TVLINE | Ever consider using your idol on Kristina at the Final 5 vote in order to bring her to four and send Sage out?
Yes and no. I saw a lot of feedback from everyone online, like, “Oh, if Rizo wanted to win, he would have blah, blah, blah, [saved] Kristina,” but honestly, I love Kristina now, but this was my mindset in the game. I knew I needed somebody to compete against Savannah, at least in the Final 4, and the reality is Kristina isn’t gonna win that immunity. Maybe, who knows? She was probably +10,000 odds, but she was not going to win. I would have bet more that Sage was gonna win, and I needed somebody to at least beat Savannah in the Final 4 for me to have an opportunity to go against her in fire, and I know Kristina said she would have gone against Savannah in fire, but had Savannah won final immunity, I’m making fire against Kristina, and honestly, I was OK losing fire against Savannah, because it’s like, this is gonna decide who wins the game. I love Kristina now, but had I lost to Kristina in the Final 4 fire, I would have beaten myself up for months and months and months. So, I don’t think that would have affected anything, because had I beaten Savanah, I would have won the game. I don’t think it was a make-or-break decision. Could have been good points to the jury, sure, but I think at that point, they were over my idol shenanigans and questioning themselves, like, “How are we letting Rizo get away with this every single time?” that I don’t think it really mattered.
TVLINE | Did you have any thoughts throughout the game of needing or wanting to get Savannah out? That sitting next to her might not be the best idea?
So, I think what really shifted — because throughout the entire game, I wanted to go to the end with Savannah and Soph, and I felt very confident in my game. The reason that shifted was with Savannah winning her fourth individual immunity. The entire time, Jeff is kind of the narrator of the season, right? Jeff talks about the storylines, talks about what’s important about our season. So at Tribal Council, Jeff just illustrates how big Savannah is now winning her fourth immunity. Only five other women have done this, and to me I’m like, “Now she has the chance of beating a record that’s never been done in ‘Survivor’ history.” I’m not going to beat that because the jury didn’t know what I was doing. So the reason why I did all these shenanigans at Tribal was to differentiate my game, right? I wanted to show people that I was running the game behind the scenes. Nobody knew. I had all these conversations and I had all these social capitals, and you see it in exit interviews. People didn’t know what I was doing until I got to Ponderosa, and I think what was so hard that people don’t realize is Savannah, Soph, and I played this game so closely together. Nobody really knew what we were doing. I think they were all just shocked how they self-imploded, and the reality it’s we caused that self-implosion to happen.
So going to Ponderosa, I kind of gave everybody the real picture of what happened, and it gave people a lot of clarity, and granted, had I done it at Tribal Council, would I have gotten their respect compared to when I went to Ponderosa? I don’t know. Could have, would have, should have, who knows? But I think had I gotten there, even with Savannah, I probably would have had a good shot. I think had me, Soph, and Savannah gotten there, Soph probably wins cause the jury is anti-Savannah and I, I think. Not until I got to Ponderosa and I really told them what happened [did] they really respect Savannah, because Savannah had this stupid f–king perception that she was a mean girl. Not the case at all. I think people were just taken aback by how confident Savannah and I were, because I’m not gonna lie, I was having fun at Tribal. I was doing all my shenanigans and Savannah was just confident, which we should have been. Everything we wanted (aside from Nate) happened, and I don’t know, I guess they took that the wrong way. Was I confident? Sure, but I think I had every reason to be because everything I wanted to happen literally f—king happened.
TVLINE | Now that you’ve seen all the episodes, was there anything you didn’t know about during the game that you found most surprising?
I don’t know, honestly, nothing really did surprise me. I guess like how grand everything is, right? Everything always feels so monumental. Every immunity challenge, every reward challenge, every Tribal Council, every time talking to Jeff, it just felt special. But as a super fan, everything I hoped for the experience to be was exactly what it was.