Sophie Segreti didn’t get much screen time in the first half of Survivor 49. She wants fans to know she wasn’t playing a “solo dolo” game like it may have appeared. Still, she’s happy that she came in strong around the merge and became such a threat that she was voted out in a unanimous blindside in Episode 11 (read our recap here).
Here, Segreti reveals what made her so confident that Savannah Louie would get voted out in the Final Seven Tribal Council, and she reacts to the move that made Sage Ahrens-Nichols want to get “revenge” against her.
How do you feel about being voted out in a unanimous blindside? It’s a dramatic way to go.
Sophie Segreti: Especially at seven! Seven is one of your last chances to make a really sick move and get somebody out and play some crazy things. And so the fact that they were like, nah, we’re not going to take advantage of it being seven and having an odd number, so four versus three, we’ve just got to get her out of this game was, yeah, I would say quite an honor. And I’m very flattered. Obviously, wish I could have gone further. That’s the competitor in me. I hate to lose, but of all the ways to go, I think that was maybe the best.
How confident were you that your vote against Savannah was going to work?
Oh my God. I was stupidly confident. I was fully blindsided. I had no idea. And in retrospect, I should have been a little bit more wary, but I really thought that Sage and Kristina’s dislike of Savannah would carry through. And from Steven’s perspective, I knew that Steven is good at challenges as well.
It all made enough sense for me. I was quite confident. And then even I thought that Blue Sophi might flip because I could imagine that maybe, going through her brain, is that she’s played a little bit of a coattails game on Savannah and Rizo. This is a great opportunity to make a huge resume-building move and take out her number one ally. So I really thought that I could maybe even get Soph in on this. And so yeah, I was way too confident with the fact that Savannah was going home.
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Soph was planting the seeds for her to betray Rizo and Savannah in this episode, so she’s aware that she needs to distance herself from them. So, in your mind, the best-case scenario was that everyone but Rizo was going to vote for Savannah?
That’s what I thought.
What conversations made you trust that? Were there any we didn’t see?
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I think they did show me and Soph talking, but I think we talked a couple times that day and also maybe leading up to it, where Soph was acknowledging that it would make sense for her to get out either Rizo or Savannah. And then, in talking to Kristina and Steven, I think we saw in the last episode that Kristina and Savannah had a little bit of a tense encounter. And so I knew that there was no love lost between the two of them.
That, coupled with talking with Kristina and Steven back at camp, really reassured me. And then also talking with Sage, I knew how much I had upset her by voting out Jawan, but I really felt like she had been gunning for Savannah for so long that it was not beyond the pale, that she would put aside our differences for a little bit and vote Savannah.
When Sage said on the beach post-Tribal Council, “You just handed [Savannah] $1 million,” what did you feel and what were you thinking?
I was thinking that — I think I said it. I was like, “I’m not going to apologize.” I still maintain that a Jawan or a Sage going home made more sense at that point than voting out Savannah. Because where I was sitting in that Jawan vote is I was now in a foursome versus being the bottom of a five of Steven and Kristina and Sage and Jawan, and those are two tight duos. I was the odd man out there and also not getting clued in on a lot of information. I had a hunch that Kristina had an idol. Then we went through her bag. None of them told me about it, whereas Savannah showed me her extra vote.
Showing that you trust somebody in the game is sharing information with them. I never got that from Steven or Kristina or Jawan. I did get it from Sage, but I didn’t get it from those three. It just didn’t make sense to me. I hear that Sage thought that I was handing Savannah $1 million, but I really, in my view, was keeping myself alive another day in the game and bettering my position.
CBS
And when you know that Savannah has this extra vote, she shows it to you, you’re like, “Oh, this team, this alliance has more tools to play with. They’re going to win this Tribal.”
Yes, and Rizo had an idol. Not only am I better from a numbers perspective in this group in terms of in Survivor, it’s an alliance of four. Makes sense. You can get to fire, whereas five, the bottom of that five, I could be going home at five, and that would really suck. But they have a lot of advantages and tools, and Savannah is a challenge shield for me. We are both competitive. My thought was, the second that she goes, I am the next obvious, immediate vote out the second I don’t win. I’m going to be on the chopping block.
Had you survived this Tribal Council, what was your ideal Final Three, and how were you going to get there?
My ideal Final Three was actually going to be Sage and Blue Soph because I really didn’t trust Steven or Kristina at this point. I feel like Steven hadn’t really pissed off that many people on the jury, and I really had voted for everyone who was sitting on the jury at that point. So I was like, I can’t afford to have Steven or Kristina in the Final Three with me because they haven’t pissed off anybody at the jury. And then I can’t afford to have Savannah from a challenge threat perspective because we played similar games. But I feel like Soph and Sage played different enough games to me. I think I could have beaten them in a Final Tribal.
Rizo was playing such a good, true strategic game that I didn’t actually want to sit next to him in the Final Three. I think he would’ve out-strategized me in that discussion and has a great story of coming up from the bottom, whereas I feel like with Soph and Sage, I had enough on them in both challenge wins and being in difficult positions and fighting my way through that, I could make a good case for why I won.
CBS
Is there anything you wish fans could’ve seen?
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Honestly, I just wish they had shown a little bit more of my alliance-building early on at Hina, just because I feel like that was really absent. I mean, I didn’t get a ton of screen time pre-merge anyway, but I think it really comes across as though I’m playing a game just truly solo. And that’s not how it felt to me. I had allies. I was never anybody’s number one. So I wish to show that I was a little bit more of a well-rounded player than just somebody who is in competitions.
Who was your strongest ally on Hina?
At that point? It was MC. Up until the merge, I thought we were locked, and she had shared with me that there was a rival Hina alliance to get me out. I really thought that she and I were tight, but then I also had relationships with Steven and even Kristina to an extent in some of those other tribe swaps. It would’ve been nice to show some of that, just that my game wasn’t as solo dolo as it appears.
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