Robert Voets/CBS
They were the closest of allies… until they weren't.
Tiffany ErvinandQ Burdetteworked closely together at the start ofSurvivor 46to somehow survive being stuck on one Yanu, of the worst tribes ever. But an alliance forged out of shared perseverance was shattered at the merge when Q moved against Tiffany and told others about her immunity idol.
That led to a big blow up back at camp and an evenbiggerblow up at Tribal Council. In the end, the friction and drama got both players voted out of the game. And now they're back. So how will Tiffany handle Q if they end up on the same beach at some point onSurvivor 50(premiering Feb. 25 on CBS)? We asked the 35-year-old Tiffany exact that when we sat down in Fiji just days before filming began, and she got into her Q strategy as well as what else she needs to improve upon during her second outing, including "fact-checking everything."
Robert Voets/CBS
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Tell me why you're going to winSurvivor 50, Tiffany.
TIFFANY ERVIN:I'm going to winSurvivor 50because I've spent the last two years thinking about everything I did wrong and how I could come back and make it right.
Give everyone the update what have you've been up to since you last playedSurvivor.
Since I last playedSurvivor, I've left the East Coast. I now live in L.A. I'm an East Coast girl at heart forever, but L.A.'s not been bad. It has been treating me well. The weather's nice. I'm still working on art. I've been producing videos for different media companies since I've been out there freelancing. I've been having a pretty good time.
Why come back and do this again?
Well, the money. That's the obvious answer, but I'm also here because the level of transformation that I feel like I went through after playingSurvivorthe first time, I feel like it can only double or have amazing ripple effects in my life if I do it again. I learned to trust myself a little bit more. I learned to lean on my own opinions versus relying on the opinions of others about what I should do, how I feel about myself. And more than anything, I kind of just want to prove to myself that I can do it again.
Robert Voets/CBS
How do you think the other contestants see you as a player?
That's a question I've been asking myself for quite some time. I don't really know how they see me, but if I had to guess, I would assume that they probably think that I'm a pretty smart player, pretty good strategically, if they watched my season.
But I think that they probably also think that I'm easy to read. They would more than likely think that I'm a person who's going to say what's on my mind 90 percent of the time. So I don't think there's a lot of confusion around how I navigate the game. I don't know how many people see me as a threat. I didn't win a lot of challenges when I was out there last time, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I'm hoping I'm underestimated. I'm actually banking on it.
What's your biggest weakness as a player?
I think my biggest weakness as a player, at least the last time I played, was not trusting my own intuition and leaning on others, sharing too much information and not double checking my sources. I looked back when I watched my season, and there are so many moments where I was fed information and I didn't question it. If I had questioned it or gone to the source three or four times throughout my season, I think things would've ended a lot differently for me. Now I'm fact-checking everything. I don't care. You don't want me to tell this person that they said my name? I'm asking anyway. I don't care.
Is it surreal being out here with some of these people?
It's absolutely surreal realizing that I'm about to be playing with the people that I've been watching since I started watchingSurvivor. It's so crazy to think about. I've been watchingOzzyandCiriefor years, and now to think I'm about to be competing against them, I am still trying to wrap my mind around it.
Tell me who the people you're really excited to work with.
I'm really excited to work withChristianand I'm really excited to work withMike White.
Why Christian and Mike White?
Well, Mike White, I'm more excited to just kind of kiki with him. He's funny. I feel like our personalities would gel really well and I think he would just be really fun to play with. Christian, I would love to pick his brain watching how his mind works mathematically. That's not a place where I'm super strong, but I think that it would be very interesting to work with him. I feel like I could learn a lot from him. I would love to work with Cirie. She's Cirie! I don't even know how else to say it. I'm a little weary of Ozzy.
Robert Voets/CBS
Ozzy has this larger-than-life reputation when it comes toSurvivorfor being this crazy challenge beast. And obviously that's going to be one of his strengths out here, assuming that he plays the way he played previously. But his social game, I'm weary because Ozzy just seems like a person who could kind of flip flop and go back and forth and change his mind a lot. And he also seems like a person who might want to stick with old-school players and not really be open to working with new-school players. He has something to prove.
That old-school versus new-school thing happened onWinners at War. Do you think that's going to happen again?
Winners at Waris kind of all I have to go on right now. There hasn't been a returning season since fricking 2016, so I do think that naturally that's going to happen. And I think that if people want it to change, they're going to have to actually put in the work to bridge the gap between old-school and new-school.
Dalton Ross
Let's talk about your season. There's three of you out here. Does that help you or hurt you in this game?
Well, considering the people that I'm out here with, it does not help me. It hurts me tremendously. These aren't people that I was super strong allies with during my season. One of was my number one ally and then turned on me. So that is something that has been hanging over my head. And thenCharlie, I thought we were cool, and then he wrote my name down, so it hurts because we're going to be perceived as a trio, but then at the same time, these aren't people that I even really am sure I'm going to work with out here.
How much pre-gaming did you do with other players? Everyone knows it happens.
If I'm being totally honest, the only person I spoke to pre-game was Q. I did not exchange words with anybody before coming out here other than Q. But that's because Q and I are actually real-life friends. So crazy to think about. We're like arch nemeses on TV, but we're real friends. We FaceTime all the time. I'll be on FaceTime with his son. I know his wife.
We're cool, but I cannot depend on that because the first time we played the game, we were so cool and he turned into a ticking time bomb. So I'm not putting any faith in the fact that just because we're friends in real life, it's going to translate out here.
You know what a chaotic element he is, and chaotic elements are very dangerous. So how do you want to handle him the second time around?
My plan to handle Q is to take the opposite approach of what I did last time. I think the reason Q and I have so much friction when it comes to competition is because we're alike in a lot of ways. We have a lot of alpha energy, both of us.
But I think this time, even though it goes against every fiber in my being, I'm going to seemingly take the backseat and allow Q to believe that he's driving the car. I think that the best tool that I have at my disposal out here is Q's ego, and if I learn how to manipulate that to my will, then I can do whatever I want.
Wait, does Q have an ego?
Oh, please. Q's ego is big enough to fly us all home. Please!
What about Charlie? What's your relationship been off the island?
Honestly, Charlie and I are cool too. I don't have really any bad blood with anybody from my season. I told myself as soon as I got back to Ponderosa, I was leaving everything out there on the island. Charlie and I are cool. We text every now and again. No beef. We don't talk as often as Q and I do, but we're cool too. But that doesn't mean it's going to translate out here. Charlie's a very shrewd player. He's smart, he's sneaky, and I thought he had my back last time and there wasn't even an inkling that he didn't. So I'm putting in less faith in Charlie than I am in Q.
What about these two 49 people? You all haven't even seen their season.
I think the best approach to unknown is to go in head first. You got to figure out who they are, what makes them tick, what are they driven by? Are they good allies? Are there things that they do? Do they have quirks that you could kind of pin on them to make other people or dislike them? At the end of it, you got to get to know who they are before you make any assumptions because the easy thing is to be like, "Let's just get the new people out we don't know." But at the end of the day, they could be valuable tools to my game.
Want to be kept up with all things Survivor? Dig deep and sign up for Entertainment Weekly'sfree Survivor Weekly newsletterto have all the latest news, interviews, and commentary sent right to your inbox.
OtherSurvivor 50deep dive player interviews:•Survivor 50star Ozzy Lusth opens up about hitting 'rock bottom of my life'•Survivor 50star Aubry Bracco opens up about the 'freedom when you fall from grace'•Colby Donaldson reacts to playingSurvivorfor the first time without Jerri•Angelina Keeley refused to doSurvivor 50unless they gave her a jacket•Survivor 50's Coach goes deep on evolving from an 'arrogant ass' into the… Tide Walker?•Survivor 50star Jenna Lewis-Dougherty is 'here to f--- you over in every way, shape, or form'•Cirie Fields says winningThe Traitorsdoes not take sting out ofSurvivorloses•Mike White on how he is handlingSurvivor 50castmastes angling forWhite Lotuscameos•Chrissy Hofbeck opens up about controversial season 35 finish and being bashed by previous cast•Rick Devens explains why he is a lunatic that wants to play with other lunatics•Stephenie LaGrossa Kendrick wants to prove that 'mom really is a badass'•Christian Hubicki wanted to tell Survivor 50 pre-gamers to 'f--- off'•Genevieve Mushaluk on why watchingSurvivor 50will be more terrifying than playing it•Dee Valladares welcomes being one ofSurvivor 50's biggest threats: 'I want them to come for me'•Q Burdette reveals ridiculous things he did to prep forSurvivor 50•Kamilla Karthigesu feared she would be cut fromSurvivor 50for pregaming•Emily Flippen says 'If I winSurvivor, something crazy has happened'•Jonathan Young shares theSurvivorlessons Boston Rob gave him before season 50
Read the original article onEntertainment Weekly
