Danielle DiLorenzo, 28, found herself the latest victim of Russell Hantz on last week’s SurvivorHeroes vs Villains. Come to think of it, Russell has had a hand in practically all eliminations pertaining to his Villain cast mates.
In a new interview with TVGuide, Danielle discusses Russell trying to turn her against Parvati, why she regrets her emotional breakdown at the tribal council, and what she had planned for Russell if she had stayed in the game.
Excerpts from Danielle’s interview below –
TVGuide.com: How did you feel going into your last Tribal Council? Danielle DiLorenzo: I knew Russell was trying to get me voted off at one point and so Parvati and I convinced him otherwise. At that point, he had already told Rupert and Colby to write my name down so I definitely didn’t see what happened. I just never thought that I was going to go that night. Obviously, because of what happened and how I broke down, he was really just pitting Parvati and I against each other that entire day and I just mentally couldn’t handle it. … Going into tribal council, I was a little worried but I never thought Jerri would turn on me like she did.
TVGuide.com: Why do you think Russell decided to risk his alliance with you and Parvati to break you two up? Danielle: I just think he saw how I started playing the game and he was threatened. He knew that Parvati and I had the power in our hands and after we planned to get Rupert off that night, I think he knew that he was next on the chopping block. I think by him breaking up Parvati and I gave him control of the game still. I think he was threatened by me, honestly.
TVGuide.com: Do you think about how your emotions at Tribal Council may have played a part in sending you home? Danielle: I think about it all the time. If I had just not broken down like that, I would have still been in the game. I had a really good shot. … I’m trying to move on from it and be OK with what happened. It’s who I am as a person. I dealt with Russell so much throughout the game, I aligned with him on Day One and I wanted to stay true to him because our alliance was strong, between Parvati, him and I, and I did get far in the game because of that. I don’t regret aligning with him, I just wish I had been able to hold it together. The plan was he was going next. I had had conversations with Sandra and Parvati, the three of us aligned, and we were going to get rid of him next.
Going into the last episode of Survivor, it was all but certain that Rupert and Colby from the Heroes tribe would be the ones going home, but somehow, their fellow cast mates seemed to make very stupid poor decisions, thus leading to their eliminations.
Case in point, Candice Woodcock, who for whatever reason decided to flip to the Villains side 2 weeks ago, when it was absolutely and completely unnecessary. Unfortunately for Candice, the Villains decided they could not trust her and her flippy floppy ways, so they decided to vote her off. And how amazing was Rupert’s gameplay of pretending to have an idol in his pocket?
In a new interview with TVGuide, Candice, 27, expresses regret over flipping, voting out Amanda and discuses why she joined Russell in an alliance. Excerpts from her interview below –
TVGuide.com: Did you anticipate that your switching to the Villains alliance would backfire the way that it did? Candice: I didn’t think that that was a good argument — that I would flip back, because once you’ve already betrayed a group of people, are they really going to want to take you back? But I was worried that some of the girls in the Villains tribe would be threatened by me coming over, so I just tried to keep my head down and be nice to people and just be personable. But in a game for $1 million, it’s really not about who’s nice and who you like as a person because obviously Russell is not all that cuddly and he’s there and I’m not.
TVGuide.com: Had you known your switch to the Villains side was going to backfire like this, would you have voted differently on the night Amanda went home? Candice: I knew going into it that I should not be voting for Amanda. I don’t know what got into me. I totally just messed up. I knew right afterward that it was the wrong decision to have made. I felt really bad about it. I think I just freaked out because I had been miserable the entire time with the Heroes. They didn’t want to listen to me. They didn’t want to play with me. I was just kind of there and they were tolerating me and I was just so tired of that. I just wanted to do something different, be able to talk to somebody different and have new people to maybe play with. Although I did end up getting along with Amanda in the end, I caught her lying to me that day and Sandra had been going back and forth about whether she was going to vote with the Heroes. … But, it was a mistake and I knew it right away.
TVGuide.com: Part of the reason you switched to the Villains side was because of Russell, so what are your thoughts on Russell looking back? Candice: I know that I said I didn’t trust Russell 100 percent, but that wasn’t the whole story. He did show me the idol and I didn’t tell anybody else about it because he was so aggressive. If he saw you go to talk to somebody, he’d go right up to them after that and ask, “What did you say?” So that they didn’t have time to make up a story or you didn’t have enough time to agree on the story you were going to say. It was really difficult, I felt, to get around him, so I just agreed with everything he said to his face and didn’t really go off and tell other people what he said because I knew that would be dangerous for me. I thought he would have that idol for a little bit and that that was a good piece of information for me to have because he was telling me he wanted to use that idol to vote Parvati off. I thought, OK, good, I can use that piece of information and tell Parvati and then we can vote Russell off.
TVGuide.com: Do you think you will play Survivor again? Candice: When they first asked me, I thought “No, I’m not going to do it again.” But then it just kind of kept eating away at me. So I could say no right now and if they asked me again, I would probably do the same thing and I’d have to just go and do it.
TELL US – WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON CANDICE’S DECISION TO FLIP?
Amanda Kimmelfound herself the latest victim of Russell on the last episode of Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains.
In a new interview, the 25-year-old three time player of Survivor speaks out on her catfight with Danielle, what she thinks of Candice’s flipping, and her thoughts on Russell. She also reveals she is done with Survivor for good.
Excerpts from Amanda’s interview with TV Guide is below –
TVGuide.com: As you entered that tribal council, what did you think your chances were of going home? Amanda Kimmel: I knew they were good because a lot of talk happened before the tribal council, like Russell pulled Candice aside, and then I pulled her aside after that, and then he’d pull her back and it was like a tug of war between me and Russell with Candice. I knew there were good odds that I was going to home. But I really did think that Candice was going to vote with us, just because I really tried to explain the benefit of her voting that way instead of just saying she had to save me.
TVGuide.com: Why do you think Candice flipped to Russell’s side? Amanda: I think Russell got in her head, to be honest. I think he told her he wanted to be in the final two with her or something and she bought it. Candice and I had a rough relationship at the beginning of the game. We didn’t like each other, we didn’t trust each other and then we kind of fought everything out and I thought we had a really solid bond, so I was surprised that she, even with Sandra wanting to vote with us, wanted to go with the Villains … Candice had a plan and I didn’t want to do the plan and that was another reason why that happened … I think she was nervous with all the power Russell had over people. I think she wanted to be the first one to switch over.
TVGuide.com: Obviously one of the big moments was the fight between you and Danielle for the clue. What was going through your mind at that time? Amanda: I knew that my team was going to be toast if I didn’t find that. I’ve never heard any rules over the clues, because this is really the first time they’ve done this, so I seriously thought that whoever had it, had it. Like anyone can see it, anyone can have it. I don’t know what the exact rule is, so I didn’t know that the first person is that one that has it. I thought anyone could have it. So I was like, why not just take it? If I don’t, we’re toast, and Colby’s here, so it’s two against one, so we might as well just try it. I grabbed it and I should have just ran. I wanted to run to the bathroom, lock the door, read it and get rid of it, but that didn’t happen. Colby obviously didn’t help me. He made me feel so bad about it.
TVGuide.com: How does it feel to be the first person to reach 100 days on? If they asked, would you play Survivor again? Amanda: No, my Survivor career is over. I’m really proud that I went over 100 days. I never thought I would do anything like this in my whole life … but I mean I wouldn’t come back. It takes a long time to get over. It’s hard to explain it, but it’s mentally and physically really hard on your body and I don’t want to put myself through it again.
TELL US: SHOULD COLBY HAVE BACKED AMANDA WHEN SHE TOOK THE CLUE FROM DANIELLE?
The former winner of Survivor: Tocantins found himself eliminated after making a crucial mistake in his game play – trusting Russell Hantz that is. In a new interview with RealityTVWorld, JT,25, speaks out on his elimination, his decision to trust Russell and not Sandra, and the things we didn’t get to see on TV.
Excerpts from JT’s interview below –
Reality TV World: Why were you so arrogantly confident that Russell could be trusted? [Rupert Boneham] even told you during last night’s episode that he must be on the Villains tribe for a reason. Didn’t you think it was possible he was playing you?
J.T.: Oh yeah, I definitely came off way more confident than I felt like I was. (laughing) There was a couple days we contemplated the plan. When it was all packed into one episode, it looks like we were really confident.
My first thought was the women alliance when they voted [Tyson Apostol] off. When I said that, Rupert brought it up at the next three challenges. They just picked up on that and started feeding that — played it up. But we were never really sure about Russell at all. When it first started, I was excited about it. But as soon as we spent one night together at our camp [after the merge], we knew we were in trouble and that I had made the wrong move.
But in doing that move, we wanted to do a couple things. We also knew that Russell may keep the idol for himself and vote Parvati out just to try to make me think that he’s one of us. That’s what I thought he would do. That was my thoughts, that he was going to think, “Okay, I’ll vote Parvati out to keep this idol. I’d be a step ahead of the game.” But in all honesty, I would have voted him out next. That was my thinking — worst-case scenario, he keeps the idol. Who cares? We’ll play along and let him vote Parvati out and that’s all we really wanted done anyway. There’s more than one angle to it.
Reality TV World: Did you ever start to believe that there might be some truth behind what Sandra had told Rupert about Russell? Because last night’s episode was a little unclear, but you still seemed confident that Russell was on your side even after Parvati willing stepped down during the Immunity Challenge.
J.T.: No. After Parvati stepped down we knew we were at the losing end of some deal we didn’t know about. That’s actually when I act like I’m stepping down, Parvati and [Danielle DiLorenzo], that got them really excited. I was in pain. I was like, “Oh no. They’re just waiting for me to get down.” So I knew I was in trouble.
Reality TV World: At that point did you believe Parvati and Russell were working together?
J.T.: No. I did not know that. I thought Parvati might even know more than what Russell knew. I thought she may even have something over him, which she did with the idol. But I didn’t expect that.
Reality TV World: What made the Heroes’ decide to target Jerri instead of Sandra and would you have gone after Danielle instead if she had not won Immunity?
J.T.: We probably would have went after Danielle. But we knew Russell wasn’t with her and we knew that we wanted him to vote Parvati. So we let it slip that we were voting Sandra, that way he would vote Sandra and we’d have an out if he wasn’t with us. That’s why I thought Parvati got tipped off by one of the girls because Russell fell right for it. But Parvati somehow knew we were voting Jerri. Nobody ever talked about Jerri.
Reality TV World: You already said you didn’t expect Parvati to do what she did last night, but did you really think there was any chance she would give it to someone else?
J.T.: We thought she might give it away because we were so obvious that we were voting Parvati that she probably wouldn’t believe it. So we knew there was a chance, but we thought Jerri would be the last person. We knew they didn’t get along.
Reality TV World: There’s been a lot of talk about whether it was fair or not for Russell to get to play the game without anyone having gotten to seen his season first. Do you think he would have had any chance of making it this far if you guys had all seen his Samoa season before Heroes vs. Villains was filmed?
J.T.: I think there’s arguments to both sides of that. I played Tocantins and had never seen any of them play and had done really well versus seeing a lot of different players, so it can be argued either way. Everyone knew when we were going out there that there was one person when we got there that would be from a season that we were not familiar with. None of us hesitated to play it. It’s all in the game. It makes it more difficult.
Reality TV World: Even if you did completely trust Russell, giving him a Hidden Immunity Idol without ever seeing Survivor: Samoa or spending one day with him in camp is an incredibly bold and risky move. Why did you consider his joining the Heroes at the merge such an important move, were you that certain you were going to have no chance to get someone else like maybe Sandra to flip?
J.T.: It didn’t ever really cross my mind that I could get one of the girls until afterwards. Once we merged, everyone was scared to talk to each other. It made it clear that they had a plan, and we were vice-versa. It was pretty set in stone. There was never anybody really wanting to trade except Sandra. It appears that. Unfortunately I never got a chance to talk to her.
TELL US- WHO’S THE BETTER PLAYER? PARVATI OR RUSSELL?
Russell Hantzof Survivors: Heroes vs. Villains was arrested this morning, reports TMZ.
According to TMZ, Russell was arrested in Louisiana early this morning for attacking someone at a street festival. Law enforcement sources tell TMZ Russellwas partying at the Festival International de Louisiane, when he allegedly “shoved” somebody to the pavement.
Russell, 37, was then arrested and taken to jail, but has now been released.
On the topic of Survivor, how amazing was last night’s episode? Parvati‘s move to give both of her idols to Sandra and Jerri was not only genius and entertaining, but proved to be effective as the Heroes’ JT was sent packing.
The question now however seems to be whether or not Parvati made the best move for the long term. When you think about it, Sandra isn’t exactly on her “team” or “alliance.” So why waste an idol to save her? More importantly, why not get a deal from Sandra before you decide to use your idol on her? Plus by not telling Russell about her idol, she has now somewhat alienated her strongest ally in the game.
So it seems though while a great move at the moment, it will likely hurt Parvati in the long run, and I still can’t get over just how much JT trusted Russell. Hello? The guy’s on the villain’s team JT! It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. The show’s definitely getting good.
UPDATE – Russell’s mugshot has been released, as can be seen above.
TELL US – WHAT DID YOU THINK OF PARVATI’S MOVE LAST NIGHT?
Courtney Yate’s elimination on this week’s Survivor came as no surprise, but what did come as a surprise was JT’s move to give his opponent/villain Russell Hantz his immunity idol, on his suspicion of a villain all girl alliance. Some are calling this one of the dumbest moves ever on Survivor.
In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, Courtney,29, discuses being eliminated, what she really thinks of Russell and shares her thoughts on JT’s big move.
Excerpts from Courtney’s interview below:
Let me start by asking, are you allergic to challenges? I am, in fact, allergic to challenges. It’s actually in my contract that I play the least amount of any Survivor.
I hate not seeing you flounder around with limbs flying everywhere, and then last night you finally partake in a crazy challenge, yet instead of seeing you we had to watch Colby and Russell have a chat. I know! I did a fine job during that challenge. And Amanda was proud of me and you know, you can’t catch a break. They always want to highlight me when I’m messing up, but when you do it good it’s glossed right over!
How often do you think about how different everything could have been had Tyson just not voted himself out of the game? You can’t spend your life looking backwards, and being in this community you end up seeing these people who three years later are like, “Well, at the final 7 if this person had done this…” and you’re like, “Wow, you need to move on.” It didn’t work out. I had an amazing time. I’m lucky to be on the jury. I’m honored to have been asked to be an all-star. I think it’s insane that someone thinks of lady all-stars and thinks of me! I was more disappointed for Rob and Tyson actually than for myself, because those boys were playing really well and…well, I guess I don’t feel sorry for Tyson.
I don’t think we saw you and Russell have a single one-on-one conversation the entire time you were out there. Did you have any conversations about anything — like did he ever take you aside to tell you how awesome he is? He did. Russell and I had a lot of conversations. A lot of them weren’t camera worthy because they were all about how much could he get for his autograph and how much money he could get for going to different places. And I was just looking at him going, “Russell, no one cares about your autograph! I think you have a different idea of what is going to happen.” Because he only had 10 days between the two seasons, so he’s like, “I’m Russell Hantz! I’m king of the world! I’m big!” And we were all like, “No one cares! The instant this show is off the air no one is going to know who you are! They’re going to see you in line at Burger King and go ‘Didn’t I used to work with you?’” Besides that we talked about Popeyes chicken and what we would eat in New York. Russell is fine. I think he figured out early on that he couldn’t Russell minf— me so I was just useless to him so we’re perfectly fine. I don’t have any hatred towards Russell. I think he’s a great player. He’s the evolution of what the game is. He’s redefining it around himself and everyone’s delighted with it. So how can you be mad at that?
Did you know that J.T. had given Russell the idol? I did not know. I found out after. I mean, poor kid. He did what he thought was the right thing. He didn’t know. He was making a move and trying to keep his group together and I think he knew he had a big target on his back. He made a big move trying to save himself and stay ahead of the pack. I don’t think he has it in him to be a more subtle player.
Interesting that you only lost four pounds while out there. It wasn’t very hard. There were coconuts everywhere. There were bananas for the most part. In China there was literally nothing to eat so we sat around staring at each other all day dreaming about food. Plus, once you’ve been through it you know that you can do it, so it’s not this terrifying I’m-actually-going-to-wake-up-and-be-dead-tomorrow feeling…and then they’re just going to film it.
Thoughts on last week’s Survivor – It was somewhat shocking to see JT make his “big” move by giving Russell his immunity idol. The idea behind the move itself was pretty smart but what made it stupid was the assumption made by JT. At this point in the game, JT’s an all star and has yet to see Russell’s season, therefor making him unfamiliar with Russell’s MO. He only knows Russell is a villain. For JT to completely just assume that there was an all girl alliance going on is what made the move dumb. In a game like Survivor, you can’t just make an assumption like this and run with it. You have to look at these things from all angles. He didn’t even seem to have any doubts about this move. I will say though that Russell had a big advantage going into this all star game. His season had yet to air on TV, giving him a major advantage as the other players knew nothing about his gameplay.
TELL US – WHAT WERE YOUR THOUGHTS ON JT’S MOVE? DUMBEST IN SURVIVOR HISTORY?
In perhaps what could be called karma for not helping save his alliance member Rob Mariano during the last elimination, Benjamin ‘Coach” Wade, 38, ended up being the next victim of Russell (all thanks to Sandra), when he was voted out during the last episode of Survivor.
In a new interview with PEOPLE, the first jury member discusses his surprise in what he calls a complete “blindside.” He also talks about Rob’s elimination (Coach takes zero blame for Rob going home by the way), his disdain for Russell and his feelings on Jerri today.
Excerpts from Coach’s interview below –
Did you have any inkling that you were in danger? It was a total blindside. From the first frog-marching with Colby to the last mud-diving with Rupert, my performance was consistent. Add the fact that Courtney rolled her ankle and limped off the last immunity, the fact that the tribe was starving and the morale was so low, I assumed they wouldn’t make such a preposterous choice.
The Villains started out so strong. What went wrong? Tyson was that bridge between the younger and older generations, the honorable people like myself and dishonorable people like Russell and the major egomaniacs and the sweet and humble players. When he left, it knocked us down.
Sandra seemed to play into Russell’s ego. Courtney and Sandra knew they were going home if they didn’t do something and they even seemed surprised at the turn of events. But if you throw enough mud on the wall, something will probably stick. But there is no doubt that Russell is a ferocious player. There’s a bit of bully syndrome going on. He does not play with strong players. He picks people, and it’s usually the women, that he can dominate and manipulate. And when someone disagrees with him like Danielle, he refuses to f-ing talk to them. It will become an even stupider move if they never merge.
There is some amount of blame that can be placed on you because you didn’t pick a side in the Russell versus Rob battle. If there is one person to blame for Rob going home beside himself and Russell, it’s Jerri. Everybody blamed me, but how did I betray him? Jerri was the one who said she wouldn’t vote for Russell and ripped my guts by selling Rob down the river yet she got a hug and I got called a ‘little man.’ Russell and Rob would not have made fire so the rest of us would have drawn rocks and I would have had a one-in-six chance of going home. I also tried for three days to get those two on the same page. I said, “Let’s talk. I will mediate. The three of us need to get on the same page or we will just keep losing.” Rob shot himself in the foot because he refused to meet. It was an impossible situation for me to thrust into and for me to bear the brunt of it is just another unjust [thing] against the Dragonslayer. It is my lot in life.
Speaking of Jerri, could she still be the future Mrs. Coach despite her betrayal? Or were the sparks all editing? Mrs. Coach. That’s a good one. Jerri is one of a kind, awesome. She disappointed me again and again out there but what happens in the game stays in the game because there was definitely some romantic interest. We cooled it off because we knew if we continued to be together, we’d become a big target. We’re not allowed to see each other before the finale, but I can’t wait to see her there and we will see what happens after that.
TELL US – WHAT WERE YOUR THOUGHTS ON COACH GOING HOME? AND ON THE LAST EPISODE OF SURVIVOR?
It was a great but short lived rivalry, as Boston Rob aka Rob Marianowas defeated this week by Russell Hantz inSurvivor Heroes Vs. Villains.
In a new interview with PopWatch, Rob speaks out on Tyson’sdumb move, Coach’s betrayal, and his thoughts on Russell as a player.
Excerpts from that below –
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Point blank: Did Russell outplay you? ROB MARIANO: Did Russell outplay me? It seems as if Russell got the better of me. At the end of the day, he was able to convince Jerri to vote with him and Coach didn’t stand up and do what he said he was going to do, and therefore I’m sitting here talking to you. Russell — very entertaining, I give him credit. I wouldn’t want him on my team ever! I wanted him gone from the outset. But I’m the one here talking to you, so he got me.
How much of an advantage do you think he had with no one having seen him play before? Well, it cuts both ways. He has an advantage in that people are gonna give him the benefit of the doubt. Myself, I realized that 20 seasons in, you have 10 people that are considered the most villainous to ever play the game, and here’s a guy from the most recent season, so he had to do something so outlandish to get picked over all those other contestants. So to me, it’s a no brainer. This kid, you got to keep an eye on him. And then when you look at him and he looks at you with those beady eyes and doesn’t blink, and can’t give you a straight answer — look, I played poker. I can read him. I knew he was bad for business. But at the end of the day, he got me, so I can’t give it to him too hard about it.
Coach actually appeared to take the easiest path possible in not voting for you, yet casting a vote that he knew ensured you going home. That seems like he was almost trying to not own up to his decision. I think he’s a guy that was conflicted and he didn’t have it in him to do the right thing in this situation. So, it’s bad for me because it makes me go home, but he’s the one who has to live with it. Essentially, the turning point for me was not even that, it was the week before with Tyson switching his vote. Because here it is, Dalton: You lay out a foolproof plan, it can’t fail, there’s no way anybody in our alliance goes home, there’s no way Coach or Jerri are at risk, and you go another way for what reason? It doesn’t make any sense to me. Look, Russell took a shot. It was a gamble. It was a big gamble, it paid off and it makes him look great. It doesn’t necessarily mean that his play was correct. In poker, you can do the right thing and still lose. He did the wrong thing and ended up winning and looks like a genius, but in actuality it’s not a play I will ever make myself or applaud. But having said, that I’m the one sitting here and he’s still in the game, so I can’t take that away from him.
What’s the first thing you said to Tyson when you met up with him at Ponderosa? I can’t say that. [Laughs.] Since then, we’re reconciled. For me, I just wanted to know why. It didn’t make any sense. It was the first time ever in the three times I played Survivor, even counting Marquesas when I went home — it was the first time I ever went to Tribal Council and things did not go the way I expected them to go, And to me, it was a total shock, because when I go to Tribal Council, I know what’s going to happen. The person going home is always the person I think is going home. So I wanted to know why, and to be honest, at the time, he didn’t really have an answer for me. He was basically like, “I screwed up.”
Rob also gave an interview with UsWeekly where he talks about Amber and his family. Excerpts from that below –
Us: Have you and Amber already blown through the $1 million winnings from Survivor: All Stars? Well, we paid our taxes, bought a house, put money away for our daughter and lost money in the stock market like everybody else. So yes! Us: Your five-year wedding anniversary is April 16. What have you got planned? We have a tradition of spending it at the beach. We met on a beach and got married on a beach. I just don’t know which beach we’re going to yet. But for the first time, there will be three of us.
Us: How is parenthood going? I love it. Amber loves it. Lucia turns nine months on Sunday and she’s getting big! She’s crawling and getting ready to take her first steps. She’ll go from the coffee table to the ottman but doesn’t have the courage to let go yet.
