Elie Scott told Jeanine not to use the immunity idol on Survivor 43

Dalton Ross
·17 min read

"I feel like I was made for Survivor. I've kind of figured out how to hack things. I feel like this is my environment. The social element of the game I knew I was going to be good at, but I'm way better than I even thought."

As soon as words like that come out of a player's mouth on Survivor, they are usually having their torch snuffed within the hour, and that is exactly what happened on the merge episode of Survivor 43 this week, as Elie Scott was voted out by tribemates both old and new instead of receiving her coveted merge buff.

Elie played a little too aggressively in trying to chart a post-merge game. She attempted to make James and the former Coco tribe members believe she was with them, but they never bought it. She brought Cody's name up as a decoy vote, but did not appear to make him comfortable in doing that. It also didn't help that Gabler sold her out at the merge challenge winners' feast, telling everyone that she went through his bag on day 3, even though it was actually her island bestie Jeanine that did so. In the end, Elie pulled votes from all three tribes and became the first person voted out in the individual portion of the game.

Did Elie get too overconfident? Does she blame Gabler for her ouster? And why did the Vesi folks turn on her, especially after they helped Baka beat Coco in a challenge? We asked the 31-year-old psychologist all that and more and she clued us in to a lot that happened out on the island that did not make it to our TV screens. You can watch the entire interview above or read it below.

Survivor
Survivor

Robert Voets/CBS Elie Scott on 'Survivor' 43

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Why are you here talking to me now? What went wrong?

ELIE SCOTT: My game got really messy, obviously.I think if we start from the vote out episode and move backwards in time, maybe that's easier. It was a mess. I was really excited to play, and I just kind of went full force and that was obviously way too much. I think every day of the season I would sit down and be like, "Okay, today I'm just gonna chill out. I don't even need to be scheming. I'm just gonna take it easy." And then, every day, I would end up wanting to just play way too hard. And so I think that's mostly it — being sneaky when I probably didn't even need to be.

How much did it bum you out to be that close and not get that merge buff?

Oh, man. So I'll be honest: You walk away, and I wasn't even really thinking about it. And then, all of a sudden, you hear them cheering because you're not very far away from where everybody's sitting at Tribal. And all of a sudden, I hear people cheering. At first, I thought they were all cheering because they voted me out. I was like, "Oh that's not great." But then I realized, "Oh, they're getting their buffs." And that was like a little dagger to the heart. But I honestly feel like it was my time. I mean, we saw my demise happen over like four episodes, maybe five episodes. So, you know, I felt ready in real life at the time, and kind of ready watching it back too.

How big of an impact did Gabler's announcement that you had gone through his bag make in terms of you being voted out?

I think what we saw was that there was a twofold issue with that day for me. One being Gaber throwing my name out at the merge meal. And then me trying to figure out a plan that would avoid me getting thrown under the bus and saying, "Okay, Cody can be a decoy and we'll say that to James and Cassidy and then we can really try to split the votes between James and Cassidy."

So I think things got messy for me, regardless. Part of what wasn't shown was how those names came to be. Cody coming up, that was something that I thought would be kind of a natural decoy, so that was probably me. But the James and Cassidy idea of splitting the vote was actually Cody's idea. I had a private conversation with him on the beach and he was like, "Why don't we split the vote between them?" And I was like, "Okay, let's run with it." And so I was probably more verbal than I should have been and [should have] let him run with it. But I was just an overexcited player.

Survivor
Survivor

Robert Voets/CBS Elie Scott on 'Survivor' 43

Well, let's talk about that because you make Cody the decoy vote. One question I had was: Is she letting Cody know this, because there's a good chance it's going to get back to him? So is she giving him a heads up, because no one wants to be the decoy vote? How did you handle that?

I mean, I probably didn't handle it well, but I did talk to him about it. I obviously talked to everybody about everything. I'm not a secret keeper, apparently. I had talked to Cassidy first, and she either she said Cody or I said Cody. I watched it last night and I still don't even remember. But I was super comfortable with that. I talked to Cody next and was like, "Hey, Cassidy already threw your name out and so I'm just gonna go with that."

But we talked about his idol. I'm like, "If you feel uncomfortable, you can play it." That might have also pissed him off. Like, "Why is she trying to get me to play an idol?" It was all really sketchy, Dalton. I have literally no excuse. It was just messy and it was sketchy and I didn't wanna get voted out and it was pure panic at that point.

Especially on that last day. You're hearing from Gabler that I looked through his bag, you're coming back to camp and you're hearing, "Hey guys, Elie said Cody," and then you're hearing from other people, "Elie said James," and then from other people, "Elie said, Cassidy." Like, that's a really bad look. And I was fully aware of that. That's part of why I was so panicked and was like, "Oh s---, this got really out of hand really fast." And it can be contained when it's a five-person tribe and it's just Sami telling people my business, but when it's a 13-person tribe, it spread like wildfire. And so I had literally no shot.

What was your reaction when you're sitting at home watching the episode last night and you see your confessional interview where you're like, "I'm made for Survivor. I'm even better than this, than I thought! Because as viewers, we see that and we're like "Uh-oh."

Okay, so maybe Survivor fans can deduce by how pale I was and how full my cheeks were that that might have been an early confessional potentially. I remember talking about that, and part of why I wanted to play Survivor was personal growth. I love Survivor so much because of what you see people go through and triumph over. And I was really hungry for that from the beginning, so a lot of what I would talk about in my confessionals is like, "Wow, I really think that I suck at this, and it turns out I don't suck quite as bad as I thought I did."

And so when I'm saying "I'm better than I thought I would be," that's coming from a very, very low bar of thinking I'm gonna be the first person out. That's why I was eager in my first episode to throw out a name because I was anxious. And so it comes across as overconfident, but I am typically very underconfident. I'm pretty insecure when it comes to my abilities. And so in that moment being proud of myself that I learned how to catch crabs and snails, I think I was overjoyed that I wasn't quite as much of a mess as I thought I would be at that point. By the time of the merge, I was pretty aware that it was a mess.

Whenever I see a player out there saying that in a confessional interview, I picture Survivor producers silently high fiving and being like "All right, just lock this away. We'll use this when we need it."

When I saw it, my jaw dropped. I'm like, what a freaking idiot. Why would you ever say that? But it is what it is. I am still like fully obsessed with Survivor and everything that has to offer. It was life changing for me, and so it was really good experience.

Survivor
Survivor

Robert Voets/CBS Elie Scott and Jeanine Zheng on 'Survivor' 43

Let's go back to the Gabler thing. What sort of damage control did you do after he told everyone you went through his bag?

I just tried to be honest with people and I don't think that anybody believed me. And part of that is my fault, because they already had gotten wind of that I was throwing people's names out and talking about plans to vote their tribe members out. So me then coming up to them and being like, "Hey, I heard that Gabler said this, that's not what happened. I'm not gonna snitch on the person that did, but I'm just really hoping that the 24-hour bond that we've created will make you wanna keep me in the game" — it was kind of a half-ditch effort. I tried to explain to people what happened. I think most of them were just like, "Oh, okay honey. Sounds good," and kind of shoo me along so they can keep talking about how they're gonna vote for me.

When did it start to go bad between you and Gabler? Because we saw early on you guys seemed to be bonding over heavy metal and punk rock.

I mean, maybe then. [Laughs] And honestly, I never should have lied about my taste in music. I am fully aware that the Dead Kennedys are not heavy metal. I just want to be clear on that. Because I think there's been a lot of controversy over it in the Twitteverse. But day four, honestly, we had a big rainstorm after Morriah's vote out. That was the beginning of Morriah's revenge. And the next day, it just was like a flipped switch. He was really struggling physically, and we were really hustling trying to get things organized at camp and build a shelter. And so that was where I was kind of like, "Ah, I don't know about this."

And so really at that point it was still kind of a tribe strength conversation of not so much that I didn't like Gabler. I genuinely like him even after all of that. We have a really good relationship. He's a very genuine person. It's just that at that point he wasn't contributing the way that he was in those first few days where I was like, "Wow, this guy's great. He's really pulling his weight." All of a sudden, there was a big drop off. And it was not just me, I think that the four of us at one point wanted to make sure that he was an option if we had to go back to Tribal to not vote off one of the four stronger members of the tribe.

Did you have any idea that Sami was going behind your back and telling Gabler everything all season?

Dalton, do you think that I had any idea? [Laughs] I mean, you can see the look in my eyes. I'm like, "Sami, can you believe this? Sami, listen to this." I was just so all-in on our relationship. It didn't show that at all in the season how close we were. We were very good friends, just buddies about everything. Aside from Jeanine, I spent the most time with Sami just hanging out and having fun.

And so I had absolutely no idea. I thought that he was in on everything and down for all of it. And so I was really shocked when I had a conversation with Gabler and he said, "Sami and Owen told me." I was like, "What the hell?" And so then you see the aftermath of that. I went and talked to Owen and Sami about it and Sami again had a really good expedition. He's like, "Listen, Gabler already knew. He noticed something was wrong with his sock and because he had the stuff in one of his socks, he noticed something was wrong and he kind of backed me into a corner. So I had to tell him."

And I was like, "Ugh, wow. Poor Sami. Oh my gosh, this is an innocent 22-year-old. I forgive you, just help me fix the problem." And he legitimately went — and they didn't show this either — and pretended to help me fix the problem. I'd walk up and I would hear him being like, "Y'all, she's such a good person. She did not do that." And apparently I know now, because we're friends and we talk, that I would walk away and he'd be like, "Bro, we gotta get her out. She's bad." [Laughs] And so no, I had zero idea even up until Tribal Council. I was like, I know if one person has my back, it's Sami.

Survivor
Survivor

Robert Voets/CBS Jeanine Zheng and Elie Scott on 'Survivor' 43

Well, did Jeanine have your back? She said, "Listen, if I have any clue that it's you, I'm giving you the idol." Do you think she didn't have a clue, or do you think she was like," I'm not parting with this idol"?

We'll never really know whether or not she would have played it for me, but another secret that really just digs my grave even further — I'm just gonna go all out and let you know how bad it was in my mind. I waved her off. Like, while the voting was going on, the discussion at Tribal Council was so convincing for me in the way that it was being said between Gabler's discussion and Sami's discussion of if you're trying to rebuild bonds with somebody, and you're trying to build a connection with somebody and they play an idol when they don't need to — that damages trust.

I'm thinking I'm on the bottom of our five-person alliance. I need to show them that I trust them because we had really meaningful conversations that day of like, "Okay, we can move on from this." I was blindly trusting, and so I mouthed to Jeanine, "I think we're good." And she's like, "Okay, we're good." And so it's really not Jeanine's fault. I don't know if she would've played it for me if I hadn't said anything, but I think it would've required me to be like, "Jeanine, can I have your idol? You know, pull a Natalie.

Wow. So you waved her off. That's interesting.

I did. It's horrible to admit, but it's true.

Why do you think James never bought what you were selling with the Cody vote?

James and I, it felt like from the minute we met that we were both holding a dagger behind our backs., I knew that he was running Coco from the minute he stepped off his boat. I'm like, this person has this really great energy that I would wanna follow. It means that people are probably following him. He sat down and we had this nice long conversation about our histories and he disclosed information to me about himself, and vice versa. And it felt like the whole time we were just sitting there with daggers behind our backs being like, "This is the person who's gonna run away with the game if we're not careful."

I do think that as much as I wanna be self-deprecating and say that I got really messy — and I did on that last day — I don't think that the day that we were all kind of mingling with each other that I came off that way. I think that I came off pretty social. And so my guess is maybe he viewed me as a threat and was like, this person's got game going on. And I felt the same way about him.

What's something that happened out there that didn't make it to TV that you wish we had seen?

The friendships at Baka were a mess and we bickered at each other, but we were really obsessed with each other at the end of the day. Like when it came to challenges, we fought really, really hard for each other. We would really support each other before and after challenges. And every night, the sun would go down and it did feel like the game was turning down at the end of the day. We could have a really messy day and have been bickering with each other, but the sun went down and we would cook our snails and eat our coconut and literally serve each other. We took good care of each other.

We threw a Baka prom one night because Gabler's kids were going to prom and he was so aching for his kids. We made little dresses and danced and we just had a ton of fun. It makes sense that they're not showing all of that, but we were a very close family-oriented tribe at the end of the day.

Why do women keep getting voted out of this game?

[Laughs] I do think that it's part of the new era of Survivor of not having swaps. You kind of know that you're stuck in this very small tribe and strength gets thrown out as something that's important early on. And so I think that might be part of it. I don't know. I know that I'm complicit in that.

If they bring you back again, how are you going to play differently?

I will say my big fault is not playing like Michele Fitzgerald. I got undeserved likeness comparisons to Michele and I did not do her justice in a single day that I played. And so I would wanna play a much more subtle game. I don't know how she managed to bite her tongue the way that she would be talked to by some of the men out there, and I did not have that capability. I was wanting to talk it out, fight it out. And so I would wanna play a much more subtle game until the end.

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