Jackie Glazier became the tenth person voted off Australian Survivor last night, on her 26th day on the island.
At the beginning of the episode, members from the Contender and Champion tribes were swapped. With all new tribes, and plenty of broken alliances, the shake-up threatened to be serious trouble for some players.
After losing to the new Contenders tribe, the Champions were sent to tribal council with their new recruits Tegan and Shonee.
The Champions had not faced a tribal council in 10 days, and since that was the council were AFLW player Moana Hope asked to leave due to illness, they hadn’t faced a “real” tribal council since Damien Thomlinson was eliminated 18 days before.
Mat Rogers, one of the strongest leaders in the Champions tribe, had long been hoping to eliminate Jackie. Last night, he finally had his chance to bid farewell to the sneaky player.
We caught up with Jackie today, to find out why she lied to the tribe about her career as a professional poker player, and her one regret looking back on the show.
TV WEEK: First off, we have to ask about the lie that you were a ‘champion speed cuber’. Were you worried if you told them about your real profession that they’d always be thinking you were putting on a poker face?
Jackie: It’s not just the poker face, I think there’s a little bit of a negative association with someone who gambles for a living. That maybe I’m not trustworthy, or I’m deceiving them, or I’m bluffing them when I’m talking. I just think it would have put a bit more of a target on my head, when I already probably had [a target] in a tribe with such physical strength.
The ‘new’ Champions tribe with Tegan and Shonee.
Why did you decide to go with a lie about being a champ at puzzles though? Are you any good at puzzles?
Generally speaking I’m actually okay at puzzles [laughs]. The one we didn’t do that well on, it’s funny, I got the blame for it but there were two of us on the puzzle. And that [challenge] was pretty much over before I even got the puzzle pieces. They [the Contenders] were halfway through. But yeah I actually really enjoy puzzles, and it’s something I do like doing.
To come in to a Champions tribe and make up a lie was a lot harder than if I’d gone on to the Contenders tribe, I could have made something up that I didn’t have to be a ‘Champion’ at. I had to justify why I was on the Champions tribe and so it had to be something obscure that no one would go “No you’re not, I know what the best whatever is.” You know I can’t go in saying I’m a novelist; they’d be like “how come we’ve never heard of you?” So it had to be obscure.
Last night, the shake-up saw Lydia, Sharn and Monika leave the Champions tribe, and Shonee and Tegan join. It split up Mat Rogers’ alliance, and it brought in some new people you might be able to recruit for your own alliance. Were you excited?
I was excited. It was actually a golden opportunity for me. I actually had a plan for it, and I should have stuck to my original plan but I backed away from it and yeah, it’s a big regret.
So you had a long term plan for Tegan and Shonee on the Champions tribe?
Originally I wanted just one of them. Taking alliances of like seven and six is ridiculous, you kind of want it to be a little bit more of a tight-knit core. So I wanted to make a relationship with Shonee, because even though we weren’t on the same tribe Fenella and I seemed to be getting along really well. I feel like, if I’d made a friendship with Shonee we could build a new alliance once the merge went ahead. At that point I had Brian and I still had Monika on the other side as well, and Shane was still just floating around.
Jackie tries to recruit Shonee.
At camp when everyone was talking strategy before the tribal council, the original Champions had agreed to split the vote for half on Tegan, and half on Shonee. You told Shonee the plan, and told her to vote for Tegan to keep herself safe. Did you think you had convinced her?
At that point that’s exactly what the tribe was doing and there was no Plan B for those girls, so I felt like I wanted to work more with Shonee than with Tegan. So yeah, I tried to befriend her and give her advice to save herself because this is what was happening so that afterwards she would trust me more and work with me after that vote.
How were you feeling heading in to that tribal council? Did you think you had the support to make it through?
The Champions game plan was always pretty simple. It was always about winning challenges and it was always about getting to merge, they wanted more Champions than Contenders. That’s what they preached from day one so I knew their plan was pretty simple with that, so I felt pretty confident that they weren’t going to veer from that, because that’s been their goal from day one. I didn’t know that Tegan had strategized and you know I feel like she was the most instrumental person for me going home, I don’t necessarily think it was the Champions game playing, it was more Tegan and credit to her.
But no, I never felt comfortable going in to tribal. A target has pretty much been on my back since the first tribal and I knew I wasn’t 100% trusted but I was really hopeful that it was going to go the way that I wanted.
Obviously no one wants to go home, but do you think the Champions made a mistake sending you home instead of one of the Contenders, especially heading in to the merge?
No! [Laughs] They were so right in sending me home. Literally I was gonna turn on every single one of them, it’s just a fact. It’s a ruthless part of the game. Going in to merge we really shouldn’t be taking such big physical threats, so my agenda was always going to be Mat at the next vote, then Steve, and pretty much get rid of those strong players. So they were definitely right in getting rid of me, they were my main targets.
Jackie walked out of the game with a smile on her face.
When you’re in the game it’s hard to really see everything that’s going on, but watching the episodes back, is there anything you’ve seen that you think you should have done differently?
Totally! I would have just grabbed the two girls [Tegan and Shonee] straight up and said “here’s the plan, we’re going after Mat, and I’ve got your backs.” I would have stuck to my plan, regardless of whether I thought I needed to wait another vote or not. I really regret not sticking to my plan.
It’s strange out there though, you have lack of sleep, lack of food, and you start second-guessing everything. You second guess conversations with people, was that genuine or not genuine? Is this the right thing to do or not the right thing to do? You toss and turn at night just thinking about stuff and you start to lose a bit of confidence in what you’re doing. I’m disappointed in myself for not taking the opportunity when I could have.
But after 26 days of Survivor, and watching people have all these different alliances and sneaky private chats, of course you would be second guessing yourself…
At the end of the day you really can’t trust anyone through to then end, so the questions is at what point are they going to turn on me? It’s not if they turn on me, it’s when. It’s a strange social experiment pretty much, but you don’t normally live that way in day-to-day life. I’m not out there questioning what people say to me in the real world. I’m just disappointed I had an opportunity to take control of the game and I missed it.
Even though you’re disappointed in yourself over the way you left, are you happy to have been on the game? Is it one of your favourite experiences?
Totally! I’ve been a fan since day one so to actually even just… I’m so grateful for the opportunity to even have been out there. What an amazing experience to have!
Australian Survivor returns tonight at 7:30pm on Network Ten.
