Exclusive: 'Survivor: Kaoh Rong' castaway Neal Gottlieb talks (Part 2)

Survivor: Kaoh Rong -- Brains vs. Brawn vs. Beauty's newly-merged Dara tribe lost former Brains castaway Neal Gottlieb in a medical evacuation during the latest broadcast on CBS.


Doctors ordered Neal, a 37-year-old ice cream entrepreneur from Sausalito, CA, to leave the game on Day 19 because an infected wound on his knee had the potential to damage his joint if not treated properly. There was no Tribal Council as a result.

Neal became the second castaway medically evacuated from Survivor: Kaoh Rong and the eighth person to leave the game overall.

During an exclusive interview with Reality TV World on Thursday, Neal talked about his Survivor experience and unfortunate departure. Below is the concluding portion. Click here to read the first half.

Reality TV World: Nick Maiorano's argument for siding with Brawn was that he could manipulate them and beat them at puzzles. From a strategy standpoint and putting your own bias aside for being on Brains, do you think that was the smartest way for him to go? Because you even informed him that the three Brawn were extremely tight, so you'd think he and Michele Fitzgerald would be at the bottom going forward.


Neal Gottlieb: Exactly. It's amazing how much of a bias there is towards puzzles when they're particularly only a small part of the challenge. I don't think that was necessarily the right way to go, because you also had a Brawn tribe that was very strong and very fast.

[Kyle Jason] is a real competitor! Brawn had certain advantages in certain challenges because of their size, and they were clearly tight. And Nick knew he wasn't necessarily tight with the Beauty girls, so I spent a lot of time trying to convince them, trying to show them the light, trying to show them that we were a much better way to go.

Because [Nick] would then have physical dominance over us, of course. I mean, I thought I was a little faster than him but I didn't want to show off that point to him. Yeah, I spent a lot of time trying to make him see the light, but ultimately, he decided to go to the dark side.

Reality TV World: How much of a role, if any, do you think Debbie Wanner's crazy antics played in Nick choosing Brawn?

Neal Gottlieb: I mean, (laughs) watching that last night, it sure looked like her antics -- she just didn't have any sort of emotional intelligence. She just thought if she said it, it would happen, and that's not the way this game works.


It's like dating. You don't show up for a first date and try to throw the person into the sack right away. (Laughs) That's what Debbie was doing! She forgot about dinner and conversation, and was just going right in for the kill. And that turns people off.

Reality TV World: I can understand that Tai Trang made it pretty obvious he was working with Scot Pollard, and we saw Debbie failing to convince him to join Brains. We only saw Scot mentioning that Julia Sokolowski felt indebted to him and the Brawn tribe for saving her, but did anyone on your side work to change her mind? We didn't see that unfold. 

Neal Gottlieb: Yeah, Julia was a tough one! She's young and impressionable and, I think, a bit of a pack animal. So, it was really hard to try to break through. I get it. But, you know, I tried. It was hard to even have a conversation with her.

So, also what they didn't show -- and it was really frustrating to be at that camp especially at Chan Loh because people didn't leave the camp. They didn't leave the shelter. They just sat around, especially at Beauty's beach post-merge, people just sat around day after day after day, and didn't get up. So there was very little opportunity to actually speak with people.

If you got up -- even if you got up to go to the bathroom -- everybody was suspicious. So I spent a decent amount of time actually looking for an idol. I had this theory that there was going to be a fourth idol at the merge to make it more likely the "Super Idol" would come into play. So I spent a lot of time looking around.


I mean, I already knew I was a target, so I figured, "What do I have to lose?" So that was hard as well, especially in the early days when you have 10 people who are exclusively just sitting around doing nothing and looking at each other with this, sort of, bully mentality. It was like if you got up, you were doing something wrong.

Reality TV World: The Beauty tribe was so strong and tight for most of the season. They never lost a challenge or went to Tribal before Caleb Reynolds got medically evacuated. Was it therefore a surprise to you or anyone else that the four Beauties didn't reunite as a power force at the merge despite the little alliances they made after the first swap?

Neal Gottlieb: Well, I think they did reunite, right? They were working with the Brawn and wanted to get out the smart kids. But you never know. Nick was telling me that he wasn't tight with the other girls and he wasn't even that tight with Michele. So now watching the episode back, I think he was somewhat telling the truth about that.

Reality TV World: Yeah, I just meant they sort of worked together as swing votes in the end rather than a tight alliance from the start. Tai was in his own little world with Scot and Julia seemed separated from Nick and Michele.

Neal Gottlieb: Yeah, but I do think they were more together than it felt like watching the episode. I think they were together.


Reality TV World: Back when you were on the Chan Loh tribe, before the first Tribal swap, did you have any idea you were the next target? And if the merge didn't happen when it did, whom did you think at that time would've been the next person voted out?

Neal Gottlieb: I don't know if I actually was the next target. I asked another tribemate about this, because Michele had a huge target on her back. She had screwed up in two challenges and I was very valuable as the "Puzzle Master" as far as winning future immunities.

So, not knowing when the merge was coming or even when another swap was coming -- and I was also feeding the tribe and therefore making myself very, very valuable -- so I don't know if I actually was the next target.

Reality TV World: So you're pretty sure the target would've been Michele?

Neal Gottlieb: I think it's highly likely, yes.


To read the first half of Neal's exclusive Survivor interview with Reality TV World, click here.






About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski