Welcome to Reality Derby, Gold Derby’s deep dive into all things reality TV, hosted by senior editors Marcus James Dixon and Denton Davidson. Watch the latest episode above.
Kamilla Karthigesu, Genevieve Mushaluk, and Colby Donaldson are the eighth, ninth, and 10th castaways eliminated from Survivor 50, the landmark anniversary season that brought back fan favorites from the past 26 years. They were all ousted during a “Blood Moon” twist that saw the newly merged tribe of 17 people divided into three random groups, with each attending tribal council. Gold Derby spoke with each of them following the instantly iconic episode. Let’s dive in!
Kamilla KarthigesuScott Duncan/CBS
Kamilla (Survivor 48) was ultimately betrayed by Jonathan Young, who decided to side with “old school” players Chrissy Hofbeck and Stephenie LaGrossa Kendrick, instead of her and Tiffany Ervin.
Luck was in play for the “Blood Moon” twist, as the players had to draw rocks to divide into groups. But Kamilla now suggests a “cooler” idea that Jeff Probst missed out on: “Maybe they didn’t have enough stools for it, but if we had 17 people at tribal council, you vote for one person and you think it’s over. But he’s like, ‘No, we’re voting out another person.’ And then, ‘We’re voting out another person.’ And then everyone has to suffer and wait through three tribal councils.”
Ever since her original season, Kamilla has been telling people that Survivor is “90% luck, and maybe you can control like 10% of the things. I got tribe swapped into a minority on 48, and I somehow survived, because I got lucky enough to have an advantage with me.”
While time will tell if Jonathan turning on her was the right move for his game, she confesses that pregame alliances were “very openly talked about on the island.” She explains, “We were calling it the Zoom Alliance. Turns out they didn’t use Zoom, they were using like actual phones. But Jonathan, Chrissy, and Steph’s names came up as members of that alliance.” When Kamilla was voted out by those three, it gave her “confirmation that what Mike White told us about the pregame alliance is real.”
Even though Kamilla came into the game with two friends from Season 48, Joe Hunter and Kyle Fraser, they didn’t talk strategy prior to Season 50. “When CBS called me and sent me an email about leaks happening and how they trusted us to maintain the integrity of the game, I listened and I said, ‘I won’t talk to anyone,'” she remembers. “Now I know it doesn’t matter.”
Kamilla also addresses the comments made by Angelina Keeley about how the edit is not fairly showing female voices. “I actually had to explain this to a former Survivor player last night,” she states. “There are 24 people and a lot of people are getting under-edited, and he’s like, ‘You really think Survivor is making a conscious decision to not include women?’ I’m like, ‘Nobody said this was a conscious thing. People are saying that it’s unconscious.’
“Also, I met Jonny Fairplay last night, and he told me that by me talking about this and reposting Angelina’s videos, I’m ruining Survivor 50. So, I will refrain from saying more.” But does she want the iconic Survivor villain on her bad side? “Oh no, what’s he gonna do? Try and wrestle me?”
Kyle was medically evacuated before Kamilla had a chance to work with him, but she did have a plan in case they ended up on the same beach. “I would announce every single time, ‘Hello, me and Kyle are getting water. Would anyone else like to join us?'” she smiles. “I know that I wouldn’t be able to work with Kyle — people wouldn’t let it happen. And so, instead of being sneaky about it, I think it would be cool to be seen with him and tell my other close allies to work with him, because then it makes our group stronger.”
Genevieve MushalukScott Duncan/CBS
Survivor 47’s Genevieve, knowing she was on the outs with Christian Hubicki, Rick Devens, and Aubry Bracco, played her Shot in the Dark but it came up as “Not Safe.” During her time on the island, she found two Billie Eilish Boomerang Idols, but wasn’t allowed to play either of them because of the nature of the twist.
“Why do you hate me, Billie?” Genevieve laughs. “I love you so much. Why do you hate me? I found two idols! But I’m sitting there being like, I don’t feel like I had two idols. I could have really used an idol. I would have played an idol. Like, damn it.”
If her Shot in the Dark had come up “Safe,” she suspects Joe would have gone home on a re-vote. “I think it’s an interesting decision point for Joe because, in his own way, he has a one-in-six chance to deal with. He knew I was gonna play my Shot in the Dark, so on a revote, they’re gonna vote for him. So if I’m safe, then he wants to vote for Devens so they don’t have a chance to re-vote. But you bet Jeff’s pulling that out of the urn, and then he’s got to go back with them knowing he wrote Devens’ name down.”
Jeff really hyped up the “Blood Moon” twist, but Genevieve feels “no hype right now,” adding, “I feel only depressed. Like, I did not like this twist.”
Switching over to her relationship with Aubry, Genevieve agrees they were “always at odds with each other. We could never find the place where the roads intersect and maybe we get on the same path. Never. At a certain point, I realized that I could at least use that relationship as a bit of a smokescreen for other stuff and make people comfortable with me. Because if I’m targeting her, I’m not targeting you.”
Two days after Angelina gave her jacket to Emily, Genevieve continued that trend by bestowing hers to Aubry. “I’m a very pragmatic person and it had been really tense and uncomfortable at tribal,” she divulges. “So it was partially, there’s never anything personal on my part, and also, I’m going to Ponderosa and sadly I’m not gonna need it. I’m gonna be very warm, drinking margaritas by the pool, and so it’s the right thing to do.”
Addressing online conspiracy theories, she confirms that the order of eliminations shown on TV was how they took place: Kamilla first, Genevieve second, and Colby third. As for the rumor that guest star Zac Brown didn’t actually catch his fish, she declares, “Did he not? I have always been told that he did. While we were there, he said that he did. He had the engraved harpoon gun or something. Like, I don’t think you do that if you can’t fish — that would be psychotic!”
Even though Genevieve is not “deep online,” she is aware that she has a huge gay fanbase. “Teeny [Chirichillo from Survivor 47) has told me this,” she nods. “Teeny is my connection to everything that is cool online. I do have a public Instagram, and I get the best fan interaction. I don’t know what I did — wrong or right — but yeah, I think it’s just that I’m a total train wreck.”
Colby DonaldsonScott Duncan/CBS
Colby (The Australian Outback, All-Stars, and Heroes vs. Villains) went home unanimously after losing his vote early in the game, and he left his fellow tribemates — and America — in tears when he urged everyone to “find the joy.”
“You don’t often get the opportunity to go out like that,” he says about his “emotional” final day. Being eliminated early “sucks in every way, make no mistake,” Colby adds. However, he feels “fortunate to have had the opportunity and the platform to say thank you to all those involved,” from the production to Jeff to his fellow players.
As for his final words surrounding joy, he explains: “It’s easy to focus on the negative in Survivor when things aren’t going your way, and there are rough days for everyone. I’ve played the game before where I didn’t find the joy, where I instead focused on the things that weren’t going right. I regretted that after the game, and it took a lot of years to really get true perspective and look back and realize the wrong mindset I had before. You can find joy in this game and it’s that joy that propels you.”
Colby confirms that the two injuries to his foot were so severe that there was a real possibility of being medically evacuated. “I damaged my ligament in the challenge with the Zac Brown reward where we were pushing the boat up the beach,” he recalls. “It hurt, but it was something I could deal with, and it’s not something that the doctors would have removed me from the game for.”
He continues, “What was more problematic was that at some point after that, I punctured my same foot somehow, which introduced some bacteria that then turned into a staph infection. It’s the infection at this point in the game that’s much more concerning to the doctors and concerning to me. It also hurts worse than the tendon or the ligament issue.
“We’re in constant communication with the doctors before and after each challenge and tribal council, and they said they need to treat this and it’s not gonna get any better while I’m in the game. I knew I was going home that night, so I said, let me go to this tribal. If, for some reason, something weird happens and I don’t get voted out, we can address the infection after that.”
Speaking bluntly, Colby reveals, “I don’t think I could have finished the game because of the infection. It was getting worse. Everyone around me saw it and knew how bad it was. A staph infection is a very serious thing, and if you let it go unchecked for that many more days in the game, it could be a real problem.”
Colby laughs at Cirie Fields’s assertion that he had to be eliminated because he’s the head of the snake. “I don’t know that I was the head, but I was definitely in the upper torso,” he says. “I was definitely somebody that she should have been looking out for. Credit to Cirie: she is always playing a smart game; she is a good player.”
If he had a vote, he would have written down Emily Flippen’s name at tribal council. “Here’s the deal: Coach and I still would have had our work cut out for us, because we gotta figure out a way to flip Emily or Cirie,” he notes. “I don’t even know, to be honest with you, if we could have. It would not have been smart for Cirie to come with me and Coach, because she’s already playing with Rizo and Devens and some other players over there.”
Colby is officially hanging up his Survivor hat, telling us, “This was my last season, and I don’t say that because I’m trying to get talked back into it. I do believe that it’s time for a lot of us from the old era to hand the baton over to people from the newer seasons, young and old, and players that have only been back once. It’s time for those to carry the torch forward.”
These exit interviews have been edited for length and clarity.