Exclusive: Brandon Hantz talks about 'Survivor: Caramoan' and his meltdown (Part 1)

Brandon Hantz was eliminated from Survivor: Caramoan -- Fans vs. Favorites' Bikal "Favorites" tribe during Wednesday night's fourth episode of the CBS reality series' 26th edition.


Brandon -- a 21-year-old in chemical disposal from Katy, TX -- was voted out of his tribe at the season's fourth Tribal Council, the second elimination vote for Bikal, which took place right at the location of the Immunity Challenge because Bikal had decided to forfeit the challenge in order to get rid of him as soon as possible due to his unruly and unpredictable behavior.

In an exclusive interview with Reality TV World on Thursday, Brandon talked about his Survivor experience. Below is the first half of Brandon's interview. Check back with us soon for the concluding portion.

Reality TV World: Your tribemates were shown calling you "unstable" last night. Do you think that was accurate or what's your assessment on that, and has your opinion changed at all [since the filming]?

Brandon Hantz: What man is ever going to say, "Oh, I'm unstable!" No, I'm just kidding. No, I think it was pretty silly because all of us had such a great time out there for the first 10 days, and then to change their note like, "Oh he's totally unstable," I think they were just playing it up as if -- you've got to understand they're thinking last season.


So like, "Here he goes again. He's unstable because he has emotions, he has feelings, he doesn't like when people call him -- give him names." Come on man, what person likes to be given a name, like a pet, you know? I'm not nobody's pet. I don't deserve to be degraded and disrespected Survivor or no Survivor.

And you've got to think about it. Who threw the first blow? Phillip literally walked to the camera and said, "I'm a street fighter." Before I even get remotely physical, he says, "I'm a street fighter." He doesn't understand. Look, that tells me right there who's unstable. He was really unstable, I mean, you've got to admit that was a little bit -- to go off and just say, "Hey dude, I'm a street fighter," come on.

The question is, "Is Phillip stable?" That's the question. Me, of course I'm stable. I mean, I showed a lot of restraint. There's just a point to me where it's too much. There's just like too much disrespect. He had no respect for anybody at camp. He thought he was Boston Rob and he thought he could disrespect people and he thought he could get away with it, and you know, Boston Rob didn't even in front of their faces disrespect them.

He was strategically sound enough to do it behind their back, and that's why I have a problem with Phillip. He was trying to be something he's not and it just backfired on him.

Because now, he looks silly. I thought he looked worse than I did last night, to be honest with you, and I think a lot of people would agree. He looked like he was crazy. And the way that I acted, of course people are going to be like, "Man, that was really off. There's something wrong." I understand that.


Reality TV World: So you think everything you did was justified. I understand you had an issue with Phillip, but dumping out the rice doesn't affect just Phillip, it affects your whole tribe, and there's the whole idea of two wrongs not making a right. What's your take on all that?

Brandon Hantz: Of course. My take on that is, look man, we're playing for a million dollars. In my mind, I'm playing for my family. I wanted a million dollars so my kid could go to the best college and my family could be set. So the reason it's justified is the fact that you're taking a million dollars away from me. I'm taking two days of rice away from you.

I think it's pretty even as far as that goes. If you're not caring in a game setting, look, anything goes in this game, man. You've got to realize that we all signed up for it. We didn't sign up to go to Golden Corral, you know? We didn't sign up to get the buffet.

We signed up for Survivor, and if it's legal in that game -- which it is, to throw out the rice and beans, or [burning] people's socks for that matter, and you know what I'm talking about by that [the revengeful move his uncle Russell Hantz had made when he previously played Survivor].

Reality TV World: Yeah, I actually wanted to ask you about that. I just wanted to clarify that in a lot of other games like Big Brother, threatening to get violent with other cast members or destroying things is grounds to be expelled from the game because it's against the rules. And obviously we didn't see that happen here. So are you saying destroying food and threatening physical violence to the other castaways isn't against Survivor's rules?


Brandon Hantz: Yeah, yeah... It's not... All that stuff, if it was illegal or anything like that, I wouldn't be having this conversation with you. I would be in trouble, so no, none of that is against the rules. Now getting physical with someone is against the rules, which Jeff Probst stopped me from doing, so to answer your question, I didn't break any rules or I would have repercussions -- which I don't, so everything's fine.

Reality TV World: Viewers saw you have the incident at camp with your tribe and their reactions and then the next thing we know, we cut to the [Immunity Challenge] site and Corinne Kaplan was making the comment that your tribe had decided to forfeit. How aware were you that those discussions were taking place and how did your tribe come to the decision that they were going to forfeit the challenge?

Brandon Hantz: It wasn't a decision that I was -- this was all preconceived before I even did what I did. This was going to happen. That's what people don't understand, is that all this was planned on happening before the merge, because I was the leader of my little alliance.

I was the one trying to make the decisions on the other side with me, [Brenda Lowe] and [Erik Reichenbach]. So it was really a tribe divided, so you've got to understand that I was already in a position of being it was either me or Erik.

And obviously, you don't want Brandon Hantz going to the other tribe because they didn't trust me from my last season. So in 10 days, I had to do a lot of work man. I was really trying my best to keep my composure and a lot of people want to see a bad side of me. But a lot of times, I'm saying to the camera, "I'm really trying to keep my composure. I'm here to play a game. I want to win a million dollars."


And it was really hard to do that with somebody like Phillip, because he's hard to even get a message across to, because he doesn't want to listen. He doesn't want to understand. Even when I went and apologized to him like a man, and said, "Hey man, I'm sorry."

It was like, "You know what? I'm Boston Rob, I decide it's your fate. Sorry, you just bite the hand that feeds you." You can't compromise with somebody like that. It's a dictator attitude and I'm not down with that.

That's why I don't live in North Korea, is because I don't choose -- I don't want to be told when I can and when I can't. That's a good example of what it was. It was like some dictator who just said, "Hey, either this way or you go home." And how embarrassing is that to have to bow to someone who was such just a guy who you would laugh it off, like really Phillip? That's embarrassing. That's like, who listens to him?

Above is the first half of Brandon's exclusive interview with Reality TV World. Check back with us soon for the concluding portion.






About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski