After the biggest Survivor: Brains V Brawn blindside to date, Joey McCann says he’s licking his wounds and eating a big slice of “humble pie”.
The marathon runner was riding high at the top of the Brains tribe hierarchy when Hayley hatched a plot to see him booted out.
She convinced four other members of the Brains tribe to vote against him at tribal council, all while Joey thought he was safe.
Joey was eliminated in the biggest blindside of the season.
(Credit: Ten)The shock on his face when host Jonathan LaPaglia announced Joey was going home said it all, and now Joey confirms.
“Let me tell you, I had no inkling,” he tells TV WEEK.
“I got taken out by a sniper on a grassy knoll… that smiling assassin just so happened to be Hayley, and she played me like a fiddle.”
Though he says it was a bit “tear-jerking” to watch his elimination back, Joey admits seeing Hayley’s plan come together was “beautiful”.
He had to respect her sneaky move, even though he was left feeling completely shocked and betrayed.
“I was frustrated at myself for not seeing it coming,” he admits.
Joey also confesses that he’s taken a bit of a liking to the “bright lights and cameras” that followed him on Survivor.
“If there’s any Aussies out there and they need a stand-in star, maybe Joey McCann could be the man. Call me Mr Showbiz!”
And yes, he’s more than happy to return to the show for a future season if the opportunity arises.
“Give me a shot on All Stars and I will light that screen up baby! And I’ll go all the way next time.”
Before he was eliminated, Joey and his alliance were gunning for George, who they had been trying to remove from the tribe for some time.
Now he says that George is starting to pull through as a real contender on the show after managing to stay in the game so long.
“George is like a heat seeking [immunity] idol missile! He always finds a way to stay in the game,” Joey says.
Though he had hoped to get George eliminated, Joey says that he actually found the political operative pretty entertaining during filming.
George butted heads with several other members of the Brains tribe, but Joey says he didn’t have any major confrontations with the Bankstown local.
“I spent quite a lot of my time at the camp laughing at some of his antics, but he did cause a lot of division in the group,” Joey explains.
“He’s a guy playing with his heart on his sleeve and I think there’s a lot of passion there, which sometimes boils out to almost personal attacks.”
Joey adds that the intense emotions we see at challenges and tribal councils are only heightened by the environment. Literally.
Filmed in Cloncurry, far north Queensland, everything from the weather to the local creepy crawlies put added pressure on contestants.
“We definitely saw our fair share of snakes out there, in every sense of the word. The players and the ones slithering on the ground!” Joey says.
“It was scorching days and freezing nights. Some of those challenges, there’s nowhere to hide from the sun.”
That was especially true in the final reward challenge Joey participated in, where each player had to hoist a barrel full of water for over an hour in the boiling sun.
“It was more like an hour and 45 minutes, but who’s counting?” Joey jokes.
Though the challenge seemed to be one designed for the Brawn tribe’s skillset, Joey was confident from the start that Brains could win it.
Though it didn’t help that they were doing the challenge – and all those preceding it – on almost empty stomachs.
The challenge seemed like one that played to the Brawn tribe’s strengths – but Brains won it.
(Credit: Ten)Living off nothing but rice and lentils in the first two weeks of the show had a serious effect on the Brains tribe.
“It takes its toll, even from a strength perspective,” Joey says. “You rock up to these challenges and you’ve just got no petrol in the tank.”
The Brains tribe shed kilos rapidly, with almost all of them looking markedly thinner last night than they did when the season began.
Ever the optimist, Joey found a bright side to their insane weight loss.
“I think I’m going to go on the rice and lentil diet before summer hits, I want the abs back!” he jokes.
Having run hundreds of marathons, Joey was one of the most physically capable members of the Brains tribe and saw them through a number of gruelling challenges.
But he says fans should watch out for the contestants who are relying on their smarts and playing the social game too – like Hayley.
“She took out the don, the numero uno! For Hayley to have taken me out, I think if you can get me, you can get anyone,” he concedes
Of course, Joey knows all too well that Survivor can be anyone’s game and says that he’d love to see Georgia, Laura and Andrew from his alliance go all the way in the competition.
He’d also be happy to see Rachel win, adding that the anti-bullying advocate could do a lot of good with the prize money.
Joey and his alliance had been hoping to eliminate George.
(Credit: Ten)“I think $500,000 in her back pocket would help her build out her platform and probably save some Aussie kids’ lives.”
As for what Joey plans to tackle next, he’s keeping his options wide open.
“I’m going to do it all, they’re going to write books about me one day!” he says.
“I’m going to climb all the mountains, I’m swimming the channels, I’ll race every ultra-marathon out there.”
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