“A lot of the people out there, they had no strategy,” Debbie Wanner gives BCL the inside scoop on her Survivor experience. “They just sat back and they sun-tanned and they sipped their coconut milk and they were making no moves.”
For the past couple of weeks, Debbie has been in a great position in the game and so have her tribe-mates. Even before the tribe swap, she’s only taken a seat at tribal council once. A couple of members on her current tribe have never seen tribal or been at risk to be voted out of the game.
With no imminent threat and a large amount of immunity challenge wins, it’s understandable how some castaways may feel comfortable enough to relax and enjoy the gorgeous beaches of Cambodia. But, that’s not the game Debbie wants to play.
“I think that the best defense is a good offense. So I was forming one-on-one relationships with everybody and trying to lock down who I felt the best about,” she says. On the show, she revealed she wants a woman to win Survivor: Kaôh Rōng and was shown telling this to both Cydney Gillon and Michelle Fitzgerald. Although she admits it did cross her mind to gun for Michele, she was honest in saying she wanted to vote out Jason.
“I genuinely have a liking for Michelle and I genuinely have a disliking for Jason,” she says. “Jason is a wanker. That would be British for asshole, so you can say wanker. He treats women like crap, by in large, and he’s lazy.”
Debbie says Jason (full name Kyle Jason) burned bridges with her when she saw the way he treated Alecia Holden, who he voted out at the last tribal council before the merge. During her time on the show, Alecia is shown in constant conflict with both Jason and former NBA player Scott Pollard. The men continuously called her useless, without a thought in her head, and toward the end of her time on the show blatantly yelled at her.
“What you guys saw on TV was very mild compared to what happened in actuality,” Debbie says. “We may be on separate tribes, [but] there are plenty of times when we are in close proximity [to each other] and can overhear the comments.” During the brutal four hour challenge that medically evacuated Caleb Reynolds, and made Debbie and Cydney fall from heatstroke, the two men had some particularly harsh words for Alecia.
They called her “every name in the book, which CBS didn’t really show, but they were outright bullies to her. They were outright cruel to that girl. I felt like punching him [Jason] in the face,” says Debbie.
Wanting a woman to win “was genuine” she says. “It was very easy to say that a woman should take it… because the guys were such wankers; it was real.”
While Debbie was safe from tribal council, Peter Baggenstos, a former troublemaker on her old Brains tribe, was voted out by her old alliance. Over-confidence was Peter’s downfall on their past tribe; he’d thought he had it in the bag and said some pretty nasty things about Debbie, insinuating she had no game play and would be an easy goat to take to the end. Debbie doesn’t hold a grudge about this, and in fact, hates the decision to vote Peter off.
“I was really disappointed they got rid of him,” she says.
“The devil you know is better than the devil you don’t know and Peter was one of my six.” She says the Brains tribe “promised each other that we weren’t going to vote each other out.” Had it been her decision, she would have taken out Scott.
The relationships created on those beaches, especially the ones forged early on are very real to Debbie. “I was surprised; you really do a remarkable amount of bonding. You really know these people better than you know the people you’re now blended with.” She really trusted that original Brains alliance would stick together.
“Now that Aubry and Joe didn’t keep their word and bagged Peter,” things have changed for Debbie. She tells BCL, that it’s absolutely going to have an effect on her decisions this week when the tribes merge. Doubt has set in, and it will make her question “well how much I trust you guys?”
Tune in to CBS March 30 at 8pm to see the big change up. How will Debbie’s change of heart affect her game? Are the new relationships she’s made enough to protect her now that tribal council is inevitable? Find out next week on Survivor.
