Exclusive: Troy "Troyzan" Robertson talks 'Survivor: One World' (Part 1)

Troy "Troyzan" Robertson, a 50-year-old swimsuit photographer from Miami, FL, was eliminated from Survivor: One World's merged Tikiano tribe during Wednesday night's eleventh episode of the CBS reality series' 24th edition.


Troyzan was voted out of his tribe at the season's eleventh Tribal Council session, the fifth session for the tribe since the merge, after he failed to win the Individual Immunity Challenge and knew he was on the chopping block next as a result.

On Thursday, Troyzan talked to Reality TV World about his Survivor: One World experience -- including whether he believed there was a good chance Christina Cha could've been eliminated instead of him at the time, what his blunt thoughts were on Christina's poorly-crafted gameplay and her personality in general, why he felt he was drastically different from everyone else on the show, and whom he surprisingly insisted Greg "Tarzan" Smith blindly followed.

Below is the first half of our exclusive interview with Troyzan. Check back with Reality TV World on Friday for the concluding portion.

Reality TV World: So did you go into Tribal Council sure that you were going to be voted out, or did you think there was a pretty good chance Christina was going to be going home instead?


Troy "Troyzan" Robertson: Well I thought there was a chance. I thought well, "It could be possible it may be a tie," and that's why I was trying to talk to Christina in the water there to see where her vote's going. Once she said that, I was like, "Okay, well maybe I have a chance here with somebody else doing something."

She's like, "I'm going to vote for [Chelsea Meissner]," and then I was like, "Yeah, okay, I'll vote for Chelsea" just to B.S. with her. But I knew votes were going towards her, so I'm like, "Okay, I got to get -- I've got to figure out who's voting for Christina." So I was like, "You know, maybe 60-40."

Reality TV World: Who did you think the tie was going to be between? Because it seemed to viewers that [given there were eight people left] unless you were considering voting for Chelsea after all, there couldn't be a 4-4 tie scenario, you know what I mean?

Troy "Troyzan" Robertson: Well that's right, but I mean, I just -- part of me thought that [Kat Edorsson] was going to maybe vote for Christina, and I thought -- because I talked to her a lot, I thought she was mad enough at [Kim Spradlin].

But Kim had talked to her and she trusted her more, I guess, because of the time she spent with her and Kat didn't know the game. She says, "Well, I don't know kind of what I'm doing," and so she's going to trust who -- people get in fear, and they're just going to trust whoever they feel like is playing the best and it wasn't me. They didn't trust me at all because I just went nutty on them.


Reality TV World: There seemed to be a few instances of some questionable gameplay on last night's episode, at least based on what was presented on TV. One of them was when Christina told you the women were splitting their votes and two of them were going to be voting for her as their backup in case you had found another idol. What was your opinion of that -- how shocked were you that Christina told you that?

Troy "Troyzan" Robertson: Well, yeah, I wasn't really that shocked because the majority of people out there are really kooky. They're just playing this game in the weirdest fashion because I think that they don't know how. I think that they truly are just playing to stay around and not playing to win. They're strategizing not to win. There's a big difference between me and them. I'm playing to win.

I'm trying to tell them the same thing, you need to make moves to win. And Christina, the conversations I had with her before, I tried to say, "Listen." Like the week before, I tried to give her the idea of, "If I'm with you and then there's this person, this person, and this person, that makes five, okay? Get this?" And she just wouldn't grasp it.

I mean, there were moments where I'd say, "Did you hear anything that just came out of my mouth? Did you understand anything? Because you look like you're just lost in space." So for her to say that to me last night like, "Oh, I'm going to have a couple votes to myself," that didn't surprise me because she's not playing to win.

She's just playing to stay around and, "Oh sure, I'll do whatever you want me to do. I'll do whatever." Kim is just basically telling everybody what to do and they're following along. It's amazing. Because they don't know how to play and they're not letting their egos get in the way like the guys would. A guy would be like, "I'm not going to do that. I'm going to be a leader."


Reality TV World: I'm trying to be charitable, but Christina has basically come across looking clueless so far this season...

Troy "Troyzan" Robertson: Yeah, that's the way she was out there. She's just playing clueless. She's just playing to like stay around and is somehow just sliding by in the last few weeks just like, "Okay, whatever you want." That's how she would respond almost, just go, "Uh huh. Yeah, uh huh." And I'm like, "Wow."

Reality TV World: Based on last night's Reward Challenge, it seemed like no one respected Christina very much or had a very high opinion of her. She's also billed as a "career consultant" on the show -- which I assume means people trust her to advice them on some pretty big personal decisions in the real world -- so do you think she just decided to adopt this weird clueless type of persona for Survivor or do you think that's who she really is genuinely?

Troy "Troyzan" Robertson: Well, she's a very intelligent person but at the same time, I don't think she's purposely playing the game like this. I think she's just lost either from being tired or hungry or whatever. She completely lost all sense of rational -- she was a very irrational thinker.

But most of the people out there now, they're not thinking rationally. Tarzan isn't thinking like that as well. He's just doing basically whatever [Alicia Rosa] is telling him to do. He's just playing to stay around.


He just wants to see his wife. He cares less about winning. That was the same with [Leif Manson]. He was just kind of like wishy-washy, like, "One hour I'll be with the women and then another hour I'll be with the guys or just play camp out here and have a good time around the campfire." So, it's tough.

Reality TV World: So are you saying Tarzan had an alliance with Alicia? Because we really haven't seen a lot of that during the episodes.

Troy "Troyzan" Robertson: Well I mean, he's pretty much like following her whatever she does. He's not with the guys. He was never with any of the guys, but the majority of the guys were never with the guys. So it was never guys versus girls like everyone thinks that it is or are talking like it is or have perceived it to be. It's not guys versus girls.

Reality TV World: I understand that, but based upon what's been shown, Tarzan and Alicia didn't seem to have much of a relationship. Most people probably assumed he was taking his cue from Kim like everybody else rather than from Alicia.

Troy "Troyzan" Robertson: Well he is -- Alicia's [the go-between]. If Alicia decided -- that's why I knew if I got to Alicia, I could get to Tarzan last week. That's why I was saying, "Listen, it's five. Do you guys grasp this five right now? You can go from wherever you're at to the bottom."


And I think they all grasped that, except maybe Christina. "You have to understand [Christina], that you've been gone after since like the beginning of the game. So, you gotta understand that you are at the bottom. Do you really think that Kim and Chelsea are going to take you?"

I said that to everybody. "Kim and Chelsea you guys, they're together. They're two people; They're two votes. They're only going to bring one person, so they can't bring all of you. So they are lying to all of you."

Reality TV World: The show didn't show them working through it last night, but when they made the decision to split the votes, it didn't seem like a coincidence that Tarzan was one of the votes they designated to vote for Christina. It seemed like Kim maybe kind of anticipated you'd figure the backup target out and try to flip a couple votes, but if they had Tarzan being one of the two votes already, it would make it that much harder for you to convince two people to flip. Because then, you'd have to convince Kat, Sabrina Thompson or Chelsea instead. Do you think that's what happened and [the decision to have Tarzan vote for Christina was deliberate] or did it just work out that way for them?

Troy "Troyzan" Robertson: Well, I just think it worked out that way. I mean, I thought there was a good chance that Kat would switch her vote to Christina and maybe just take a chance. She was really pissed off at Kim.

She was fired up because Kim basically lied to her and was going to take her out on that challenge. Listen, Kat figured it out. "If she was going to take you to the Final 3, she would take you and she wouldn't have just dumped you off like that." So I thought there was maybe a chance, but.

Above is the first half of our exclusive interview with Troyzan. Check back with Reality TV World on Friday for the concluding portion.






About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski