The winner of Survivor Kaoh Rong, Michele Fitzgerald, speaks about her edit, the Michele vs. Aubry nonsense, and more with the help of Scot and Julia.
You can have all the opinions you want about how Survivor Kaoh Rong ended, but at the end of the day, it must be hard to constantly hear about it day in and day out. There are only so many hours available to get in a suitable storyline in over the course of 39 days, and you’re at the mercy of editors. That’s partially why Michele Fitzgerald, Julia Sokolowski, and Scot Pollard participated in a Survivor subreddit AMA yesterday, in addition to raising $500 for Give Kids the World Village.
As this was the dedicated fanbase reaching out after a string of AMAs for past winners like Adam Klein and Richard Hatch, the aggressive naysayers were thankfully nowhere to be seen. However, that didn’t stop question people asking Michele about her feelings about her bittersweet win despite people like Jeff Probst, Zeke Smith, and others commenting negatively about it.
“It has gotten much easier over time,” Michele writes. “The further I get away from it, the less I take offense. I have amazing people in my life BECAUSE of Survivor. And I am so grateful for that. I have the best people in my life, dead ass- worth more than anything.”
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That said, there doesn’t seem to be any bitterness between the Survivor Kaoh Rong winner and runner-up, Aubry. “I love Aubry so much,” Michele adds, “and it isn’t fun to be ‘against each other.'” Same goes with Julia, who’s fully aligned with Team Aubry for Survivor Game Changers.
Scot, on the other hand, seems to be a lot more candid with his answers. Portrayed as one of the villains of Survivor Kaoh Rong, he made the intentions behind his Michele vote very clear, stating that Cydney never had his vote. Furthermore, Aubry lost his vote when she went back on a deal to get rid of Pete after Anna and almost voted out Julia (before crossing it out).
Aubry lost Julia’s vote at that same vote, meaning that no matter that Aubry did between Day 16 and Day 39 of Survivor Kaoh Rong, in the minds of Scot and Julia, they weren’t going to vote for her. It’s always interesting to pinpoint the exact reasons why a player wins or loses a jury vote. The fact that a single moment could have possibly swung a 5-2 Michele vote to a 4-3 Aubry/Michele vote more than half the game later is fascinating, speaking to the magic of this show.
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Considering Michele and Julia are now roommates, as well as Scot being able to convince Jason to vote alongside him, there are still many variables surrounding that season’s hypotheticals if Aubry never made that decision. Regardless, each player insists that they would play again, meaning the post-game experience hasn’t been all too sour in the long run.