Exclusive: Sebastian Noel talks 'Survivor', Jenna Bowman relationship update, and why he was "livid" at Domenick Abbate

Sebastian Noel finished Survivor: Ghost Island in sixth place during the finale on CBS.


Sebastian, a 22-year-old fishing guide from Satellite Beach, FL, was voted out of the game on Night 36 after receiving votes from the season's ultimate winner, Wendell Holland; runner-up, Domenick Abbate; and third-place finisher Laurel Johnson.

Donathan Hurley had voted for Domenick at this Tribal Council, while Sebastian had voted for Donathan only because Domenick fooled everyone with his fake hidden Immunity Idol. (Domenick played the fake idol, allowing everyone to assume it was real and he had immunity).

"I am so freakin' stupid. Dom is such a good actor. I had such good numbers on my hands and he made me keep my extra vote. That extra vote is cursed!... That was a million-dollar mistake," Sebastian said in his final words.

During an exclusive interview with Reality TV World on Thursday, Sebastian talked about his experience on Survivor: Ghost Island as well as his romance with fellow Season 36 castaway, Jenna Bowman. Below is what he had to say.


Reality TV World: When I talked to Jenna earlier this season, she confirmed you two are dating and she was planning to move to Florida to be with you. Congratulations! Do you have an update on your relationship? How are things going?

Sebastian Noel: Of course, yes! She's actually sitting right next to me and smiling. We are going back to her place in Venice, [California], and packing up her whole apartment in a U-Haul and driving it across the country.

We are going to take videos and blogs the whole way down to Florida, and she's going to live this summer with me in Florida. And then when my lease is up, we are hopefully going to move up to Hawaii or somewhere out there in South Pacific -- Fiji! (Laughs)

Reality TV World: What's your take on how the romance developed? And do you feel your relationship with Jenna on the show positively or negatively impacted your strategy and gameplay?

Sebastian Noel: It started off in the beginning. We sat next to each other on the plane in the back of the jumbo jet, and we talked the entire 13-hour flight -- the entire flight. A


nd so, we started off there, but we kind of knew that any kind of Survivor relationship is a bad idea, because once you're in a relationship, it counts as a double vote, usually, because you're always voting together and that puts a target on your back.

So we kind of kept it cool, even though we did snuggle and hold hands every now and then on the bamboo. But she was like my best friend out there as far as playing Survivor. We never really did much strategy, but she was always my best friend. It was kind of a neutral relationship as far as affecting our gameplay.

Reality TV World: Why did you vote for Wendell to win? Was it a personal vote or did you really think Wendell had played the best game?

Sebastian Noel: Wendell definitely played the best game all around. He was always -- it was also personal too. But he was always such an all-around Survivor player. He was the only other person out there shooting fish with me. He built up our campsite -- all the beds that we ever had, and he was just a great guy to have around camp.

But not only that, he was also one of my best friends out there, and he was like my brother. So we definitely built a relationship up throughout the entire season, and not as much as I did with Dom, to say the least.


Reality TV World: Walking into the Tribal when you went home, was your initial plan to vote for Donathan or Dom? And what impact did Dom's fake idol -- that you clearly must have believed was real -- have on your decision?

Sebastian Noel: Oh yeah, totally. The whole plan was me and Donathan were going to vote with Angela and secretly vote out Dom with the extra vote. And would you play a double vote on someone who just played an idol? I don't think anyone would, so it really threw me off.

And I thought to myself, "Who the heck do I vote for now?!" I didn't whisper anything to Donathan, so I just went ahead and voted for Donathan, which is what I had told Dom and Wendell I was going to do just to keep them happy and satisfied, because that was going to be the original plan if I had not brought the extra vote to play.

Reality TV World: We saw the jury discussing amongst themselves how they suspected Dom's fake idol was fake, and when I talked to Wendell this morning, he said he had also whispered to you that he didn't think Dom's idol real. So what convinced you his fake idol was a real one?

Sebastian Noel: Yeah, I guess just in his menacing tone of voice that he presented himself with that idol, I was like, "Good God Almighty, I knew he had one but he probably has two! And I guess he's playing it right now." But he was such a good actor, I couldn't really pull it off right then and there.


But yeah, Wendell did whisper something to me, and I didn't realize what he was saying at the time -- that it was a fake idol. He definitely whispered it to me multiple times, but I couldn't figure out what he was saying because he was whispering it!"

Reality TV World: Ohhh okay. That makes sense, because I wasn't sure why you'd ignore a tip like that.

Sebastian Noel: If I had asked him, like, "Is that a fake idol?" then I probably would have voted differently and whispered something in Donathan's ear as well.

Reality TV World: Was it a red flag to you though when Domenick walked up to Jeff Probst before the vote and then Jeff also didn't confirm whether the idol was real or not?

Sebastian Noel: Yeah, after the fact, it is. But as you're playing this game Survivor on Day 36, you're completely delusional and you're not really in the best state of mind.


So you're kind of like, "Okay, well, he just played an idol." And I know I should've [read the situation better, but yes, if I play Survivor again, I'm waiting for Jeff Probst to tell everyone that this is an idol before I do anything!

Reality TV World: Why did you decide to tell Angela about your extra vote? Were you not concerned she'd run back and tell Dom? And what was your reaction when Dom announced at Tribal he knew about your advantage?

Sebastian Noel: Angela was pretty close to me the whole time. She would braid my hair and we actually had a pretty good bond out there. She would crack me up every day around the campfire and stuff.

So, I felt pretty strong with Angela, and she was always kind of out of the loop with Dom, and I never thought she would break like that. So yeah, I trusted her, and I think Donathan did too.

We told Angela -- I had a conversation with Donathan before we told Angela what we were going to do with the double-vote thing, and I didn't really think we should talk to Laurel, because Laurel had been spilling the beans throughout the whole season, according to Donathan.

So we just kind of said, "Well, we need to have Angela do this. We've got to cross our fingers and hope she plays this out."


Reality TV World: I understand your reasoning for not voting for Dom, but why not play your extra vote anyway since your last Tribal was the last time you could use the advantage? What was the upside of not using it, maybe even to just cast one vote for Dom and one for Donathan?

Sebastian Noel: Yeah, the extra vote, I wasn't even planning on using it until 4 or 5PM before that Tribal Council, so I was like, "Well, I might as well use this thing since it's in my pocket," right?

I thought of the best plan I possibly could have and we rolled with it, but I had told Domenick and Wendell and Laurel that we were going to vote for Don Don, just to keep them happy, because that was the original plan, was to keep me and get rid of Don Don.

So, I felt if I just somehow voted for Donathan, they would realize I'm still on the same page as them.

Reality TV World: Laurel's concern on flipping on Dom and Wendell was she didn't think could trust anyone else to take her to the end. Was she right? What would you have done if Laurel did flip?

Sebastian Noel: I didn't actually have a plan with Laurel, which is kind of something that's been haunting me, that me and Donathan should've acted with her, but you know, I just felt like we had security with Angela and we didn't even need Laurel!


I even told Donathan, "We don't have to tell Laurel about this. We can just keep it quiet."

But I never really ever got to a strategic point with Laurel throughout the whole game, I mean, we voted together a couple of times, but we never really had personal conversations about what we wanted to do together.

Reality TV World: Could you clarify why you seemed so angry and bitter about Domenick's behavior at the Tribal Council when you went home? Because obviously you had been targeting him that day, so I'm trying to make sense of what was so upsetting to you.

Sebastian Noel: Yeah, I was absolutely livid at him! He was just getting ridiculous in the way he was talking about Donathan.

He was almost verbally beating him up in everything he said to him, and they didn't show much of it, but he took his idols out and was like, "Which one do you want me to use?! Huh, buddy?! Does this one look good to you?! Because it's going on you and your ass is out of here!"

He was being an absolute bully and that's what I said to him at Final Tribal. I was like, "Dude, you were totally bullying the kid, and I don't respect anything like that."


Donathan is a sweet person, you know? How can you just physically, verbally beat someone up like that? So I don't get angry ever, at all, so it takes a lot to tick me off. But the way he was talking to Donathan the night I got voted out, it really set me off on the wrong end of the stick.

To read more of Reality TV World's exclusive Survivor: Ghost Island interviews with the Final 6 castaways, click here to view our show page.






About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski