For Hayley, going on Australian Survivor: Brains V Brawn was a life-changing experience, in more ways than one.
When she got back to Sydney after shooting the show in outback Queensland, she and her boyfriend Jimmy got engaged.
Hayley and her partner got engaged when she returned from filming.
(Credit: Instagram)“We were always going to get married at some point, but I think it encouraged us to do it a bit sooner because we did miss each other a lot,” she tells TV WEEK.
The pain researcher, 31, says there was no proposal involved, just “a joint decision to take that next step together”.
“We went and chose a ring together and then chose a nice day that we could make it formal,” she says.
“We went for a long walk, because that’s all we can do in the [COVID] lockdown, found a nice spot looking over the ocean, put the ring on and made it official.”
As a Survivor superfan, Hayley was living out a lifelong dream by going on the show.
She put in a huge amount of preparation, including writing spreadsheets to analyse where players from previous seasons had gone wrong.
It all paid off when she pulled off a stunning blindside to send Joey home from the Brains tribe.
“Part of my strategy was to go in and be that silent assassin,” she explains.
Hayley studied past seasons to get an edge when she joined the Brains tribe this year.
(Credit: Ten)“It was to be someone who everyone trusted, everyone wanted in their alliance, to get all of the information from every angle, so that when I was ready to make a big move, I had the power to do it.”
Hayley knew it was dangerous to make a move so early in the game, because it would expose her as someone who had chosen to play strategically.
“But I just knew that I didn’t want to come out as a fan of this show and not try to make my mark,” she says.
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