Survivor 47 winner Rachel LaMont has reacted to Sam Phalen's claim her Final 3 appearance was thanks to necklaces and luck, rather than skill or social strategy, during their Final Tribal Council debate.

ADVERTISEMENT

On Survivor's Season 47 finale which aired December 18 on CBS, the Final 3 castaways -- Rachel, Sam and Sue Smey -- duked it out to be crowned the "Sole Survivor" and winner of $1 million.

RELATED LINK: 'SURVIVOR' COUPLES NOW: WHO'S STILL TOGETHER?! WHICH SHOWMANCES SPLIT UP? (PHOTOS) 

During the final jury questioning, Sam and Rachel weren't afraid to take jabs at one another and fight for why they deserved to win.

After Andy Rueda pointed out that Rachel had the worst voting record out of the Final 3, Sam took a clear shot at his opponent.

"[Rachel] couldn't get people to do her bidding anymore. She lost a lot of strategic agency and social agency... so I don't think she can reconcile it was immunities and an idol in fries that got her to the end of this game," Sam argued, adding how he played a "scrappy" game and managed to adapt when votes were constantly being thrown his way at previous Tribal Councils.

"I obviously had luck in the game, but I do think that getting the clue in the burger was the luckiest thing that happened to me," Rachel acknowledged in a post-finale interview with Entertainment Weekly.

But Rachel slammed Sam's luck over skill analysis of her gameplay.

"I think that I have reasoning and evidence to back up that basically everything else that happened to me was not luck," Rachel insisted.

"And so I think in the moment, when that one answer where he is just so eloquent and he's giving all those stats, now I'm like, 'Oh, I can retort that and this and that.' But in the moment, your head is spinning."

Sam had boasted at the Final Tribal Council, "I got voted for more than anybody here, 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."

He added when looking at Rachel, "You were the one who said multiple times, 'I need him out of this game. He's a threat.'"

RELATED LINK: 'BIG BROTHER' SHOWMANCES NOW: WHO IS STILL TOGETHER? WHICH COUPLES HAVE SPLIT UP?? (PHOTOS)

Sam had also told the eight-person jury that although his game was certainly imperfect, he played the most well-rounded, dynamic, adaptable, and creative game of the Final 3 castaways.

"Every Final Tribal Council question I can't fully listen to Sam because I'm trying to think of what I'm going to say," Rachel admitted to EW in her interview, reflecting back on how she thought the jury questioning was difficult to process and manage.

"But you have to listen a little bit so you can rebut, and it's a very complex, hard thing to do even in real life, let alone after 26 days of the game, after that much decoration and this much pressure."

Rachel therefore admitted there were moments when she was "nervous" in the end.

"I felt like he had a good point, and in my mind I didn't need to reconcile the way that I played the game. I played the game that was in front of me and the game and the path that I found to the end, I took it and I executed on it," Rachel explained.

"And if I didn't have an idol in my pocket, I wouldn't have played the way that I played. It changes everything because my perspective in the game changes, my positioning that I know I'm in changes... and so it's very easy to chalk up my win to luck and the moves I made [because of] luck."

But Rachel argued, "If I didn't have those tools, I wouldn't have played the same way. And so it's a cause and effect, even if it feels like an idol magically appeared in my pocket, which we all know is not true."

When Rachel had addressed the jury before voting commenced in Fiji, she insisted she had played "the most dominant game" of the Final 3 castaways.

"There were two advantages and one idol post-merge, and I controlled all of them -- and that wasn't just through luck, it was through social connection and stealthiness," Rachel told the group.

"I had to get an idol when everyone was at camp and then I had to play it in an incredibly large fashion, which I feel made a huge statement."

RELATED LINK: 'THE AMAZING RACE' COUPLES NOW: WHO IS STILL TOGETHER? WHO HAS SPLIT? WHERE ARE THEY NOW? (PHOTOS)

Rachel added how she had also won four Individual Immunity Challenges and tied a Survivor record, for which she felt really, really proud.

"I went from an underdog to a super big dog, and I hope that I get your vote," Rachel concluded.

Rachel did, in fact, receive all but one jury vote to win the game and the $1 million prize during the finale.

Seven jurors had voted for Rachel to win Survivor 47, and Kyle Ostwald was the only juror who had cast his vote for Sam.

During the Survivor Aftershow, Rachel admitted that she was "a little bit in shock" over her landslide victory.

"If I'm being completely honest, I thought Sam had an incredible Final Tribal, and I genuinely did not know where those final votes were going. I was really nervous," Rachel told Survivor host Jeff Probst.

Sam, for his part, confessed that he was "disappointed" to lose the game after delivering a great pitch during the final jury questioning.

RELATED LINK: 'SURVIVOR' COUPLES NOW: WHO'S STILL TOGETHER?! WHICH SHOWMANCES SPLIT UP? (PHOTOS) 

"I knew it was an uphill battle coming in. I just tried to come into tonight with the same mentality I went into fire with -- come out fighting and give it my best," Sam explained.

"I knew I could make a compelling case; I knew that I played a really good game that I should be proud of. I came into tonight wanting to win but at peace with the result regardless, and so I'm blessed."


About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski

FOLLOW REALITY TV WORLD ON GOOGLE NEWS