes it’s going to be “a pretty massive, massive and decisive moment in Sam’s game” that will show the players “and the public as well that she really is a game player”.
So does he regret putting his trust in his longtime ally? Not at all. Jesse said that he “had to trust in the people [he] had been working with”, and that in Survivor, you can only work with the information you have at any given moment.
“There’s absolutely nothing I would’ve done differently,” he said. “Every decision I made, from giving Sam the idol to the words I spoke to her and my brother at the end, I wouldn’t have changed a single thing. So I guess that is a good way to leave, with no regrets.”
Asked about his decision to not blow Sam’s game up on the spot, Jesse said that as soon as he saw the fifth vote with his name come in, he “went into game overdrive” and immediately began to think about how he could help his brother Jordie’s game.
“I knew I was in a dire situation where I had to put my brother in the best possible situation,” he recalled, adding that he “had a lot of power at that moment to affect the future outcome of the game”.
“Everything I did was to give [Jordie] more of a chance to potentially be a number to be utilised by someone, to ensure that I didn’t burn bridges, but to also give him power in the game by letting him know that Sammi does have the Idol, so he does now have a bit of a blackmail card,” Jesse explained. “It’ll be interesting to see what happens and how that unfolds.”
Although Jesse hopes that Sam and Mark will now “be willing to work closely with [Jordie] and potentially take him along for the ride”, he wasn’t sure if it’s a plan that will work out over the coming episodes.
“The two could turn on each other pretty quickly if the relationship sours, and I can’t control that,” he mused.
In the end, Jesse felt like his blindside was the perfect example of what makes a Blood Vs Water season so different from a regular season.
“If my brother wins, that’s a win for both of us, and Sammi and Mark are in a similar boat,” he explained. “Even though I’ve been voted out of the game now, I’m still in the game, because my brother is there fighting.”
Australian Survivor airs at 7.30pm, Sundays and Mondays, only on 10 and 10 Play on Demand.
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