Survivor 50 has just reached its middle point as the jury phase has officially commenced. The final 14 players headed towards the largest Tribal Council that US Survivor has ever seen, where ultimately Dee Valladares became the first member of the season’s jury, also known as the Mayor of Ponderosa.
Valladares entered Survivor 50 with a massive target on her back, as she was one of three former winners competing in the season. After Kyle Fraser’s medical evacuation and Savannah Louie’s elimination, the Survivor 45 alum was the only winner left, which left Valladares pretty exposed once the merge began.
After surviving the Blood Moon triple bloodbath, Valladares was in a precarious position, especially after having lost her shot at individual immunity. As several players targeted her, Valladares and her allies tried to rally votes against Benjamin “Coach” Wade, who was getting on many people’s nerves with his antics. Unfortunately for Valladares, her reputation as a winner as well as her cutthroat gameplay style was too much of a risk to contend for the majority, and she was eliminated in an 8-4- 1 vote.
Speaking to Mike Bloom of Parade, Valladares went into further details regarding her Survivor 50 experience. When Bloom asked her which move she thought had cost her the game, Valladares explained it was a mix of factors, including being a winner, the OG Kalo tribe dynamics, and people like Jonathan Young thinking she had an advantage.
Valladares disclosed how Kalo 1.0 worked with her, Kamilla Karthigesu, and Tiffany Nicole Ervin on one side; Young, Wade, and Chrissy Hofbeck on the other, and Charlie Davies and Mike White in the middle. As the "honor and integrity” side pretty much zeroed in on her from the beginning, particularly Hofbeck, Valladares knew she could only trust Karthigesu and Ervin, both of whom she grew close to naturally.
Here's what she revealed to Parade:
"I was, because I was extremely paranoid. Because it was Coach, Jonathan and Chrissy on one end, and then me, Tiff and Kamilla. And then that left Mike and Charlie in the middle. So I know Charlie mentioned that that is the reason why I turned on him. It was absolutely not the reason. As far as playing hard, yeah, absolutely, I’m gonna play hard! Because we go to Tribal, it’s either me or Chrissy, and I don’t want to go home. But I do think, had we gone to Tribal, it would have been Chrissy."
In addition, Valladares commented that during the Blood Moon twist, she wanted to play with Colby Donaldson because she knew he was a straight shooter. However, Valladares didn’t want to play with the people Donaldson was aligned with, as they were coming for her, so Valladares prioritized her working relationship with Cirie Fields, who had decided to target Donaldson due to his agency with the other side and since they weren’t aware of the true extent of Donaldson’s injury and therefore didn't know he was probably going to be medically evacuated either way.
Lastly, speaking of Fields, Bloom asked Valladares whether she would’ve targeted Fields, as the audience saw in an episode that Valladares talked about how much she loved Fields, but a close friend from home also told her to target her due to the latter's reputation.
Valladares quickly rectified this notion by stating that she had forgotten about this potential strategy and had actually wanted to work alongside Fields, as she loves working with threats, strong women, and strong players overall.
"I was never going to go for Cirie. Never. I love playing with threats. I love playing with strong women, with strong players, and Cirie is a person I love. And I’d rather have somebody in the game that I enjoy, cracking jokes with, and we can also strategize. But from the get-go, like on that tribe, Jonathan was coming for Cirie immediately. Cirie and I would only talk at night. We would never talk during the day, because we were afraid of people seeing us together."
It goes to show what kind of player Valladares ultimately is, as she has repeatedly demonstrated that she’s never afraid to take on a challenge and would rather lose by playing hard than gain by passively sitting out. Some might respect it, and some might not, but it is how she won the game in the first place, which is something 700-plus players haven’t been able to do in 25 years, let alone on their first try.