TVLINE | It’s been a minute since we last saw you on “Survivor.” What’s been happening in your life since then?
STEPHENIE LAGROSSA KENDRICK |\u00a0So the last time I was on “Survivor” was 30 seasons ago, which equates to almost 16 years. After that, I got married, started having children. I have three, a 13-year-old, 11-year-old, and 6-year-old. And I just said, “You know, I’m done with the reality TV thing now. I’m just gonna be a mom.” I’m very involved with my kids and their school and all of their sporting events and things like that. So about 12 years went by. After “Heroes vs. Villains,” I got a call to do a show again, and it was called “Snake in the Grass.” And I was like, “no,” because I haven’t done it in so long. I told my husband and the kids, and they were like, “Do it. That’s exciting. You should do it!” It was only 10 days. I was in Costa Rica. It was supposed to be a scavenger hunt of some sort, and I was like, “What’s the harm? I’ll do it.” So I did it and I lost, thanks to Cirie because she knows me too well. It was a game about lying, and she knows I can’t lie. She knows a lot of information about me and she outed me.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Then I got the call for “Traitors,” and I had my son in the car with me and I had the guy on speakerphone and he was telling me all about it. “It’s in a castle in Scotland and it’s like a game of Clue and it’s so cool and you’ll love it.” And I said, again, “Thank you for the offer, but I’m sorry, I can’t do it.” I actually had a family affair for my son the day I was supposed to be leaving, which is why I said no. I hung up the phone and my son said, “Mom, just get on a plane after the luncheon.” It was his first Holy Communion. And I’m like, “Kyle, it’s 30 days in Scotland. I don’t think I can do that.” I have never been away from my kids that long. So I went home, told my husband, told my older daughter. They all said I should do it. Call casting director back and I said, “You know what, I’d love to do it if you’ll still have me.” And so I did “Traitors,” and I’ve done nothing since.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After “Heroes vs. Villains,” I swore I would never do “Survivor” again because I just was so mad. I got voted off second. Didn’t even have a fighting chance. James was an a\u2014hole. It was just a whole nightmare. I never even watched the show. Some here and there I watched because I really am a true fan, but I was p-ssed. I was like, “I’m done with ‘Survivor.'” I get the call for “50.” Here I am. Really, 50 seasons of anything is pretty damn amazing. Like I’m not gonna take that call being a true “Survivor” fan myself? So here I am, 45. Last time I played, I was in my 20s. So I’m an older version of myself, not old, just older, but here I am, and you know what? I came this close and never won, so it is my turn. I’m here to kick ass, take names, literally, write them down, throw them out, and be the last one standing.<\/p>\n
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TVLINE | There are a lot of familiar faces here, some of which you know or have played with. How is that going to affect your game?
So here’s the thing. I have played multiple times. There are familiar faces here. I can be a threat to others because I know some people personally like Cirie, like Colby. I don’t know Coach, but he was on “Heroes vs. Villains,” but I got voted off so early I never got a chance to meet him, but you know what? Everybody’s a threat. You’ve got Angelina here with two other people she played with. There’s Season 48. There’s three of them.\u00a0I mean, I’m not the only one. Then you’ve got winners. You’ve got people here that won.\u00a0There’s gonna be a lot bigger threats than 45-year-old mama of three Stephenie out here, OK? So I am here to play my game, to use what I can, which might be the people that I know. There’s a lot of twists and turns. It’s definitely a new game. It’s definitely quicker. It’s definitely evolved, but it’s still a numbers game. At the end of the day, if you’re on the wrong side of the numbers, you’re out of Tribal Council. So that’s what I’m gonna do. I’m still going to make good alliances, and I hope that those decent alliances will take me far in this game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The following interview was conducted on location in Fiji before filming began for “Survivor 50.” It had been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":257962,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[156,111,139,69,437],"class_list":{"0":"post-257961","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz","12":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}