Helen Li's body went into shock after being voted out of Survivor
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She proved she was savvy on day one of Survivor 44 when she solved a sphere puzzle and won supplies for her tribe, but she wasn't savvy enough to sense the blindside that was heading her way just four days later.
Helen Li was voted out of the Tika tribe on this week's episode — a surprising result seeing as how she appeared to be firmly placed in a majority alliance. But after Carson Garrett opted instead to join up with "old and crazy" Carolyn Wiger and Yam Yam Arocho, Helen became vulnerable and was ousted from the game.
How did everything come crashing down so soon? Who was she planning to align with before the game started? And why was her tribe so terrible at reading body language? We asked Helen about all that and more on the morning after her televised exit. She also told us about what we didn't see on TV and how she's still dealing with the ouster almost a year later. The Helen Li experience starts now!
Robert Voets/CBS Helen Li of 'Survivor 44'
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Okay, Helen. What went wrong? Why are you here talking to me now?
HELEN LI: What went wrong, Dalton? I was blindsided. I had no idea that Carson had flipped on myself and Sarah, and I think that's why I'm sitting here now talking to you.
How confident were you feeling walking into Tribal Council?
I was not 100 percent confident. I mean, no one can be 100 percent confident in really anything in Survivor, but I felt like I went in with a pretty high confidence. I was trying not to be super paranoid on the first vote. I thought that I should trust my alliance. The moment I realized things had gone awry — I didn't consider playing my Shot in the Dark, I didn't consider doing anything crazy — was the second that Jeff turns over the first vote and it's my own handwriting saying "Carolyn." And I remember very, very clearly walking out of that voting booth thinking, "Oh, if it's my vote that's the first vote, I'm screwed." And then it was my vote and I was like, "Oh, it's me. That's what it is." [Laughs]
I have to imagine going all the way out there and leaving on day 5 is not fun, so take me through your emotional process of handling that situation.
I'm a huge sore loser. You can ask anyone that's ever played a board game with me. You can ask my boyfriend. I hate losing. I'm a super competitive person. This has obviously been the biggest dream. I've been watching this show for over a decade. So, I think my body just went into shock. I just didn't even comprehend what was happening.
I knew that Sarah didn't have her vote, but at that moment I was second guessing every single thing because I thought that I knew how the vote was going to go and it didn't go that way. So, in my head I'd walked out and I was like, Okay, all four of those people that I thought I had formed these bonds with and these relationships with, they all turned against me. So, [I really] don't recommend. [It was] not the best experience, but I think I'm through the other side at this point.
Robert Voets/CBS Helen Li and Jeff Probst on "Survivor 44'
Did it take you a while to get through to that other side? Were you kind of stewing at Ponderosa?
Yeah, Ponderosa, post-game. It's been nine months and I'm still probably not 100 percent over it. It sucks. I think every person goes into Survivor being like, "Wow, I was cast. That was the hard part. Now I just trust myself and trust that I'm meant for this." Everyone feels like they're meant to be the Sole Survivor. It's a huge rude awakening when that's not the case, and, yeah, it sucks.
At the time, where did you think Sarah was in all of this since she didn't put a vote down on paper?
The first Tribal Council is so difficult because you have no actions to measure against anyone's words to you. All you have is what they've said to you and whether or not you believe them. I knew that Yam was iffy. I knew that Carolyn was not on my side. I thought that Carson and Sarah were, so in that moment, Sarah didn't have any proof on paper that she was with me. So, knowing that Carson turned on me, my head just immediately went to worst case scenario and was like, Okay, Sarah turned on me too. I never had her either.
Which of those two did you consider your ride or die, or had you not gotten to that point yet and were just content with being a trio?
We had a pretty strong trio, and the funny thing is you see in the show that Yam and Carolyn are talking about me and Sarah as this duo, and we were definitely a duo. We were very conscious of the image that we were a duo before we even became that close. We almost tried to distance ourselves and work through Carson as like a liaison. She would have time with Carson, I would have time with Carson — which obviously put Carson in a wonderful spot — because we were trying not to be seen together all the time.
We knew that no matter how close or not close we were, we were going to be grouped together. And so both Sarah and Carson were definitely close number ones. We probably didn't have a hierarchy just then and there, but I probably talked to Carson on the island more than I talked to Sarah.
Robert Voets/CBS The Tika tribe of 'Survivor 44'
Was there anyone on any of the tribes during pre-game at Ponderosa that you saw and were like, I want to work with that person?
Bruce was really high on my list. He has a great smile, just amazing vibes. He was wearing all these Celtics, Patriots, Boston-area sports shirts, and I grew up in Boston so that was a very easy way to my heart. I was really looking forward to working with Bruce. Obviously, very devastated that he went out so early in the way that he did. I think that just set the tone for how my game started — that day one we lose the marooning challenge [and] lose our strongest guy on a tribe that probably wasn't the strongest physically anyway. Not the best start to the game.
We love watching Carolyn, but we're just getting snippets. Tell me what it's like living with someone like that 24-7.
I never met anyone like Carolyn before. I don't think I ever will. She's one-in-a-million and just so genuine and unfiltered. Literally, what you see on the television is what you get. You probably get even less of the self-awareness because she was so good at playing up the fact that she didn't seem self-aware on the island. But she actually in all of her confessionals is quite aware, very strategic.
So I thought she was just such an interesting person. It made me nervous because she was someone that felt like a wild card and wasn't someone that I could necessarily count on to control or work with me the way that I wanted to work with her. She also, I don't think, ever really trusted me. It made me nervous, and I unfortunately wasn't on the same page as her or ever going to work with her in the way that we wanted to. But she's amazing and she's such good television and I wish we could have worked together. That would've been amazing.
Why didn't she trust you?
The funny thing is, I consider myself a very emotional person. And then I got to Tika beach and I realized, "Oh s---, maybe that's not the case." She and Yam were both very emotional people, and they wear their heart on the sleeves and they cried a lot over various things — emotional things, like being grateful about the ripe papaya and just being out there. And I think, almost as a counterbalance, myself and Sarah went into more rational, logical mode, and I just don't think that Carolyn loved that. I think she viewed us more as like game bots without emotion because of that. Which is funny because I think I'm such an emotional person outside of that game.
Robert Voets/CBS Helen Li on "Survivor 44'
It's all relative. You're grading on a curve here. So it turns out your entire tribe is terrible at reading body language. Who did you think had the birdcage idol?
Honestly, I wasn't sure. I thought that it might have been either Carson or Sarah because I thought that they would be savvy enough to not tell anyone and not have that get out. I also suspected Yam, just because he's really tricky and I know he was searching hard for that idol.
Tika did not sleep. We couldn't sleep, first of all, because it was sand and cold and all the elements and stuff like that. But at any point there was probably one or two of us missing, and I know people were looking for that key. It was craziness. Carolyn actually, for me, was low on my list because she did such a good job of making it seem like if she had found the idol there would be something to tip us off. She seemed so unfiltered, so genuine, so real — like, we would've heard her scream in the jungle or something like that. She was actually low on my suspicion list.
How long did it take you to solve the Savvy puzzle and how confident were you?
I think we had, like, 15 minutes. I would say we probably solved it in around six to seven minutes, and then we just quadruple-checked for the rest of the time because I was so nervous that it was going to be wrong. We were pretty sure by then, but we got it pretty quickly.
What's something that happened out there on the island that we didn't see that you wish had made it to TV?
One thing is that Tika at night — it was like the Purge. There were no laws, everything was just crazy, and a lot of the strategizing we tried to do we kind of had to just whisper at night. Sarah and I didn't have any chance to connect, since she came back to the journey at night and people were all over the place and she was like, "Hey, by the way, I lost my vote." So that was one thing.
I think a [more fun] story is that there was a press picture of myself, Carson, Carolyn, and Yam in a boat. We just decided one day "You know, let's enjoy this experience while we're out here." Carolyn really led the charge and she was like, "Let's just go out in the boat, let's push it out, let's do it." So we just like took the boat out, had a blast, pulled it back in, and had ourselves a little afternoon. That was nice.
Robert Voets/CBS The Tika tribe on 'Survivor 44'
If you could go back and make one change to anything that happened out there, what would it be?
Tell Bruce to duck his head. [Laughs] I don't know. I think that just set our game on such a different path than I had envisioned. So maybe that's one, just so he could have played with us and actually had his fair chance this time around rather than later when he definitely goes back on. That would've been one.
The second one for myself I think would be just trying a bit harder to ingratiate myself with every single person a little bit more. From the get-go, I was kind of lumped into the Sarah and Carson group and I went with that and was trying really hard to make that happen. I think my mistake was that I should have really spent a lot of time with every single person and had them want to value me as an alliance partner from much earlier on.
I mean, you were looking good at those challenges. Wish we could have seen you in a few more of those.
I would've crushed it, Dalton. Now, we'll never know.
Unless you go back.
I hope so. Bring me back! Please!
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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