‘Survivor 47’ star Gabe Ortis explains final elimination words

Gabe Ortis thought he had a clear path to the end of Survivor 47 if he could just make it through the vote with nine people left. But he couldn’t.

Gabe was voted out by everyone except for his number one ally Sue Smey, with even fellow Tuku tribe members Kyle Ostwald and Caroline Vidmar turning against him to get a big threat out of the game. Even worse, Gabe could not use his Shot in the Dark to save himself, since he helped convince the entire tribe to trade in their cubes to Jeff Probst for a bag of rice.

How does Gabe feel now about making that trade? What did he mean by calling someone a snake on his way out? And does he stand by his boast to Probst that he will be back to play again? We caught up with the 26-year-old Charm City radio host to ask him all that and more.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Were you at Tribal Council distracted at all by Sol’s shirtless vest look over on the jury?

GABE ORTIS: Dude, when Sol walked into Tribal, it was like a bomb went off. Everybody’s head just whipped over and it was all we could look at. I mean, there was a good three minutes of we’re in Tribal, Jeff is talking, people are answering questions, and everybody is looking at Sol and Sierra. It was like this just power duo just walked into Tribal Council and they weren’t even participating.

And you didn’t even get to see the full outfit. He had rings on all of his fingers, he had his nails painted, and he came in, he looked like a fighting character out of a fighting video game like Tekken or Street Fighter. I was ready for him to start hurling fireballs out of his hands! It was unbelievable. He had the red shoes on, too. No socks needed. It was like, I’ve never seen anything like that before. And I mean, you see the guy in the game and he’s rugged and wearing comfortable clothes, so you don’t know that he has that in his arsenal. And he walks out like that, no smile, mean-mugging everybody. It was just awesome.

What was your level of surprise to see your name come up on parchment that many times?

Not particularly surprising, to be honest with you. I knew going into that night it was probably going to be 60 percent me, 40 percent Genevieve for who was going home. So when I saw two Genevieves pop up, I was like, “We got a shot here. We got maybe a better shot than I thought.” But once I saw two Gabes pop up, I was like, “Yeah, it’s going to be tonight.”

I had a lot of confessionals days and days and days in advance saying that nine was going to be my bottleneck and it was going to be the hardest round to get through. But if I did get through nine, then my path to the end was crystal clear. So if I was playing with the caliber of players I thought I was playing with, they had every reason to take me out that night. And they did. And kudos to them for it. It was a good move. It’s what they should have done.

You say your path to the end was clear, and we saw you in the episode at least tell Caroline, “You, me, Sue, final three.” Was that your path? Is that what you wanted to do?

Oh yeah, the entire time that was what I wanted to do. And if we make it to eight, then we have four Tukus versus four of everybody else. And then the obvious path is you just brute force your way to the end with all the Tuku. But then there’s also the availability of being the Tuku that flips and being the first Tuku to say, “Okay, I’m going to cross Tribal lines here and I’m going to be the guy who’s going to turn on them and work with everybody else.”

There’s so few people left in the game at that point that if you pick off two Tuku back to back and you’re the guy that flips, you’re sitting at the final six and anything can happen at that point. So I saw these two avenues of brute force with Tuku or being the snake that flipped on them both being very, very viable ways to make it to the finale.

Speaking of snakes, you told Caroline “Got a little snake in you,” after the vote. Was that a sign of respect? Or anger? A little of both?

That was directed towards Teeny, actually. I said that to Teeny because leading up to the vote, Teeny was so upset with Genevieve after how the Sol vote went down. And so Teeny was somebody who I felt really good about voting for Genevieve that night. I didn’t think it was good strategically for Teeny’s game to take out Genevieve at that moment, but I thought that Teeny was so riled up and was so angry at what Genevieve did leaving Teeny out of the vote and taking out Teeny’s number one ally at that point that I was like, “This is going to work out at least when it comes to figuring out who Teeny’s going to vote for.” And so when they ended up throwing my name down, I was like, “Damn, Teeny, you got some snake in you, huh?”

One of the biggest parts of Survivor gameplay is keeping your troops in line. We saw you attempting to do that and checking in with folks, but is there more you could have done? Did you underestimate Caroline and Kyle in that respect that they would turn on you?

I think that one of my big missteps in the game was early in the game. I was constantly checking in with Caroline and I was constantly involving her in my plans, and I was making my plans known to Caroline before anybody else. The only person that would hear about what I was doing maybe before Caroline was Sue. And I mean it was within minutes. I would go talk to Sue, then I would go talk to Caroline, or vice versa. And as we got deeper into the merge, that time of coming up with a plan and telling Caroline about it got longer and longer and longer.

I talked to a lot of people on the island about voting out Genevieve. And then I told Caroline. And so from Caroline’s perspective, she was like, “Dude, I have three other people telling me that you want to vote out Genevieve before you tell me that you want to vote out Genevieve. So what’s going on here? Am I not part of your plans anymore? Do you not see me as a peer the way that you did early in the game?”

It honestly was just a habit thing. Early in the game, I was so comfortable every single time I came up with a plan telling Caroline about it. And then I had a four day stretch where she wasn’t my primary partner in the plan for whatever reason. And you just get into these habits out there of like: Okay, who’s my checklist? Who am I talking to today? And Caroline just completely subconsciously fell down that priority list.

I think that was a big misstep by me because then she was like, “Well, hold on. You were my number one. You were the safety blanket for me and now I’m not hearing about what you’re doing when you’re doing it. I’m hearing it from other people.” So I don’t think I underestimated Caroline. I just think that she fell down my priority list of allies and that kind of subconsciously happened from her not having a vote for one round and me working with Sol for another round on the Sierra vote, and it just happened. I think I should have been more proactive in saying, “Am I managing this relationship with Caroline still?” I think I took for granted how unspoken our trust was.

You fought really hard to get everyone to give up their Shots in the Dark. Would you have used your Shot in the Dark at Tribal Council if you’d had it?

Never. I always, always, always, always value having my vote in the game more than anything else. That’s why I never wanted to go on a journey, because it opens up the opportunity for you to lose your vote. I never wanted to use my Shot in the Dark because I wanted to have my vote. And one of my biggest nightmares is I go play my Shot in the Dark and then I go home by one vote and I just have a misread on where all the votes are going. So even if I had my Shot in the Dark, I never would’ve played it. I always want to be putting pen to paper. It was a big priority for me going into the game, and that philosophy proved to be consistent while I was out there. So I never would’ve played it even if I had it.

Why did Kyle tell you it was you or Genevieve? Do you think Kyle was hoping to keep you but then saw which way the wind was blowing? If he wanted you out, I can’t figure out why he would tell you that it might be you.

I think he was trying to suss me out to see if I had anything. So during that conversation, Kyle comes up to me and he says, “Do you have anything up your sleeve?” And I was like,” I got nothing.” And he was like, “I don’t feel good about tonight.” And I said, “Why?” And he was like, “Well, people are asking me who I’m voting for and if it’s supposed to be Genevieve tonight, then they shouldn’t be asking me that.”

So that is what really tipped me off to like: Okay, folks are kind of a lot wiser than I thought on how dangerous I am in this game and how important it is for them to get me out now and not even tomorrow or a few days later. So I think it was 50 percent he wanted to see if I had anything to open up options for himself. Or I think he was just trying to suss me out to then go tell everybody “Gabe’s got a idol, Gabe’s got an advantage or something, we need to pivot.” So I think he was just trying to gather information as much as he could to see if I had something up my sleeve to play.

Let’s play a game of Survivor What If? If Kyle had not won immunity, what do you think would have happened with the vote?

That’s really interesting. I think people were really, really, really intimidated by Kyle at that point, and I still think that my name would’ve been out there. I think Kyle would’ve been throwing my name out there a whole lot, assuming in this hypothetical I’m not the one who takes immunity instead of him. But I think that the battle then would’ve been between me and Kyle and who would’ve been able to swing the votes one way or the other.

I think I would’ve been willing to write Kyle’s name down. Sue obviously would’ve written Kyle’s name down. I think at that moment, even if Kyle wasn’t on the chopping block, if nobody mentioned Kyle’s name that night, Sue probably still would’ve written Kyle’s name down, just as a rage vote. So I think that it would’ve been between me and Kyle.

It’s so hard, you never know, but I think there would’ve been a good chance that we could have gotten the votes for Kyle. I think Genevieve would’ve done it. I think that Sue would’ve done it. I think I would’ve done it. I think Caroline definitely would’ve done it. Caroline was very intimidated by Kyle at that point in the game. And that’s four votes right there that I think were pretty locked in for Kyle had he not won. So it’s just who’s going to be the last person of the majority that’s left to do it. But I think Kyle would’ve been pushing me, I would’ve been pushing Kyle, and obviously I’m going to say I think I would’ve gotten the votes for him, but who knows.

Was telling Probst “I’ll be back” as you got your torch snuffed something you had planned for whenever you got voted off, or a spontaneous thing?

Total spur of the moment thing. I didn’t even know what I was going to say or if I was going to say anything when I got up there, I had no idea. And when he goes and he snuffs my torch, and you can see I’m looking at it the entire time, I just had this image in my head of he pulls the snuffer off and the fire just comes back up. I was like, obviously that’s not going to happen, but the closest thing to that is lighting my torch again in the future. And I just had that mental image in my head, and then I just looked Probst dead in the eyes and said, “I’ll be back” and got out of there. So yeah, total spur of the moment thing.

Do you still think you’ll be asked back?

Oh yeah. I mean, come on. If I’m not, somebody should get fired.

How would you play differently if you ended up back on the isand?

I think that this time around — and I’m not going to give away all my secrets here — that I would look into making earlier connections with bigger threats. You saw me from the jump go to the two people who were completely on the bottom, borderline outcasted from Tuku in Caroline and Sue. And I was like, “You two are my number ones. Let’s go do this thing.” But once you start to take out all those big threats around you, it’s like your number one allies are not intimidating to everybody else, but you are. And so I think establishing closer relationships earlier in the games with people I know will be long-term threats is something I will put a little bit more effort into.

What’s something that happened out there that didn’t make it to air that you wish we had gotten to see?

The one that pops into my head right away was after the immunity challenge that we lose as a tribe before TK goes home, he very first thing I did as soon as we get back to the beach, I grab Tiyana and we go on a walk. And Tiyana very worked up over what TK said on the mat, and I am just pressing and pressing and I say, “I can’t believe he said that about you. I can’t believe that he called you a loser. I can’t believe that he threw that on you.” Now I knew what TK was trying to say. He was giving a rah rah locker room football speech, but that’s not how Tiyana took it.

And in that moment I was like, “This is how we guarantee that TK goes home is we get Tiyana as worked up as possible.” And I just press as much as I can that “TK called you a loser. It wasn’t a rah rah speech, he wasn’t talking about everybody. He was talking about you, Tiyana.”

That was the moment where I think I really gained control of Tuku because the biggest alpha on the tribe and the biggest adversary I had on the tribe at the time was TK. And I was like, “He’s going home after this.” And I think that was really the moment where Tiyana was like, “Okay, let’s do this.” And then you do see the scene of me saying to Caroline and Sue, “You guys got to go press her now because I just did it.” But I wish that it was shown how much more involved in getting Tiyana to swing over I was.

Sign up for Entertainment Weekly‘s free daily newsletter to get breaking news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.