'The Circle' Season 6 Spoilers! Quori-Tyler "QT" Bullock Thought Myles Was a Catfish

Quori-Tyler "QT" Bullock

Warning! The interview below contains spoilers for all of Netflix's The Circle Season 6, which aired in April and May. Please do not continue if you do not wish to be spoiled on who was blocked in those episodes.

As a former dancer for the Lakers, Quori-Tyler "QT" Bullock knows how to be light on her feet. Combined with a superfandom of The Circle and love of social strategy games, that made for a deadly combination. Though she came in late, QT soon had the ear of everyone in the Circle, particularly catching the eye of Myles Reed. And that popularity translated to power, as she became a back-to-back influencer.

Unfortunately, with great power comes great responsibility, and a great target. QT's blocking decisions earned the ire of contestants, most notably Jordan Staff. After his "ride or die" refused to ride on what he was pitching her, he tried to torch her game, publicly calling her out and saying she had already won the game. But according to QT herself, she knew she had already lost. Despite making the finale, QT was considered too big of a threat, and was undone by everyone else voting tactically. But even if she didn't walk out of The Circle with $100,000, she may have walked out with a "Papi Fuego" on her arm.

Read on to hear QT's thoughts on her time in the game. And check out Parade.com throughout The Circle season 6 with the various players and catfishes alike.

Related: The Circle Season 6: Everything You Need to Know

I know you're a big fan of social strategy shows, and touted yourself a superfan of The Circle. How did you end up getting on the show?
So I started watching the show when it first came on in the US and then I went back and actually started watching some of the UK seasons. I was so obsessed with it. I just love strategy game shows. Big Brother, Survivor, The Circle. Any strategy game show that comes on TV, I'm watching it. I'm a huge Big Brother live feeder. So strategy is a huge part of my life, I guess. I've just always been obsessed with it. And then what I always said in all my interviews to get onto The Circle is that the only way you can play a game like this is to be on the show truly. There's no other way. So I always felt like I would do pretty good. But obviously, you don't know until you're actually in it. So that's kind of what motivated me to become a player.

Did you ever think about catfishing as someone?
No, I always wanted to go on as myself. Because I knew that I was going to be lying and backstabbing as much as possible. So I was like, "I need to eliminate the amount of lies that I need to tell, only the lies that I absolutely need to to get me further in the game." And I felt like I've done so much in my life between dancing for professional sports teams to loving books, sports, and makeup. I have so many facets of my life that I felt like I could use all of that to deal with people. So I didn't feel like I needed to catfish as someone else.

Let's fast-forward to the end of the season. There was palpable shock among the other players when you finished in third. But you had said in the finale that you were worried you wouldn't win because you were too much of a target. So, what was your reaction to where you placed?
Two days before the finale, once I became influencer that second time, I was like, "There's just no way I'm winning the game." It didn't matter what combination of five people were going to be at the end; I was never going to win the game. Because I knew that everyone that was left besides Myles--which obviously I had a little bit of blinders there--was going to rate me lower in the end because they knew that I had too much power and I was on top too much. So going into it, I knew there was no chance of me winning. I just tried to give myself the best opportunity. And then honestly getting third I was shocked. I thought that I was really going to get fourth, maybe fifth possibly. So third, I was feeling pretty good.!But as we were going down, and I didn't get fifth, and then I didn't get fourth, I was like, "Wait, maybe I can win this!" And then I got third and it was all over. [Laughs.]

Well it's interesting you talk about how those final ratings would shake. We see you say you were originally going to rate tactically. But, if you didn't win, you wanted to have a "deserving" winner. You rate Kyle first and Olivia third. What were the rest of your ratings, and what made you deviate from strategy?
I feel like I have like a conflated view of what I did. Because I always remember thinking I need to rate Jordan first. I think from when we were doing the secret superinfluencer, once I got to that point of the game of realizing I wasn't going to win, I wasn't playing to win anymore. And the whole time I was until I got there. And then I stopped playing to win. I was just playing like, "Okay, I'm not gonna win. So let me just make like random decisions." Obviously, me and Kyle worked so strongly together. I think I was also very hurt by myself. The fact that I put Myles in third in the Secret superinfluencer one, I didn't trust my alliance with the two of them.

And so then at the end, I was like, "Okay, if I don't win, I do want it to be Kyle." Because I mean, we've been together since basically the beginning. So I felt like I wasn't going to win. So if it's not me, then I wanted it to be Kyle. But I did go back and forth with putting Jordan first. Because I knew that no one else was going to rate him that high, so that could give me a little bit of a better chance. But I think ultimately, I just knew I probably wasn't going to win. So I needed to put someone that I actually wanted to win the game in first.

You mentioned it, so let's talk about that superinfluencer rating. You surprisingly rate Myles third, questioning if he's more strategic than you may have thought after the gift giving game. Instead, you rate Olivia first, saying you have the strongest emotional connection to her. Of course, that round, Olivia does become the superinfluencer, and blocks Myles. Talk me through that decision there.
I know! So okay, so there were a few things. It wasn't just the gift thing. I think that's what everyone's kind of seeing right now. But there were a few scenarios that were happening with Myles that I felt like he was more strategic than I realized. After the pancake thing, and him flirting with me in the rap, I was thinking he's just playing this like whatever game. Just doing whatever, flirting with me, and just having fun. Then when he came to me and Kyle to tell us that we both need to rate Autumn on the bottom, he was basically trying to like maneuver things for the "Ride or die" twist. Then he sent the gift to Olivia. Then we had another conversation where he was saying, "We need to put Lauren at the bottom." I was just starting to realize that he's a lot more strategic than I was giving him credit for. And now watching as a viewer I'm seeing that he was like that the whole time. But from my conversations with him, I wasn't getting that until the end.

And then I think the whole time, there's always a chance that he could be a catfish for me. Even though I'm flirting, we're having fun, I don't think it was shown enough the amount of doubt that I had that he was actually Myles. Because he was this big character in the way he texts with "Papi Fuego" and the fire emojis. Everything just made me feel like I didn't want to get my hopes up too much that he was who he said he was. So I always had this thread of thinking Myles is a catfish. And so obviously, we get to secret superinfluencer and I'm like, "If Myles is a catfish, the smartest thing for him to do right now as a secret influencer would be to block me." Because I always felt like I was going to win over Myles. I guess I just think so much as a strategist that if I was in his position, and I got secret influencer, I'd probably block me. Because it would kind of be a smart move for him, especially if he knew that I was a strategist and I wouldn't rate him as high in the end.

I don't know. I just started to play the game a little bit too much. And I think I was just thinking too deeply into it. And I still never wanted Myles to leave. That wasn't my intention of putting him third. I just didn't want him to have the power to block someone secretly. Me putting Olivia first is because--which I do think I read right--she was an emotional player. We had an emotional connection, and I knew that she was not going to block me. So again, I'm not playing to win. I just playing to get to the finale in that spot. So I put Olivia there knowing that it's a possibility she blocks Myles. But at least it gets me to the next step.

Well you talk about your game being done with your second stint as influencer. That has you getting in a tense stand-off with your ride or die Jordan, who keeps pushing you to get rid of Myles or Kyle to the point where you tell him it's your decision and then leave the chat. Talk me through your experience with that.
We were in there for three hours. I was so late at night. I was getting so frustrated towards the end of it. There's so much that's not even shown because we were there for so long, going back and forth, back and forth. And I was just sitting there. And I just kept saying, "I'm not leaving unless Autumn is blocked. So I'm not sure what else is gonna happen." And what I was feeling the whole time we were talking was he was in sixth place; I was in first. So there has to be some kind of hierarchy. And I felt like, because I was the number one influencer, why can't I just be able to make the decision? So once I realized we were in full deadlock, and once he sent that message about, "Well, Autumn's not an option," I was like, "Well, Autumn's honestly my only option. There's no other thing that I'm willing to do." So it wasn't enough with the conversation. I was like, "This is not serving me anymore. Let me just try to leave the chat." I did; it worked. And the rest is history.

So then were you surprised when Jordan came into Circle Chat the next day and called you out, saying you were going to win the season?
Honestly, I had so much fun during that conversation. As a fan of the shows, I was like, "This is such an iconic moment." It's so epic. I knew he was gonna do it. When I woke up in the morning, it was the first thing I said. "Jordan's gonna publicly come after me." I didn't expect him to come after me and Myles. I mean, now I'm seeing he was obsessive coming after Myles. But I think it would have made more sense for him to have just one target in me after the conversation we had last night. But whatever. He comes for me. I was shocked about him saying that I was going to be the winner. But again, I didn't feel like I could win anyway. So I was just having fun with it at that point. And then I saw that everyone was protecting me. Olivia sent a message in my favor. Even Lauren a little bit, Kyle, Myles. Everyone was protecting me. So I felt really good about my standing there. And I knew that people were looking more at him than me after he did that.

I know you and Myles agreed to go on a date after he left The Circle. What's the status on your relationship since you filmed?
When we came back from The Circle, we did go on some dates. I don't know. I mean, it's been so long since the show filmed. We went on some dates, and then we kind of didn't see each other for a while. He was traveling; I had a lot of work stuff. I was traveling. And so nothing like really came of it. And then recently, right before the show, we started kind of rekindling things. So we're just figuring everything out right now, I think. The "fuego" still shines bright.

Finally, as an avid fan of these social strategy shows, how much do you think everything from "the most strategic Circle season ever" might affect the way people play The Circle in the future?
It's exciting to even think about. But I feel like it really is going to affect it greatly. I think a lot of people are seeing how you can be strategic in The Circle now in a way that you weren't able to before. A lot of the times before, it was just popularity and everyone's being so nice to each other. But now I feel like you can kind of use that niceness, make it a strategy, and make people like you in certain ways that are not as genuine.  I love to watch that as a viewer I know some people are torn about it. But I'm excited to see how people play moving forward. And hopefully, I can inspire some players to go in there and really switch up the game.

Next, check our interview with The Circle Season 6 runner-up Kyle Fuller.