Exclusive: Julie Rosenberg talks 'Survivor: Edge of Extinction' -- I'm not saying the twist was unfair, but it's hard to justify Chris Underwood's win

Julie Rosenberg finished Survivor: Edge of Extinction in third place behind runner-up Gavin Whitson and winner Chris Underwood during the three-hour finale event of Survivor Season 38 on CBS.


Chris, a 25-year-old district sales manager from Myrtle Beach, SC, who currently resides in Greenville, SC, won in a 9-4 jury vote against Gavin, a 23-year-old YMCA program director from Erwin, TN, after he had returned from the Edge of Extinction.

Chris received the following jury votes to win: Reem Daly, Julia Carter, Eric Hafemann, Aubry Bracco, David Wright, Joe Anglim, Dan "The Wardog" DaSilva, Victoria Baamonde, and Ron Clark.

Gavin earned votes from Aurora McCreary, Lauren O'Connell, Kelley Wentworth, and Rick Devens. But Julie did not receive a single vote.

Rick finished in fourth place, Lauren placed fifth, and Victoria claimed sixth place.


During an exclusive interview with Reality TV World following the finale broadcast, Julie talked about her Survivor experience. Below is a portion of what she had to say.

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Reality TV World: Why do you think the jury voted for Chris to win and how much of a liability do you think the jury considered his short time in the actual game to be? And do you think he would have won without that move to give up immunity and face Rick in the firestarting challenge?

Julie Rosenberg: Right, you know, it's tricky. It's hard because I think Chris went out third at the beginning of the game. There wasn't much game there for him, so obviously everything they were basing their vote on was everything they saw once he got back in to the Final 6 on Day 35.

But also, a lot of people out there, if not most of them, spent their entire time with him every day. There's nothing to do out there but sit around and talk and bond and fish together.


So all of those relationships that he built I think had a huge impact on how they viewed him getting back into the game.

I almost wonder if there was this mentality of, like, "Okay, one of us is going to get back in. We've been out here together! Those people don't know what it's like. They've never been here."

I almost wonder if any person who won their chance to get back into the game on Day 35 from the Edge of Extinction may have been seen in the jury's eyes as being very deserving or at least have a really good shot just because of all that time they spent together.

And for Chris, look, he made a lot of great moves in those short days that he had out there. You know, he won immunity and obviously won fire, like you said.

Yeah, I do think about it a lot, like, I wonder if, say, I had won immunity, you know, I did so well in that challenge!


I feel like in the first two minutes I almost had it, and if [Chris] didn't have that bullet to put on his resume -- that he didn't win immunity and he couldn't give it up and make this big move of giving up his guaranteed spot in the Final -- would it have been different? Maybe.

In the end, I think he would've beaten Rick in fire and would've been sitting next to us, but yeah, it's hard to say what the jury was thinking and how they saw everything.

I don't know if it would've changed anything for he or I, but maybe Gavin would have gotten more votes than he did and it would have been a little closer. I'm not sure.

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Reality TV World: So what are your thoughts on the Edge of Extinction twist in general based on what you just said?


Julie Rosenberg: I'm not saying it's not fair, because that's the twist of our season and that's the point and honestly, if I had been voted out, I would've been thrilled there was the Edge of Extinction and I wasn't completely out of the game and I was going to have another chance.

So that was our twist, but at the same time, it's hard to think somebody like Chris -- who was voted out on Day 3 -- can get back in the game on Day 35 and be given an idol no less at that point to help him in the last five or six days in the game.

So it does feel strange, and he spent so much time out there on the Edge of Extinction that of course he built all these relationships and friendships, because they're hanging around with nothing to do all day.

Like somebody else said, there is no mental stress out there in terms of the game, because there's no backstabbing and there's no paranoia. No one is plotting against each other, so he didn't have to deal with any of the elements we were dealing with for the whole 39 days.

But I don't want to take away Chris' win from him, like, he did a lot of moves in that short time that he had when he did get back in the game. And if the jury found that he was the most deserving, then so be it. And he did play a great game, for sure, at the end.


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Reality TV World: What did you think of Chris' suggestion at Final Tribal that Gavin was a goat and people wanted to take him to the end all along? It's interesting his name was never written down at a Tribal Council, but while Rick clearly found that to be impressive, one might argue no one ever viewed him as a threat.

Julie Rosenberg: Right, right. I didn't like that Chris said that. Everybody said what they could in the moment to try to make themselves look better or make somebody else look less deserving.

But I don't agree with it. I don't think it was true. I played the game with Gavin until the tribe swap for the first eight or nine days and then obviously come Day 17 on the merge, we were back together.

I saw a lot of his game and he was a very likeable person. He had a lot of friends, and he was strategic. And what you see in the edit wasn't necessarily obviously his whole game.

Maybe it looked like he wasn't making as big moves as other people were either, but he definitely was on the right side of the vote a lot of the time.


He was trying to do his own thing, splitting away from the original Kama six -- before I thought we were going to split up -- and he was forging his own alliances. So I don't agree he would've been a goat. I was surprised he didn't get more votes, actually.

Reality TV World: Rick was given an idol when he returned to the game from the Edge of Extinction, but we didn't see you guys express any concern Chris might have an idol or advantage upon his return. Is that accurate or were you guys worried about that?

Julie Rosenberg: No, well, I don't know if anybody else did. They didn't tell me if they did, but I definitely did not think about it because Rick never told us that he was given the idol from the Edge of Extinction just for getting back into the game.

We didn't know if it was something he had found before he got voted out. We didn't know if it was something he had won on the Edge of Extinction, like, if there was some type of reward/advantage challenge type of thing.

We didn't know if he found it once he was back! There was no communication about how he got that idol, so he was the only that knew Chris was going to get the same thing.

And looking back, it should have dawned on my maybe, like, "Oh, wait a minute. What was that thing?" But it really didn't at the time. None of us really knew it.


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To read the first portion of Julie's exclusive Survivor interview with Reality TV World, click here. And be sure to check back with us soon for the last part! (Also, check out our Edge of Extinction show page for more interviews with the Final 6 castaways).






About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski