‘Survivor 51’s Brady Booker Reveals What Was Whispered During Live Tribal Council

Professional wrestler Brady Booker is one of Survivor 51‘s more memorable personalities. His high-energy, high-intensity persona, which befits his job in the real world, didn’t translate well with some of his cast mates in the CBS reality competition show. In Survivor 51 Episode 7, which aired on November 4, Jelly Loblack called his behavior “toxic” and Maggie Nestor said that his personality was a lot to handle. And when this style of gameplay got caught in the crosshairs of the camp chaos that ensued after Mike Pinsky won individual immunity, it became the perfect storm to vote Brady out.

Brady and Eric Macksoud, another big personality of the season that players called annoying, were the main targets heading into tribal council. Mike was the prime target, but with the immunity necklace around his neck, everyone had to pivot. Brady looped Mike into a plan to vote out Kristin Flickinger. Kristin, one of the few contestants who wanted Brady to stay, told Brady that she knew about the plan and found out from Mike. Brady confronted Mike, making for a very awkward conversation. Heading into tribal council, there were factions voting for Eric and for Brady. Jelly was instrumental in swinging the vote onto Brady during a live tribal. She told the cameras in a confessional interview that the idea of making it farther in the game than Brady was a pleasing idea.

In the end, Eric and Brady had an equal number of votes for the first eight votes read, and then Brady was blindsided when the tally started tipping his way, making him the first member of the jury. The player who always had something to say exited the game without saying a word.

Here, Brady tells TV Insider why, revealing what was whispered to him during the live tribal that made him think he had a chance at staying. He also addresses the comments about him being “toxic” and “abrasive” and how watching Survivor 51 made him realize that the ordeal with Patt Cannaday and Danny Kilby left him without a true number one ally, despite thinking before this that Devin Way was on his side. Plus, Brady gives an update on how he and production kept his severed thumb injury free of infection.

How was it watching the episode last night?

Brady Booker: It was, especially with how the episode started and then we got into the… challenge for the feast, that was a lot of fun. And the fact that last night’s episode fell on a big watch party that we were having over here was almost like divine intervention, how the scheduling matched up.

Last night was, although it was tough at times, a lot of fun emotions, a lot of emotions period, but to have all that support from legends like Jonathan [Young], Tina [Wesson], all the Brodies were out there. We have Brodies from Season 9. We had Traitors [players] from Season 1 out there. And for people to get behind me and tell me how much they enjoyed me and for people to react the way that they did, I couldn’t be happier with all the love and support that I’ve gotten. And then even not the love and support, all the excitement that people got, maybe they wanted Big Brody out. All those reactions that I elicit are what I wanted. You know what I mean?

I’m a personality. That’s what I do for a living. I want to be on that national stage and my job is to elicit reactions, so I feel like I did that. I never want anybody in the middle. I’m either a love or hate guy, so I’m glad that a lot of people picked.

I want to ask about your thumb. How is it? I’m assuming the skin and nail grew back. Did it just stay bandaged?

[Gives two thumbs up to the camera. The formerly injured thumb is fully healed.]

OK, yeah. Two thumbs way, way up. So, production just kept an eye on it?

Yeah, I’d get my dressing changed after challenges and usually right before evening started, so I’d just get my bandage changed a couple times, changed out the ointment. And then when I’m in the ocean showering and whatnot, thumb’s above my head and doing all the right things. But that guy never didn’t have a heartbeat out there. And the thing that people don’t understand is, once we got back from that challenge and I was grabbing the rope and everything, I still had to get to work. I still had to cut the coconuts. I still had to cut the wood. I still had to go get things, so I was still moving and grooving, bumping it off stuff and whatnot, but it was all mind over matter at that time.

When it happened, I’ve dealt with enough adversity in my life where I felt this adversity in a moment like this, bring it on. Let’s find out how tough you really are if you want to act all big and tough, Brady. It was fun to be able to test myself that way.

Shout out to Kristin [Flickinger]. I think it’s a shoutout to our season [that we had] some badass players. We had two serious injuries where it was talked about for one day and never talked about again because it wasn’t an issue, because we didn’t let it become an issue, because we didn’t let it become a storyline, because we were out there to play the game and be ourselves. And I mean, hell, look at her balance on that foot and whatnot. Kristin, absolute badass.

Her foot was broken right?

Yeah, it was black and blue. Black and blue. Broken.

Wow. And then production made you the idol-looking necklace for your chopped-off chunk of thumb?

The thing is they asked me if I wanted it, and it turns out you can’t just bring human flesh in a Ziploc across international borders, so they ended up putting it in some resin, making a little Brody Idol, little Survivor relic for me. I even got a clasp on it now. I’ve got myself a one-of-a-kind souvenir.

To talk about your elimination, you didn’t say a word when you left as your torch got snuffed and you walked out. What were you thinking in that moment?

I remember saying to myself as I think vote five or six came out, “The Brodies flipped.” That’s the only thing I got out I remember. Jeff talks about it before we even start the game that when you get voted out, it’s a big thing. And especially for me, when I do something, a lot of times, Brody, if I don’t care, I ain’t going to give one heck. You ain’t going to get a reaction out of me. You ain’t going to get nothing, but when I do care, I’m all or nothing, Brody. And I was all in on Survivor, passionate, pushing it, giving my all. Sometimes you saw that, and sometimes it looks good, sometimes it looks a little scary, but it’s all in the heat of competition, just trying to do the best I can.

I come from a world that’s been very intense. Having that linebacker coach, he’s motherf-ing me when I’m missing run fits, but I know he loves me at the end of the day. Everyone’s yelling, so I’m just used to that environment in such intense competition to where some of these Brodies aren’t, and I scared them away a little bit. When I got voted out, Jeff talks about it being like a flash bang. It was like my soul left my body, and I was just watching myself move, and I was just taking it all in for that last time.

You get used to everything in Survivor except Jeff. He’s the most captivating professional. I don’t know how they’ll ever replace him. They talk about, “Oh, there might’ve been [a potential replacement for Probst] on this season.” I didn’t meet him, Brody. Jeff Probst is the number one professional. He never took a second take. He never says “um.” He never has grammatical pauses. He’s just rolling through, and he’s cool as a cucumber all in between and can turn it on. To be able to have his face right up [in front of him as his torch got snuffed], just a breath and it’s over. All the stress, all the excitement, it just falls off your shoulders, and you just soullessly walk out. It’s like an out-of-body experience, Brody.

It sounds like you were in shock and your brain was like, “We’re not going to process this right now.”

You have that moment where it’s like, do I stand up and blow up everybody’s game because I was lucky I had a lot of information, but it was just like, no, you’re done. And it’s just as much fun and as traumatic as that could be, as much as people want to judge the way I play, that’s the way I play.

You don’t got to play like me. Shout out Michael Jordan. Some people called him a tyrant, but he played to win, and that’s what I was doing. If you don’t want to play like me, don’t play like me, but I believe that when you’re out, man, you’re done with the game and let the game play out. So, I let them sit with the game that they made.

You were working with Kilby in this episode after having some drama with him previously. What was the state of your relationship in this episode, and did he have any idea that the votes were going towards you? Because he was going for Eric at first.

Yeah, no, Kilby was definitely on my side. When he ended up writing my name down, it was for him to save himself with the tribe going back, of course. How does he explain that to Eric about writing his name down after Eric already doesn’t trust him? So, he’s trying to fix what he couldn’t fix at tribal, as you could see him walking around trying to help me out there.

Kilby, we had a conversation on the beach after I voted for him, and we squared up. Patt, Jelly, Dev, they were filling my head that whole time with that little Toka Five we had going about how “Kilby’s bad.” And me and Kilby had a little thing on the side where Dev was my outward number one, and Kilby was my secret number one. And then, with them filling me with these for three days that he’s talking bad about me, and then that controller comment came up where I’m like, “OK, Patt ain’t coming up with that.” [In Episode 3, Kilby told Patt that playing with Brady was like playing video games with your little brother but his controller isn’t plugged in.]

He did say that.

Yeah. And that’s where it kind of stole me over to there. When Kilby explained it to me, he put his foot in his mouth. He was trying to see where he was at with Patt, and he thought, because she was dogging on me before he even said that, of course. So, he was just trying to see where he could be to probably give me information.

He didn’t mean it like that, shout out, but it did throw a wrench in the game and I would say it threw a wrench in the game for me the rest of the time because I didn’t know who I was actually close with and who I was really playing with. Because truly, after watching, I didn’t really have a number one. I didn’t have anybody that needed me out there.

Yeah, I wondered about Devin because you guys started the game pretty close. I wonder what the state of your alliance was in this episode, because you had been on separate tribes for a couple episodes?

Yeah, but every time we saw each other, I was always yelling stuff. I thought with so much personal stuff that we shared and me really opening up…. Dev’s very open, Dev’s very emotional, and so am I, but I’m just emotional and passionate in a different way, so for me to get on his level and open up with him, I though we might have built something there. In reality, Jelly, Dev, we were having conversations. I thought we were working hard together at the beginning, when in reality, I mean, you see from Jelly, from the first episode, she was never working with me.

For her to be excited to get me out, that was kind of her vendetta the whole time. She talked about voting me out the first day, and Dev, after everything, turned into her number one, like, “Yes, I’ll follow the rules.” He didn’t even need much convincing, so I think he was just using me in the end. He was never really working with me. They had their alliance from the first beach that they prioritized over everything, which shows. And when you got five people in a game of 21, shoot, if you have three people, you’re going to be pretty tough. Five people is darn near unbeatable. And now, I mean, they only have three, but three out of 12 is still a great percentage.

There were people, such as Jelly and Maggie, calling you things like toxic and saying you had an abrasive personality. And then you see in this episode that there was a campaign against you. I noticed that you were twiddling around with your Shot in the Dark in tribal. Why didn’t you play it, and what were you hearing during the live tribal that made you confident not to play it and that you might be OK?

I can’t say I was ever confident not to play it. It was just kind of like 50-50, let’s see where the cards fall. In reality, it turned out I just wanted to have a dog in the fight. I didn’t want to go down on a ship that I wasn’t even swinging a sword for, so I felt like it’s not a cop out because I really do like the Shot in the Dark for the opportunity when you really have no other way, but I felt like I still might have had a way and still might have needed the vote.

People were confirming with me that the plan was still on [during the live tribal], so I just felt like I had to trust and had a little moment with Kristin where I was talking to her and felt like if she could trust me through that whole debacle with Mike, that would be something I could really base off because I really like Kristin and think she’s the most well-prepared person for the game I’ve ever seen in my entire life. If anybody intimidated me out there, it was that woman. How cool she is under pressure, how she gets it done, her hurt foot didn’t affect her as well. I admire Kristin’s way that she plays Survivor.

Now, I think that Kristin may get hurt by her big heart, sharing information with Sharonda instead of keeping it for herself and stuff. I wish she was a little bit more selfish, but yeah, no, huge fan of her, so I thought maybe if I could have her on my side, it would keep things going for the better, but it’s just not how the cards fell, Brody. I got Survivor-ed.

I was playing on borrowed time with this personality. Totally understandably. You got Jelly and Maggie making those comments. I understand how it can be taken that way, but I like to think with all the support and love and the people who have watched me, I think we understand that I’m a big golden retriever. I’mma bark, I’mma move around. I might scare that little kid, but, dog, you hold that treat out. I’m right there for you, Brody.

Survivor, Wednesdays, 8/7c, CBS