David Jelinsky (‘Survivor 46’ exit interview): ‘I didn’t even get to cast a vote this season’

John Benutty
·3 min read
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On Wednesday’s two-hour premiere of “Survivor 46,” David Jelinsky fell prey to a “huge blindside” from a Yanu tribe that had grown frustrated with his track record of giving up too quickly. Jelinsky had developed an early alliance of four, but they changed course based on their lack of faith that he wouldn’t quit on challenges in the future. Read on for Jelinsky’s “Survivor 46” exit interview from the end of the episode.

In one of the earliest challenges of the season, Jelinsky stepped up to compete for his tribe alongside Q Burdette in a Sweat task that required them to spend “several hours” retrieving water from the sea using buckets with holes in them in order to fill two massive urns across the beach. With two hours and 45 minutes left on their clock, Jelinsky convinced Q that they wouldn’t be able to complete the task and they should just quit. Against his better judgment, but knowing he couldn’t do it alone, Q agreed and they quit the task.

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Later, Jelinsky insisted that he be the member of their tribe that go on the first journey for an advantage, and they let him, but when he returned he was honest about how in the game of reading each other he had thrown in the town once again to give Maria Shrime Gonzalez from Siga and Tevin Davis from Nami the win, sacrificing his own vote in order to build trust with them. By no surprise, the Yanu tribe was not impressed that Jelinsky couldn’t stick it out and do what was best for himself and his tribe.

SEE Everything to know about ‘Survivor 46’

Going into Tribal Council after an Immunity Challenge loss, Jelinsky was feeling comfortable that it would be Jessica “Jess” Chong because he had formed a tight alliance of four with Q, Kenzie Petty and Tiffany Nicole Ervin and they all agreed that an inability to read Jess made her a dangerous person to keep around. For that reason, he didn’t do any scrambling and without a vote of his own, there wasn’t much he could do to stop it anyway.

When his alliance turned on him and Jelinsky was ousted by a 5-0 vote, he reacted with surprise. “This was a huge blindside,” he said. “I thought with every ounce in my body that Jess was going home tonight.” He knew that he had played it safe and relied on his trust in an early alliance, but admitted that “when you’re comfortable in this game, that’s when you go home and that’s exactly what happened to me.”

That he went home first in a TC that he wasn’t able to cast a vote in meant that he never got to participate in a core part of the game. “I didn’t even get to cast a vote this season — that’s horrible,” he said. “I was the first one voted out, but sometimes that’s just how the cards fall.”

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