Last week medical student Candice Woodcock was the 13th Survivor to get zapped from Cook Islands after everyone decided she'd been exiled and punished enough for how she mutinied and could eventually be thwacked.
I caught up with her for us to find out if she was out her mind hooking up with Adam and was irritated by her reasoning:
Tashi: Are you a Survivor fan?
Candice: Oh absolutely - I’ve been a fan from the first season, I’ve never missed a season - I’ve always wanted to be on the show.
Tashi: Your strategy was obviously based on Rob and Ambers.
Candice: No no no - I actually didn’t want to get into a romantic relationship on the show but it just turned out that way. I went over to Aitu and didn’t think I had a strategy to get past Becky and Yul and I knew I could control Adam so based on the numbers and Adam’s leadership poition in the tribe I went over there. I thought that possibily he had the immunity idol, we didn’t think Yul had so I thought I could control him and slowly it worked into a romantic thing.
Tashi: But surely you know that - besides Rob and Amber - every other couple always
always annoy everyone and get themselves eliminated.
Candice: That’s true - it wasn’t obvious to everyone at the beginning, we tried to keep it under wraps. (
me: - rolling eyes 'cos of how all over each other they were - how can these people not know that everyone sees everything?) By the time I let everyone know about it I was already going to be voted off.
Once they’d voted Nate off I knew they were going to target me next. I tried to keep Jonathan close to me and make him think he had just as much influence as Adam did. Jonathan was actually my closest ally and had no idea this was going on.
Tashi: Don’t you think you undermined women’s lib by using a guy to further yourself in the game?
Candice: No I think I looked at all my options and that was the best one. I knew that all you need is a vote so I knew that having Adam who controlled everyone else in his tribe would get me the votes that I wanted versus Becky and Yul who I couldn’t get past. I knew I would have a much better chance against Adam in a final two or three.
Tashi: Was all the smooching with unbrushed teeth worth it considering you haven’t won the bucks?
Candice: Hindsight’s twenty-twenty. Everybody’s just as nasty out there as you are - we brushed our teeth with twigs every morning but no, Adam and I aren’t an item, we went our separate ways after the show. It is kind of annoying to watch it on TV, I kind of wish it hadn’t happened but you can’t change the past.
Tashi: So were you just like “Okay we’ve done the show, bye.”
Candice: He lives on the West coast and I live on the East coast and we’re very different people. Within the game the things that are important are getting food, getting shelter whereas in real life it’s “Do I have a social connection with you?” “Are you intellectually stimulating?” There are different things you’re interested in when you don’t have you basic survival needs met.
Tashi: Was there anything between you that was real and not mutually beneficial?
Candice: Yeah we were out there and we had to survive and get by and when you don’t have any real friends and everyone’s out there to get each other I knew Adam was someone that I could trust not to go behind my back, to not undermine me, to outscheme me in the game - that was a level of comfort I had that I didn’t need to be looking over my shoulder.
Tashi: Did you have that with anyone else?
Candice: There were people that I knew, in real life I’d love to be this person’s friend but in the game I wasn’t going to trust them with my million dollars. For instance Becky’s one of my best friends now - I talk to her all the time and we’re so much alike outside of the game - but in the context of the game you don’t want to be competing with someone who’s smart.
Tashi: So you’re saying Adam isn’t smart.
Candice: You said that, I didn’t say that.
Tashi: (laughs) What was your biggest mistake?
Candice: Believing Yul when he said he didn’t have the idol. Throughout the game he said he wanted to play an honest game so when Jonathan and I asked him if he had it and he said, “No,” we believed him. I thought possibly Adam had it so we could jump over to the other tribe and be with it.
Tashi: What did you do for all those millions of hours you spent on Exile Island?
Candice: I dug for the idol. I dug a whole that I could stand in up to my ribs and couldn’t find it. It takes a long time to start a fire with the wind so I also rested because there was no food out there so while Jonathan was catching 22 fish I was scraping out a coconut.
Tashi: Did you talk to the cameraman?
Candice: On camera I talked to him but they’re not allowed to talk to you unless you’re doing an interview so it was just me walking around by myself.
Tashi: When you sleep do they sit hovering, watching you?
Candice: No they go and sleep as well and he said he came out to check on me a couple of times but I never woke up and saw him out there. A lot of crazy things happened at night, I burned myself on the fire - he says he filmed at night but not really, you’re just out there by yourself.
Tashi: When I chatted to Billy he says that he still keeps in touch with you after the show and he tried to convince me he’s not still infatuated with you - is it true?
Candice: I think Billy’s just a huge fan of the show and he’s still living in the moment. I don’t really talk to him - he does send out e-mails to everyone, kind of mass e-mails - I don’t know, Billy’s an interesting guy.
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