Australian Survivor’s Hayley has opened up about the brutal moment that made her realise the one huge mistake she’d been making for weeks.
After the Fire tribe voted her out, she and Baden were given a chance to get back in the game – but only one could win.
Sent to Redemption Rock to battle it out, Hayley says that it was during the gruelling redemption challenge that she realised where her strategy had failed her.
“Redemption Rock was really important for me,” she tells TV WEEK.
“I had been playing a really big game, and I hadn’t been doing as good a job as I wanted to at managing my threat level.”
Hayley had an epiphany while battling it out at Redemption Rock.
(Ten)Hayley’s cunning strategy had made her a major player on Survivor: Brains V Brawn and helped her pull off some incredible blindsides.
But her approach had also earned her a few enemies and painted a massive target on her back.
And it wasn’t until she was clinging to a pole at Redemption Rock that she realised where she had gone so wrong in the leadup to her almost-elimination.
“When I went to Redemption Rock, I realised – it was weird – if I wanted to get further in the game, I had to lay low,” she explains.
“I had to not make any strategic moves, and spend time letting other people make themselves into threats […] so, that’s what I did.”
After outlasting Baden in the redemption challenge, Hayley returned to a hostile tribe and surprised everyone by totally changing her strategy.
Now she’s hanging back and letting other castaways make big moves while she prepares for the final challenges in this season of Survivor.
“I want to make sure that there’s other players around me that people are aiming their guns at,” she says.
Hayley hopes that letting other big players like George, Dani and the recently eliminated Andrew become targets will help her make it to the end of the game.
Though it seems like a risky strategic flip to be making so late in the competition, Hayley knows exactly how the game of Survivor is played.
She watched the show for decades before she ever set foot in the Aussie outback for this season and has a wealth of knowledge behind every decision.
Now she’s focused on predicting how her competition will act so that she can outlast them in this final stretch.
Now Hayley is back in the game with a whole new strategy.
(Ten)“I spent a lot of the downtime between challenges and tribal kind of thinking through all the other players’ best moves,” she reveals.
“I assumed that they would all act in their best interests, so if you can predict what they’re going to do then you’ve got a better shot at out-smarting them.”
But will her new strategy get Hayley to the finale and help her take out the coveted title of Sole Survivor? Only time will tell.
Survivors ready? Get more info on the Brains V Brawn season here
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