'Survivor' runner-up Sam Phalen explains why the jury's voting surprised him -- and it's not why you'd suspect!

Survivor 47 runner-up Sam Phalen has explained why the jury vote surprised him -- and it's not just for the reason you probably suspect.


Rachel, a 34-year-old graphic designer from Dexter, MI, who currently resides in Southfield, MI, won Survivor through a 7-1 jury vote against Sam, a 24-year-old sports reporter from Schaumburg, IL, at the Final Tribal Council session on Night 26 of the game.

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Kyle Ostwald was the only Survivor juror who voted for Sam to win the $1 million, and Sue Smey placed third with zero jury votes during Survivor's two-hour finale that aired on Wednesday, December 18 on CBS.

The fact Sierra Wright didn't vote for Sam was an obvious surprise given the pair had been extremely close allies through the Survivor game, but there was another reason why Sam was taken aback by the landslide vote in Rachel's favor.


"Quite honestly, as the votes were coming back, I'm sitting in my head thinking, 'Oh no, we're four to four and I know I don't have Sue,'" Sam told Entertainment Weekly in a post-finale interview.

Sam apparently thought the jury vote was going to be a tie, or at least pretty close to that.

"So I was trying to do the math, but expected it to be very tight," Sam said.

"I was a little bit surprised by the 7-1 outcome, but I think sometimes it doesn't always capture the spirit of how difficult of a choice it might be for a juror to make."

Walking into the jury questioning at Final Tribal Council, however, Sam admitted that he felt like he was "behind" Rachel, especially since Rachel had won four Immunity Challenges and made Survivor history.


"But I felt like I only had a couple of votes to make up if I made my case how I thought I was going to be able to make my case," Sam explained.

Sam suggested at Final Tribal that Rachel had gotten to the end with Immunity necklaces and luck, such as when she had received an idol clue in her fries at the Survivor auction.

Sam argued that Rachel had lost a lot of strategic and social agency as the game progressed and so she had to rely on wins and advantages.

Sam boasted that, in his case, he had played a "scrappy" underdog game and never had necklaces to keep him safe.

"I got voted for more than anybody here," Sam explained to the jury.


"I'm the only one in the game that never voted incorrectly, I was voted for at four different Tribal Councils, and I received a total of 10 votes throughout this game. You, [Rachel], were the one who said multiple times, 'I need him out of this game. He's a threat.'"

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Sam was pretty positive that Kyle was going to vote his way.

"I felt like Kyle was going to be somebody that I would have his vote. I anticipated having Sierra's vote and I thought I was going to get Gabe as well," Sam shared with EW.

"And then as the Tribal Council unfolded, I started to feel like [Andy Rueda] was more of an option for me."


Sam said he felt like he "was flipping" the jury to his side after Andy called out Rachel for having had the worst voting record amongst the Final 3 castaways as well as the whole "Mike Holloway/Ben Driebergen thing."

Sam recalled, "I'm like, 'Wait, they're starting to really see the differences. Now's my chance to go.' And I had told Rachel before that final Tribal, I'm like, 'I'm coming for your neck tonight.' And she's like, 'I'm coming for yours and I'm ready to punch right back.' So it was really fun because I think we were both able to get our jabs in and go to war."

When looking back on the voting results, Sam admitted that it "totally" stung for Sierra to have voted for Rachel to win.

"When you play the game with somebody and they're right by your side for your time in the game, I almost felt like I'm playing the game for both her and I as your right-hand ally, as somebody who gets taken out instead of me at a Tribal Council where they split the votes between us," Sam explained.

"So I did expect to have her vote. That stung a little bit, but I think we've seen through 46 and whatnot too that you can never guarantee it, and people vote for different reasons -- random reasons that you might not expect."


Sam was referring to Survivor 46 when Maria Shrime Gonzalez voted for Kenzie Petty to win the game over her best friend, Charlie David, who had been like a son to her. Charlie ended up finishing in second place.

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But the big difference between Season 46 and Season 47 is that Maria was the deciding vote that clenched Kenzie's victory while Sam still would've lost the game had Sierra voted for him to win.

Had Maria cast her jury vote for her loyal Survivor ally to win, Charlie, he would've walked away from Survivor 46 with the $1 million grand prize.

Charlie revealed to Us Weekly last month that he and Maria still hadn't spoken since their Survivor finale aired, and so Maria's shocking jury vote clearly ended their friendship.

But in Sam and Sierra's case, Sam assured EW that there's no hard feelings or hostility between them.


"I mean, we're good," Sam said. "We're friendly. Absolutely. Yeah, I would say we're good."

Sam also suggested that Rachel deserved to be crowned the "Sole Survivor" given she was a fierce competitor.

"I adore Rachel. I think she is just an absolute rock star, a total badass formidable opponent for sure, which is why it was such a goal of mine to get her out of the game over and over and over again," Sam said.

But that doesn't mean it was easy for Sam to lose the game and then put on a happy face for the Survivor Aftershow in Fiji minutes later.

"It's very hard, especially when you don't get explanations before you're having this Aftershow. So I stood up, Kyle comes up to me, gave me a hug, said, 'Hey, man, I was the one that voted for you.' So I knew already at that point, but then your brain starts to go, 'Well, why Kyle and not so-and-so or so-and-so,'" Sam recalled.

"And you try and sort of figure it out in your head. Not the easiest thing to do in the moment... [But] those conversations can happen afterwards. They can happen off air. We can hash it out and figure out why this or why that.


"But yeah, it's a whirlwind of emotions for sure," he added, "trying to figure out exactly what to say, exactly what to do while your brain's going a million miles a minute."

Sam, however, said he did his best to respect the jury's decision and celebrate Rachel's victory as a result.

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"You want to understand that you are so pumped and happy and amped for them. You want to be gracious as well and know that I got to do something that nobody gets to do," Sam reasoned.

"Nobody gets to play Survivor, let alone play the entire game. And so that in itself was a big blessing."






About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski