During Survivor 49, there have been several moments that left the show's fans feeling shocked by what they'd just seen. In fact, the first episode featured a moment that felt like it could have been the most shocking thing that happened all season, only for that to be followed up with a terrifying medical evacuation. While those scenes truly were remarkable, they both took place outside the strategy of the game.
Fortunately for fans, the current season has also featured several strategic moments that have left the players with questions. Alex Moore explained that he was shocked by his tribemates' priorities. On top of that, it certainly seems like Jawan Pitts had to have had many questions when he realized he'd been betrayed by one of his top allies in the game. Pitts' main partner in the game, Sophie Segreti, has now publicly explained why she turned her back on Pitts.
Sophie Segreti had a simple explanation for her decision to betray Jawan Pitts
Throughout Survivor history, there have been many times when players have turned their backs on their tribemates who trusted them the most. There have been many different reasons why the show's veterans have made those moves, like wanting to build their resumes to impress the jury, feeling like they were going to be backstabbed first, or becoming angry at an ally.
Given how dramatic some of Survivor's betrayals have been, fans may have expected Sophie Segreti to have a dramatic reason for voting out Jawan Pitts. In reality, Segreti probably had the most straightforward possible motivation for voting out her partner in the game. Math.
In December 2025, Segreti was interviewed by Entertainment Weekly's Dalton Ross after fans saw her get voted out of the game. During the resulting conversation, Segreti was asked whether she had any regrets about voting Pitts out. Even though Segreti was the next person voted out after Pitts' exit, she stated that she stood by her reasons to vote her pal out because she believes that was the proper decision from a numbers' perspective.
"You know, honestly, no. Because if you think through the numbers at that vote, if I had voted out Savannah, I would now be at the bottom of two duos: Steven and Kristina, who have proven that they don't really trust me, and Sage and Jawan. And so it was really just math at that point, where being at the bottom of five is worse than being at the bottom of four."
To Segreti's point, turning on Pitts should have put her at the bottom at a four-person alliance with Savannah Louie, Rizo Velovic, and Sophi Balerdi. Of course, things didn't work out that way for long, which may make observers wonder why she trusted that would be the case. During her EW interview, Segreti explained why she had valid reasons to think she could trust the group she was jumping to more than her previous allies.
"And also, while you could argue that Rizo and Savannah and Soph were not in my original alliance, so why would I trust them now? But if you look at it, Savannah showed me her extra vote. I had a suspicion that Kristina had an idol. I spoke to her and Kristina throughout the day. I spoke to Sage, who kind of alluded to it, but none of them would bite. None of them told me about the idol."
Segreti continued, "And so yet again, I'm in a situation where in this game, trading information is how you build relationships, and sure at the surface you'd be like, “Why wouldn't you go with your old tribemates?” Well, they're not giving me any information. I'm consistently left out of things. Whereas Savannah, her showing me she had an extra vote. I was honestly quite impressed and flattered that she did that to me. I was like, she is really drawing a line in the sand that she wants to move forward with me. So I don't think the results would've changed for me had we gone Savannah in that vote."
On top of explaining the reasons for her decision to turn on Pitts, Segreti also addressed the fallout from that decision. When Segreti was getting voted out of the game, Pitts notably had an animated reaction to her downfall. Despite that, Segreti told EW that her reunion with Pitts after she was voted out of the game wasn't as dramatic as some observers may have expected.
"It honestly was not as dramatic as I think maybe people would've thought with Jawan’s reactions. And part of that is, it's a good cast and we all recognize that you fight hard and you fight with your heart when you're in the game, but now that we're voted out, we can all be friends. The game is over for us at this point and we can smooth it over. I did kind of explain my reasoning to him why I voted him out, and that always helps to hear both sides. But he was eating it up. He and Sage were loving the Sophie votes. But it was not an awkward reunion."