Exclusive: 'Survivor: Kaoh Rong' castoff Scot Pollard talks (Part 2)

Survivor: Kaoh Rong -- Brains vs. Brawn vs. Beauty's merged Dara tribe voted Scot Pollard out during the latest broadcast on CBS.


Scot, a 40-year-old former NBA champion from Carmel, IN, was voted out of his tribe on Night 27 at the game's ninth Tribal Council session once his close ally, Tai Trang, betrayed him.

Scot, a former Brawn tribe member, became the ninth person voted out of the tribe although 11 castaways have left the game overall -- two of them due to medical evacuations.

In an exclusive interview with Reality TV World on Thursday, Scot talked about his Survivor experience. Below is the concluding portion. Click here to read the first half.

Reality TV World: We saw Tai Trang approach yourself and Kyle Jason about allowing Aubry Bracco to join your alliance, but then you immediately suggested getting rid of her. That seemed to come out of left field considering Cydney Gillon had been your main target. So could you explain what made you change your mind? Were you worried about Tai getting too buddy-buddy with Aubry?


Scot Pollard: The reason why I switched from Aubry to Cydney was because everyone was assuming we'd vote for Cydney and we could catch Aubry off-guard. So it was really just us switching tactics, because we were gunning to try to get them out anyway at some point.

So instead of them being ready for a blast on Cydney, we just decided it would be more of a surprise to go after Aubry. And especially because Aubry [was a threat] that day against Jason and she almost got it at the Immunity Challenge! So Aubry was actually stronger in challenges than Cydney.

Reality TV World: Tai won the advantage at the Reward Challenge, which was that extra vote at Tribal. I'm assuming you and Jason asked him about it, so did he tell you the truth? And if so, did your alliance come up with a gameplan of how to best utilize that extra vote?

Scot Pollard: I can't tell you with 100% surety if I knew what that advantage was before I left the game. I can't remember if I found out from, you know, later on, whether it was being on the jury or after the game. I don't recall, so I can't really answer that question with 100% conscious involved. (Laughs) I don't know if I knew when I got voted out if Tai had given me that information or if I got it later on from somewhere else.

Reality TV World: We saw Jason acknowledging the fact Julia Sokolowski was trying to play both sides. How convinced were you that Julia was going to stick with yourself, Jason and Tai? And did you include her in all of your strategy conversations or leave her out because of that lack of trust?


Scot Pollard: Our Survivor relationship, just talking between Julia and myself, I think there was a bond there that we respected each other and liked each other and we were going to play with each other at a distance. Like I knew what she was doing with the girls, and I was cool with it.

She was giving me enough information that, "I could trust you, but keep some to yourself, and I'll do the same thing. I'm going to give you as much information as I can to let you know that I want to work with you, but we're not there yet."

That's how I feel about it. And watching the show back, I'm so impressed with the way she was playing, because she's the only one thinking with her head at this point in the game. She's the only one thinking, "Who do I want to sit next to?"

Cydney SAYS at this point in the game, "This is who I want to sit next to," but then she votes out somebody that is never going to win the million dollars. No one is going to give a millionaire a million dollars -- I found that out. So, why would you vote me out?

Why would you vote [Debbie Wanner] out if everybody was thinking that she was not going to win? Why would you vote her out? So, that doesn't make any sense to me strategy-wise, why they're voting out people that they could clearly beat.


So, Julia's the only that's ingratiated herself with supposedly the villains, the "horrible people," knowing, "I can beat them if I sit down with them at finals." And so, I have a lot of respect for the way Julia is playing the game right now.

Reality TV World: I thought it was a risky move when Jason gave his idol to Tai at the Tribal Council when Debbie got voted out because of the possibility Tai could've just kept the idol for himself. Did you think that was a bad decision at the time? Were you hesitant about Jason doing that in fear Tai might not give the idol back?

Scot Pollard: No, it was showmanship, and I thought it was funny because it just made what we did -- like it made everyone's jaws drop. It scared them into voting Debbie out. And then the showmanship of, "Here, Tai, we're not even going to use it." (Laughs)

I think that was really the closing punch or gut-kick or whatever that got it across, like, "Here, we're going to make you question everything and then still not even do what we said we were going to do" in a sense. But there was no concern that Tai wouldn't give that idol back.

The burning of it has gotten a lot of people asking questions, like, "Do you have to say, 'I accept this idol?' And then do you have to say, 'I'm giving it back to you?'" The way they did it, I don't know why they said it that way. He could've just handed it back to [Jason] as far as I know.


I don't think there's any formal speech that needs to be spoken from like the 17th century: "With this idol, I bestow on you the powers of immunity." I don't know why they spoke that way, but they did, (laughs) and I don't think there was ever a question if Tai was going to keep that idol. Because, I mean, at that point, it was building trust and it was keeping trust, and Tai did immediately give it right back.

Reality TV World: You told Julia and Jason that the next time Tai lost Individual Immunity, you'd be getting rid of him. Were you willing to do that as early as the next challenge if you had stuck around? What were you thinking would have been the perfect time to blindside Tai?

Scot Pollard: Well, if I stayed in the game, he wouldn't have had an idol. He would have given it up, so he would've been a little bit more exposed. We didn't know -- and again, I don't know 100% but I'm pretty sure I did not know what his advantage was yet -- but we assumed it was another idol.

That's the best answer I can give you on that one. We assumed it was another idol or another clue to an idol. But it would not have been the next one because we were still looking for numbers.

So, let's say things went the way we wanted them to go and Aubry went out last night, we had numbers. The next step after that would've been Cydney, and if she won immunity, then it would have been [Joseph "Joe" Del Campo] or [Michele Fitzgerald].


But, you know, given Julia's relationship with Michele, we would've respected that and probably gotten Michele out. And then, my guess is, it would've been either Cydney or Joe, and then the other one [remaining] and then Tai, because he was the biggest threat left in the game.

I would've taken my chances up against Julia, Michele and Jason to see who was going to get to the Final 3. And I had a great speech prepared. I was starting to think that I actually had a chance to get to the finals at this point, so I started writing a speech in my head of why I deserved it.

[I thought], "Even though, you know, they think I have tons and tons of money, here's why I deserve to win anyways." So, I fell short of that goal and it started to become a realistic goal, but I still made it further than I initially thought I would going into the game.

To read the first half of Scot's exclusive Survivor interview with Reality TV World, click here. To read what he had to say about bully accusations, click here.






About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski