TVLINE | At Tribal Council, you reflected on your 25-year history with the show. Watching the show back on TV, do you have anything to add and what has the post-game experience been like?
The game itself was phenomenal. The post-game has been really fun. I didn’t anticipate developing as many friendships as I have. I’ve enjoyed getting to know not only the players in the game that I played with — and look, you never wanna end up at Ponderosa after the game. But here’s what’s unique. On most seasons, if you don’t make the jury, they ship you back home, but because this was a big returning player-season, they kept those of us who were eliminated pre-jury in a separate Ponderosa. So we don’t get to interact with anybody that’s in the jury, but we have our own little Pondy over there. So then I got to hang out with a lot of the players that I didn’t play the game with, and get to know them and kick Charlie’s ass in ping pong, even with a hurt foot, on a daily basis at Ponderosa. That was a lot of fun.
Kamilla was one of those [people] I didn’t have a chance to play the game with, but she’s got a wicked sense of humor that I love. Very dry. She’s just a funny gal, and so I enjoyed her. And I got to connect with Jenna. I hadn’t seen Jenna in years. So, you can bracket it. You’ve got the game, and then you’ve got Ponderosa after you get voted out, and then you’ve got everything that’s transpired since the game. And I stay in contact with all of my friends, even though I’m not on social media now. Everyone knows how to reach me and they know that I’ll answer the phone or at least call them back immediately, because it’s important to me to stay connected and also help some of the younger players through this experience. I think those of us that have done it for many years, that’s part of our role to sort of shepherd the group.
This was, for me at least, a handing over of the baton. I knew this was my last time because I believe the younger generation — not just new era, but just the younger players — need to carry the torch forward, pun intended. And if this brand and this franchise continues with its momentum, it’s got lots of legs left. It’s got a lot of years. I think it’s time for this newer generation to begin to carve out their status as true icons of the brand and of the game. That’s why I don’t mind stepping back and stepping away and being done with it. It’s been an incredible chapter, but it’s time for the newer players to get their opportunities to go back to multiple seasons. And then they’ll get that perspective that I have now because it’s taken a long time. Clearly, I didn’t have it when I went and played “Heroes vs. Villains.” I still wasn’t in the right mindset and [didn’t] have the type of respect and appreciation. It was a driver, Nick, for me going back. I told Probst this in an interview we did prior to me being selected. I didn’t respect the game in “Heroes vs. Villains.” I was grumpy with producers and those that were interviewing me. I was grumpy with Probst, Probst was grumpy with me. We just have this brother dynamic, but I didn’t want to end that way. I didn’t want that to be my last experience. It wasn’t fair to those I was around and, and I’m better than that. So I wanted a shot to go back and show Probst that I was, in some ways, that same 25-year-old Colby that applied 26 years ago.
TVLINE | In the first few days, you said you found Rizo to be kind of an annoying character, but you later came around to him. Being someone who also played “Survivor” in your 20s, what did you see in him in those first few days?
I talked to him a few days ago. He’s a good young man. Now, the elements about Rizo that annoy me, still annoy me, right? He talks a lot, he doesn’t work nearly enough or hard enough, but that’s Rizo. But over a few days, Nick, I was able to find the real redeeming qualities in Rizo, and it didn’t even take a few days. It was pretty quick. I could see that there was a good young man, very bright. He’s an incredibly sharp, young guy. He also knows the game better than I do. He’s a superfan, but he’s played more recently, so make no mistake, there was some strategy in aligning with him, both from the aspect of, “Here’s a guy that can help me through the game, this old man that doesn’t know the game the way these younger players do.” But I remember telling Genevieve this when she was not at all about keeping Rizo around, I said, “I think he’s malleable,” and not in a bad way, but I said, “I think he’s wanting to grab ahold,” and now we see it in the show play out with what he’s doing with Cirie. He’s playing a good, smart game. If we had come back together in a merge situation, he is an ally of mine. He may not want to carry me all the way to the end, but he’s not gonna target me immediately after a merge. He was somebody I could play with. Also, once I learned about Rizo’s background, his upbringing, his family back home — a lot of that stuff is private and I will let him get into that — but it was easy for me to connect and see the good in Rizo, and I try to do that with everybody. But my connection with Rizo partly is because we started together on Night 1.
Also, what we didn’t see on TV, I couldn’t sleep in the camp and so I’d go down on the beach and the boat we had would stay sort of marooned on the beach at night. I would sleep beside the boat, just to block the wind and Rizo would sleep in the boat. It’s actually a somewhat practical place to sleep. But that was our nightly sleeping spot and so we had conversations every night, all of which were on camera, but it didn’t play out in the game. So we bonded at night a lot because we’d talk to each other or he’d talk me to sleep, because the dude never stops talking. But I had a lot of great stories and a lot of great times with Rizo down on the beach at night.