Hunter McKnight explains why Venus 'despised' him on “Survivor 46”

"She was completely furious with me," says the ousted player.

The Hunter finally became the hunted. Hunter McKnight solidified himself as a challenge beast on Survivor 46. He dominated the team stage of the game, lifting his Nami tribe to first place in every single immunity challenge, and then won individual immunity in last week’s endurance challenge. So when the huge physical threat lost to Charlie Davis in the final round of this week’s challenge, the other players saw their opportunity and took it, sending Hunter out of the game and onto the jury.

Of course, Hunter could have saved himself even with the loss thanks to the hidden immunity idol he found while back on Nami, but his tribemates successfully convinced him that Q Burdette was actually the target, so Hunter held on to his idol and walked out of the game with it still in his pocket.

Why didn’t Hunter play his idol? Did he ever consider using it on partner Tevin Davis the Tribal before? Why were he and Venus going at each other? And what was up with that upside-down challenge hang? We asked Hunter all that and more the morning after his televised demise.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What happened? Why are you here talking to me?

HUNTER McKNIGHT: So, yeah, I did not play my idol at Tribal Council last night. Not my best moment. Going into Tribal, I was certain I was playing my idol, and a lot of people were like, “Hunter, why did you go and tell people you were going to play your idol?” The reality was there was moment after moment after moment where things kept blowing up in the game that I was trying to play — whether it was the people making choices or people saying stuff about me to cast doubt into other people's minds.

But going into that, I was playing the idol and so I said: I've got to get some momentum. I've got to get some foundation of trust with people. So I went to Q, I went to Liz, and I went to Venus, who were all on the bottom with me, but yet a couple of them I don't think realize how much they're on the bottom. And so I said: I've got to have this so I can get them on board with me to where we can have some power. And so I knew I had to tell people I had it to get people on board, especially if they split votes between me and Q. I needed at least three people, so I needed Liz and Q to vote Ben, and it showed Liz was very much out of that vote. And so going into that Tribal, my plan was to do the three votes on Ben, play my idol, and Ben would go home and we would have people going in. Well, obviously, Venus was the one who went around and told everybody.

Shocker.

Yeah, it wasn't a huge shocker, but it wasn't that bad of a thing. We saw where Tiffany talked about playing her idol and it caused people to scramble. And I said: Okay, it's going to cause people to scramble, but I'm playing my idol going in again. Kenzie came to me and told me, “The three Sigas are writing your name down." And so I told her, “That's fine. I'm playing my idol.” And so she was very honest and very candid with me. Kenzie was the one I was trying to foster a relationship with.

So what about when you got to Tribal?

So we go into Tribal, and first off, Jeff pulls out the cushion and the popcorn, and that was not in my thought of things that could possibly happen at this Tribal. And then Tiff went at Q — absolutely went at him. And what was shown was a portion of how heavily she went at him. And it wasn't a bluff. At least to me, it didn't feel like it. And I still hold to the fact that I don't think it was a bluff, and she was actually frustrated with him in the moment.

And so I started doing numbers in my head, and I said: They all know I have an idol and they all know that I'm trying to get me, Q, and Liz to vote for Ben and play my idol. And so that would make Ben go home. So Venus has gone and has spilled this whole plan to them, and they're going to do one of two things. They're either going to split four on me and two on Q, or they're going to split three each on me and Q. And Liz, even in that moment was telling me, “I can't play with Q, I have to vote Q at Tribal." And I'm like, “No, please, Q is the person we can beat at the end!”

But she was so convinced to vote Q. And so whenever I started thinking about it, I said: Okay, they're going four to two, I have to play my idol. There's no way I can change it. But Tiffany was the one I wasn't sure about, and she was so gung-ho about how mad she was at him. And so I took the gamble and I said: If they're voting three-three, and if Q writes my name down, that's four-three, but if me and Liz vote for Q, then I'm going to make it through with my idol. And so that was the gamble that was going on in my head.

What was going on with all the Q questions you were asking at Tribal?

When I'm constantly asking people, I'm trying to read: Is this person telling the truth? I knew Charlie was lying because Charlie had done the same thing whenever he was talking to me and Tevin about voting for Venus. I knew he was bluffing and lying, but Tiffany was the one I was trying to read, and Venus. And there was actually one moment where I looked at Kenzie and Venus and I said, “If everyone wants Q to go home, why do we even have to go up to the voting box? Why don't we just do the ‘Jeff, we're all voting Q.’”

And I should have known when Venus was like, “No, we're voting. We're writing his name down.” It was just all a blur. But that was the gamble that I took. I said: If they're going three-three — because I feel like they are because Tiffany is after Q — then I'm going to be able to slip through here with my idol. Because if they went three-three and I played my idol, then Q still goes home. Anyways, that was a bad read on my part for Tiffany. Tiffany was the only one I misread. The rest, I knew where they were going.

You looked super bummed after being voted out, which is what I, as a viewer, want to see. I want to see the realness. I want to see that it matters. So, what was it like for you after you walked off that Tribal Council set. How were you feeling and what was going through your mind?

It is just a blur. Most of that Tribal Council was such a blur for me. There was two times I was vulnerable in the game and both times I got votes, and it's just like this really UGH feeling in your stomach. But whenever I saw the fourth vote, that's when I was like: Oh, it's locked in now. Definitely. That's how it's going. What was worse was they had to go and revote! And I was like: I got to sit here and just wait for my doom. I know what's happening now. I know what's about to come. I tried to turn and talk to Tiffany and she's like, “We can't talk right now.” And I was like: Oh, well, I am alone. This is the end, and it's coming.

And so, it was just sad. It was all a blur. And I was like, let me go get my stuff. And they all want to be like, “We love you. You're so great. You're such a good person. You played such a great game.” And you're like: That feels so insincere to me right now. It's kind of hard to hear that after you just voted me out. But it is what it is.

The upside-down hang after winning the pole endurance challenge? Did you regret that about 30 seconds after you did it?

People are like, “He's so arrogant. Why would he do that?” I love these games. I love these challenges. That was something where I was like: I wonder if this would work. I wonder if this flipping back that would be a thing. It wasn't me trying to showboat. It wasn't me trying to be impressive, but I just wanted to see if it would work. Surprisingly, it works really well. So if anyone has that challenge in the future, it locked my legs in place.

The reason I popped back up so fast was because Jeff started yelling and ran over there. I thought I was getting in trouble. I was like: Oh, was I not supposed to do that? So I hopped back up and came back down. But yeah, I did not realize the level to which everyone thought I was showboating because in my head I was not trying to brag or do whatever, but maybe I shouldn't have done that.

And then what they didn't show in this most recent challenge was when I was helping Charlie and standing behind and feeding him ropes, I get back to camp and I was like: Hunter, you've got to stop. You've got to stop going over and beyond in all these challenges because it's just making it harder and harder for you and making people want to work with you less and less. And so that was a lesson I was telling myself. But I love the challenges so much. I love getting to play them. They're just like games from when I was a kid. And that is a flaw in my game. One of many.

Ever consider telling Tevin he was the target last week so he could play his Shot in the Dark, or using your idol to save him?

Again, this goes back to the fact that Q did a lot of damage in the relationships that I was forming. It didn't show it, but going back to the Tim vote, I was locked in with Yanu and Q. After Q got mad that Tiffany and Kenzie were talking to Ben too much — heaven forbid they talk! — he came to me and told me Tiffany was after me. It wasn't true, but of course Q was the one I was closest with, and so the bridge to Yanu was burned.

So now I've got to try to bridge over to Charlie and Maria. When I approached Charlie and Maria, I'm trying to foster a relationship there. And so when I find out that the vote's going this way, I want to respect the fact that they are making choices here without blowing up my own game, right? Tevin is a great player in this game and would beat me in the end. To what extent should I destroy my own game to save Tevin, who would beat me in the end? I was trying to foster this relationship with Maria and Charlie and tell them, “I'm willing to play with y'all, and I'm not even going to tell the person who is my closest ally because I'm so willing to play with y'all.”

Because the Yanu bridge was burned. It didn't show, but Q also went and told Tiffany that the whole Tiffany vote was my idea and told Tiffany that I was the one who told everybody about the idol. And so Tiffany was done with me. And obviously you had Venus, who despised me, and then you had Liz who was making moves against a group that we had been forming for a while. And so my only hope now was to try to get in good with Charlie and Maria.

Let’s talk about Venus. She came at you pretty directly, you told her she was always mad, she didn’t appreciate that. How would you describe your dynamic together?

I've never spoken an ill word about Venus in any of my confessionals. They didn't show it because it wasn't there. Venus, I think, read me wrong. Obviously, I'm not a huge social person. I'm not someone who's just always chatty and things like that. And so she saw that as being stonewalled. We had multiple conversations before we merged and talked about wanting to work together and wanting to have, not an alliance, but trying to find a way that we can work together. And I told her, “Look, Venus, I am not going to be someone before we go to Tribal to start being like, “Hey, this is who I want to vote out.” Because it just causes divisions, it causes splits when you see it.

And so she considered that stonewalling. But the thing about me is I want to connect with you in other ways. I love camp life, I love doing things like that. Me and Soda connected a lot with doing things like that. Me and Tevin connected. Tevin and Liz had a connection about the shelter alliance because we all spent so much time working on it. But Venus was always gone, and the only time she wanted to talk was like, “All right, right now we have to talk strategy.” And because I wasn't someone who was just going to throw a strategy out there, I think it rubbed her the wrong way.

But when we get to mergatory, I'm the one that went to bat for Venus to keep her in the game because they wanted to vote Venus after she went crazy. And I was like “Venus, you've got to calm down because they're trying to vote you out.” You can see where I was pushing, “It's got to be a Siga.” And she even came to me with the Tevin vote. She knew they were voting Tevin, but she wouldn't tell me who it was. I said, “Venus, I can't tell you who it is” — because she would very quickly go and tell the people everything that's happening.

I was like, “It's not you,” because that's when it was Tiffany. But she was like, “Well, Hunter, it's not who you think it is.” I was like, “Well, then who is it?” She's like, “I won't tell you until you tell me.” I said “Just know it is not a Nami. I am keeping Nami as best I can.” And so she considered it stonewalling.

And so she was pretty frustrated, but I had nothing against Venus. It was very much a little sister, big brother relationship. She would always pick at me during challenges about how she was going to beat me or how she did do better in them than me. And it was just that kind of relationship that the war — I felt like was just pretty one-sided until whenever I put those votes on Venus. I knew Venus wasn't in a good alliance with people. And so the easiest person to vote for was Venus ,and I could go and do damage control. But it didn't work because she was completely furious with me and thought I was trying to make a big move against her, but it's what it is.

What’s something that happened out there on the island that never made it to TV that you wish we had a chance to see?

Probably how much time I spent with Kenzie, and how much I was working my game with her. The moment Siga showed up on the beach, I knew Siga could not be trusted. It's like, Tim doesn't want to do this thing and Maria's kind of out of the loop. I wanted to do Yanu three with me, Liz and Tevin. So I spent a ton of time solely with Kenzie. We were out picking flowers at the Siga beach. I showed her my secret room that never made the edit at the Nami beach. We spent time picking up shells. We talked about family history. I spent a lot of time trying to build a relationship with Kenzie and felt pretty good about it, except the fact that whenever Q went and told Tiffany that I was the one trying to get her out, that's also betraying Kenzie. And so it created a rift that wasn't going to work. But we spent a lot of time hanging out.

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