‘Survivor 50’: Kamilla Reveals Fiery Unseen Exit Confessional That Slammed Pregaming

Kamilla Karthigesu wants Tiff Ervin to “blow up” the three-person alliance that got her eliminated from Survivor 50, not only because they voted her out, but also because she alleges they pregamed together before arriving in Fiji.

Kamilla, originally from Season 48, was one of three players voted out in the Blood Moon triple elimination in Episode 6, which was the first time there were three tribal councils and three eliminations in one episode. The other two players voted out were Genevieve Mushaluk and Colby Donaldson.

Kamilla and Tiff were in an alliance with Dee Valladares on Kalo, and they thought Jonathan Young (also from their original tribe, along with Chrissy Hofbeck) would vote with them to send Chrissy home in the episode that aired on April 1. But Chrissy and the immune Stephenie LaGrossa Kendrick swayed Jonathan to their side, and he blindsided Kamilla with the two women from the old era of the game.

“Bro, drag that man through the mud,” Kamilla told Tiff as she prepared to leave the game. Here, Kamilla explains her pregaming accusations and more.

“Bro, drag that man through the mud.” The floor is yours. Why did you say that about Jonathan, and what did you feel?

Kamilla Karthigesu: So, I just wanted to say that the reactions were reversed. The one where I said, “Bro,” that was the reaction to the second vote, and the one where I had my head [down], that was the reaction to the final vote. I was like, “Don’t blow up, don’t put Tiff in a bad position with whatever I’m about to say,” but basically, Jonathan, sticking with his new alliance partner in Steph, and going with Chrissy, basically in my head, confirmed a very openly talked about thing throughout the game, which was this pregame alliance.

There are rumors that the three of them were in a pregame alliance together. And once that vote was read, I was like, “Oh, that confirms everything we’ve been hearing.” So, I basically was trying to tell Tiff, “Blow up the pregame alliance, just call it out,” but I didn’t want to specifically call out the pregame alliance, because then that puts a massive target on Tiff’s back, from whoever is in that pregame alliance, and I didn’t want to ruin her game.

Do you think she got the message?

I think so. I hope so. I have no idea what happens next.

When you were heading into tribal council, did you feel that any votes were going against you? How shocked were you by this result?

I knew Chrissy’s vote was gonna go against me, and then, actually, this is something we didn’t see on TV: When I was talking to Steph about who to vote out, I was like, “Listen, me and you have only had one conversation prior to this split. If you don’t trust me, let’s do a Shot in the Dark exchange. I’ll give you yours, so you know I’m not playing mine, and then I’ll take yours, so I know you’re not writing my name down.”

This was all, you know, based off of the fact that Steph doesn’t know that it doesn’t matter whose Shot in the Dark it is, you can just play it. I worded it that way, and Steph had exchanged Shot in the Dark with me, so I thought, “OK, she’s not gonna send her own Shot in the Dark home,” so when I saw the second name written down, I knew I was done, because I knew [those three] were voting together.

The story going into it was, “Everyone tell Chrissy it’s Kamilla, but we’re really gonna write down Chrissy.” And then, when I saw the second one, I was like, “Oh, it’s over.”

That Shot in the Dark swap would have been fun to see.

Yeah, but I mean, what was it, a 2-hour episode? And we had Exile Island, we had three tribal councils, we had a challenge, we had Applebee’s. It’s so hard to cram everything in. I get it.

The edit this season has been talked about a lot, though, so I wonder what conversations have been like between you and your castmates watching this season as it comes out.

Yeah, I mean, honestly, I was just like, up until this episode, how does Tiff have less confessionals than Zac Brown? I thought that was crazy. We all thought that it was honestly sad. I was like, “Did Tiff do something to piss off production?” I have no idea. But after the last episode, I was like, “OK, cool. We got to see more from the woman.” I don’t really care about my edit because I wasn’t really relevant to the main story or whatever. I went out early, so I was fine with that. But I do wonder if they regret putting 24 of us in one season, because it really is hard to show everything.

Twenty-four players in a 26-day game, 13-episode season is pretty tricky.

Yeah, that is not easy for them, so I get it.

It was a very woman-heavy episode, this “Blood Moon.” Lots of really fun confessionals. You finally saw some of the bite from the women, which I enjoyed.

Yeah, like from Chrissy!

It was really fun to see. Unfortunately, it got you out, but it was like it was good TV.

Yeah!

You said in your exit interview, right at the end of the episode, “It was nice to be played.” Do you still feel that way?

Let me tell you, Kelli, that came out of my mouth out of like 5 minutes of the producer trying to pull something positive out of me because I was not saying anything positive at all.

Really?

Not at all.

Tell me about those 5 minutes before then.

I did not have a graceful exit, and I have no problem looking back and being like, “Yeah, I said that. Kind of embarrassing.” I said, “Imagine being so bad at Survivor that you had to hop on a call with a bunch of other players who are also bad at Survivor, because none of you guys believe in your own skills to take you far in the game.” That is what I had said, because the pre-gaming consumed me once my torch was snuffed.

And then they were like, “Come on, anything good, though? Were you happy with your time?” I’m like, “I wasn’t here long enough for anything to change.” Then they had to keep pulling and pulling. I was like, “I guess it was cool to get played,” because honestly, I didn’t see it coming. I was shocked. My jaw literally dropped. That was kind of fun, having my jaw dropped. My jaw didn’t drop much in 48, I will say. And so to have my jaw drop on 50, it was fun.

What other strategy talks did you have in this episode that didn’t get shown?

Shot in the Dark swap with Steph. That was pretty much it, honestly. I was pushing Chrissy because Steph had told me, “You know, she really likes Jonathan, really likes Tiff.” But now, in hindsight, my only option for survival was to throw Tiff under the bus, but I didn’t have it in me. I talk about how I hate honor and integrity, but I actually am a loyal Survivor player. I like Tiff. I don’t wanna do that. It ruins my game, the next vote.

Is there anything else earlier in the season that you really wish had been shown?

Yeah, so when we sent Charlie [Davis] home, I didn’t want to send Charlie home. I also wasn’t the swing vote. I was trying to get rid of Jonathan that night. I told everyone, “We’re swapping tomorrow,” because Rizo [Velovic] told us there were two swaps on his season, so I’m like, “There’s gonna be two swaps on ours.” Nobody believed me. They all said we need Jonathan for the next challenge, and so that’s why he’s still there.

Interesting. Can you give a sense of what it was like at camp before tribal council, because it seemed like you and Tiff seemed kind of confident heading into it?

For me, I was stressed because I told Steph, “Go talk to other people. If you don’t want to do the Dhot in the Dark trade, we don’t have to do it.” And so she was like, “Yeah, I’ll go talk to people.” As soon as she was done talking to everyone, she comes over, we exchange Shot in the Darks, and then they say, “Everyone quiet, we’re going to tribal council now.” There was no opportunity to strategize at all. I was just waiting, waiting, waiting to receive this Shot in the Dark from her the whole time.

In preseason interviews, you said you were really looking forward to working with Coach. Once you got put on the same tribe, how did you feel?

It’s great. We were talking strategy while we were out there. He was just so entertaining. I was asking him a lot about his life. I wanted to hear all the stories about his journey through the Amazon, about how he is now the maestro leader of the Susanville Symphony. I want to hear everything. He’s great.

Were there any other players you became close with that we didn’t see?

I’d say Mike [White] and Charlie, and then, to a certain point, I’m like, “Charlie, I don’t know, man, Charlie is not working.”

Chrissy was telling me a lot about how she wants to get out, Dee and Tiff. Mike, I actually was surprisingly close with. He told me a lot of things that the other people on Kalo were comfortable enough to tell him that they didn’t want to tell us. He told me that Chrissy was calling me the “mole” on our tribe, and how I was working with everyone, but I think everyone was working with everyone.

I didn’t know that Tiff and Dee really, really wanted to play with me until a couple of days in. I thought they were going to draw me in and use me, but it turns out we actually did want to play together.

Tell me more about that alliance, because I’ve got to say, that was an unexpected trio for me. I don’t know why I never thought that could work really well, and then I saw you three talk, and I was like, “Oh, wait, yeah!”

I went into this, and I saw like all the pairs and stuff, and I’m like, “Maybe me and Charlie or maybe me and Chrissy.” And then for them [Tiff and Dee] to welcome me with open arms, I’m like, “Oh my God, the cool girls want to talk to me.”

We were talking to Mike and Charlie a lot. The five of us were having a lot of conversations, but also me and Tiff were having a lot of conversations with Coach as well. Coach was sharing a lot with us. Coach wanted Dee out. A lot of people wanted Dee out…but I think the consensus would have eventually [lain] on Chrissy because more people wanted Chrissy out. A lot of strategy was happening on that early tribe. It just doesn’t pan out because none of us went to tribal council.

Why did people want Chrissy out more than Dee?

I would say each season of Survivor may have its own culture, right? Maybe on the season Chrissy played [Season 35], whenever people would go off and talk to each other, everyone had to be like, “Look at those two, they’re going off and talking to each other.” And so Chrissy was doing that on our starting tribe. Every single time anyone went off to talk on their own, she’d be like, “Those two just went off together.” Or if someone was not sitting around a camp, [she would say] “Where’s so and so?” That honestly got kind of annoying, because no one else would bring it up.

We’re all playing Survivor, everyone’s allowed to go off and talk to whoever they want to. I don’t like announcing it every time it happens; it just feels so weird. So, there’s a bit of that, and Chrissy had said, according to Mike, that the new-era people want to get the old-era people out because they’re insecure about their 26-day game versus the 39-day game, and I was like, bro…

You don’t think that’s true?

I’m not thinking about that! I want to work with the old-school people. I wanted a mix. I didn’t want this to be some boring old era versus new era. That’s not fun television. I wanted a mix. I don’t know about the other new-era people.

You were there with Joe Hunter and Kyle Fraser from your season, and you had said in preseason press that if you knew Kyle would be there, you would have said no. Was that true?

No way anyone’s going to turn down 50. That was me trying to be funny, but Reddit took it very seriously and thought I was so entitled when I said Jeff [Probst] needed to disclose this to me. Reddit needs to go literally touch grass. Stop. I don’t understand. They’re crazy.

It would be understandable if you didn’t want to play with Kyle just because of the circumstances of your season having just aired, and you two went to the end.

Yes, I was like, “Oh, it’s gonna make my return a lot harder.” If I was so focused on being the star player, someone who runs the season, yeah, I would have wanted my own season to myself, but no, I just want to play Survivor. I don’t care who’s playing there, I don’t care how hard it is. If I [were] stuck with honor and integrity again, like if I had to repeat 48, I would do it. It was fun. Some times weren’t fun, but just playing Survivor is so fun, and you don’t get to do that anywhere else.

You cried when you found out that Kyle was eliminated due to injury. Tell me more about what you were feeling in that moment.

I don’t know anything about sports injuries, so I didn’t know how serious this was. I was just very concerned for his health, and I was concerned for his wife. And then also there’s a part of me where it’s like, I look around at everyone, and people have met each other before. People are friendly or friends with each other. I didn’t have that aside from Kyle and Joe, and with Kyle going, I’m like, “Well, I’ve got no friends here.”

When you have pre-existing relationships outside of the game, and you bring them in, you feel like there’s some amount of base-level trust or understanding, but I didn’t have that with anyone with Kyle being gone. And so that sucked. It made me feel a little lonely as well.

Do you think you have another season in you?

Initially, I was like, “No, I’m never gonna come back,” because I was totally oblivious to all the pre-gaming that goes in. And so, when my vote-out happens, I was like, “I’m never gonna do it.” But then, once I saw that, no one gets penalized for this, and production really doesn’t actually care. I’ll do it again. If anyone watching this ends up on another season of Survivor, slide into my DMs. We’ll make an alliance. We’ll name our operation, call it Saxon or something. Who knows?

Survivor 50, Wednesdays, 8/7c, CBS