More than 25 million viewers tuned in Sunday to see Sandra Diaz-Twine, the 29-year-old Ft. Lewis, Wash., office assistant, win the Sole Survivor title. Here’s what the Army wife and mother of two had to say about the 39 days she spent enduring the buccaneer exploits of “Survivor: Pearl Islands.”
How much weight did you lose out there?
Twenty-two pounds. That’s the funny thing because I went to the show 137, and I’m back to 135.
Plans for the money? Are you quitting your job?
I don’t know because I wasn’t planning on winning the million dollars.
Come on. Really?
Nope, I wasn’t. I thought that at Tribal Council, regardless of what the questioning was like, that Lill was going to win the money.
You did a lot of spying from behind the bushes. Was that always your strategy?
Oh, definitely. Anytime I’d see people leave camp, I knew they were planning something. I would see them go off, and they’d be talking loud as hell too. So I’d say, “I’m going to go and see what these fools are talking about.” And they were these men, thinking they had all the strategy and they were the strong ones.
You were trying to form a female alliance from the start.
You don’t know how many times I had begged these women, let’s get together and get this right. But for different reasons, so many of them were offered something better. The guys thought, “Yeah, I’m a guy, I’m strong, I’m gonna win this.” Yeah. Baloney.
How did the lippiest mother on “Survivor” not only snag the ultimate prize, but also avoid racking up any votes against her throughout the game?
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Well, because they liked that. They’d come up to me and say, “Sandra, how do you feel about this plan?” or this and that. And I’d tell them what I thought.
After the tribe was whittled down to five, Probst called you and your companions excellent liars. How did you feel about the fact that you had to lie and deceive to get ahead?
You have to be able to lie to make it. If you know anything about “Survivor,” you know that if you don’t have that skill, don’t even bother to go on the show.
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Edited by Cara DiPasquale ([email protected]) and Kris Karnopp ([email protected])