In what is being described as the first blindside of the season, Cirie Fields was surprisingly voted out of her Survivor tribe when her fellow alliance member J.T. flipped sides.

Most people seem to think this was both a smart and brave move on JT’s part, but how does the proclaimed “puppet master” feel about being ousted? In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, Cirie opens up on her feelings on being voted out, on whether the show host Jeff Probst influences voting, and what she would have done differently. Some excepts are below –

I want to start where it all ended for you: Tribal Council. Were you cringing the entire time Probst went on an on about the idiocy of voting off strong players?
Oh my God! Was I?!? I try not to react when Jeff makes his comments because everyone’s watching, everyone’s listening, and I don’t want to influence any vote one way or the other. And I’m trying to not let what he says influence the votes one way or the other — but absolutely! We sit on these little tree stumps. After Tribal was over when I got up I don’t know if you saw that toothpick fall from right under, but I literally was clenching my behind the whole time, like, “Please, Jeff, just move on to something else!” He was going exactly against why I was telling them we should vote out Tom, so yeah, that was a real clencher for me.

Did you know it was J.T. that voted you off?
No, I wasn’t sure who it was. I felt like Rupert, Amanda, and James were pretty much going to stick to the plan, but you never know. I couldn’t tell. I knew Tom was talking to J.T. a lot and I never trusted J.T. I always said to Amanda, “Are you sure about J.T.?” because I could see J.T. playing. So it was hard for me to figure out which one flipped, but I wasn’t really that surprised.

You take a pretty clinical, strategic viewpoint of everything. So how did you feel about how personal James was getting with Stephenie at that Tribal?
Oh, boy. I like both of them and I even said to James after that Tribal was over, “Was it necessary?” I know this game gets your blood boiling and I know everyone is there to try to win, but I think James’ lack of ability to articulate how he feels made him come across more brutal than was necessary. James will be the first to admit he doesn’t do the social thing, and not having experience in the social aspect and being able to speak to people and get your point across without coming off like a brute, I think kind of hurt him.

You’ve had some time now to sit back and replay everything. If you could jump in Mark Burnett’s magic Survivor time machine and go back and change one thing about how you played, what would it be?
I think I would have tried to spend more time with J.T. and make him feel comfortable and convince him that he wouldn’t’ have been my target later on.

TELL US – WHAT WERE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE LATEST SURVIVOR EPISODE? DID JT DO THE RIGHT THING BY JOINING FORCES WITH TOM AND COLBY? IS RUSSELL PLAYING SMARTLY?