Exclusive: Candice Woodcock discusses 'Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains'

Candice Woodcock thought she was securing her place in the game when she decided to betray her fellow Heroes and join with the Villains alliance and vote Amanda Kimmel out of the game at Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains' Night 30 Tribal Council session.


However the very next night, Candice was reminded that betraying one alliance for another may only leave both alliances feeling they can't trust you when the Villains decided to make her one of their split-vote targets and remaining Heroes members Colby Donaldson and Rupert Boneham used that knowledge to ensure she'd be voted out of the game before either one of them.

On Friday, the former Survivor: Cook Islands castaway and fellow bootee Danielle DiLorenzo -- who was subsequently booted at the second Tribal Council featured on Thursday night's special double-elimination episode -- talked to Reality TV World about their Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains experiences. 

Below is Candice's portion of the pair's shared interview in which she explains why she felt she was better off being the newfound sixth member of an alliance than remaining in her existing four-person alliance, whether she really believed Russell Hantz's claims that he might be willing to take her to the game's end, and why she ignored Villains alliance member Sandra Diaz-Twine's repeated attempts to convince her to remain in the Heroes alliance and allow Sandra to flip and give the Heroes a controlling 5-4 vote majority.

Click here to read Danielle's interview.


Reality TV World: Why were you certain that being the fifth or sixth member of the Villains alliance was "the only" choice you had and was better than being, what seemed to be at worst, the fourth or fifth member of the Heroes alliance?

Candice Woodcock: I didn't think it was "the only" choice that I had but that day, so much stuff happened. 

Sandra had originally told me that she didn't trust Amanda and was not going to vote with the Heroes.  And she told me that privately and then when we were all sitting around as a group, playing cards in the shelter, Rupert went around asking, "Okay, are you going to vote with us, are you going to vote with us?"  And we asked Sandra and she said "yes" and then kind of gave me a weird look like "you know I'm not."

And then it went back several times, back and forth, the rest of the day.  So that made me nervous that she was waffling on that.  And then after Danielle and Amanda had wrestled for the clue to the Immunity Idol and they came back from the Reward, both Amanda and Colby told me that there was no clue to an idol.  And then later I find out that there was a clue and Russell found the idol and showed it to me.

So I'm like, "I'm supposed to trust this people -- they're in my alliance -- but they're lying to me?"  And Amanda would go have these long conversations with [Parvati Shallow] and have these long conversations with Russell and I knew that she was playing hard for herself, and I had [also] caught her in lies. 


I wanted to trust her and I wanted to play with them and I really wanted to get rid of Russell or really any of the Villains, but it just didn't seem like to me that it was coming together and it was going to happen. 

Watching back the episodes, I feel really stupid because it was clear that Sandra really wanted to go with us.  Colby told me that he had had this conversation with Sandra and he'd locked it up [but] I didn't believe that Colby was strategizing, because he hadn't done anything in the game to that point.

Reality TV World: So even when Sandra was sitting on the beach pleading to you, you still didn't believe her at that time?

Candice Woodcock: By that point yes, I believed that she wanted to go with the Heroes.  But I didn't know where she was going to fit in to that, and whether she was going to be the tipping point to put me in the minority of my Heroes alliance or [what]. 

It was too late at that point, she had gone back so many times, I hadn't had a chance to work it out with her, to see where I was going to be if she came over.


Reality TV World: How did you see the rest of the game playing out after you flipped, did you really think Russell would take you to the end?

Candice Woodcock: To be honest, it all happened so fast that there wasn't that much time to think about very long-term.  But I did not trust Russell.  I knew that he had told me about the idol, and he told me that he wanted to use it or eventually use me to vote Parvati off.  And so I thought, "Okay, that's a great opportunity.  I can take that information and tell Parvati and Danielle and we can get rid of Russell."

So I didn't want to go with Russell, and I didn't trust him when he said he was going to take me to the end.  I knew that I was going to have to make my own way.  But clearly I made a mistake.  (laughs)

I messed up and I freaked out, and I should have just stuck with the Heroes.  But the entire game, they never acted like they wanted to play with me.  They never took my opinion into consideration, and they never made me really feel like a part of the team.

And I think that's a huge blunder of their part.  Because when you go into a merge and you have that straggler on the end of your team that you haven't made feel comfortable, you know, they're going to flip.


Reality TV World: During her exit interviews last week, Amanda claimed there were a lot of things that happened out there that made her lose interest and passion for the game but she wasn't willing to elaborate.  Do you have any idea what she was talking about, do you think any of it might have involved you?

Candice Woodcock: I have no idea.  I mean I can't speak for her, I don't know.






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