A hott Survivor surpise!
Survivor Fiji winner Earl Cole, up close with us in Cape Town.
I recently got treemail saying that Earl was in town for a couple of days - literally staying 10 minutes away, just over the mountain in Tamboerskloof.
He was staying with a friend of his from his school days - Laura
Million. Ha!
How it all came to be is that Earl's been spending some of his Million travelling the world and he's always wanted to visit South Africa. He and Laura recently reconnected online while planning their 20-year school reunion (coming up next year) and he discovered she was living here.
He asked if he could visit, she said yes and next thing he was on the plane and at her house.
On the second day he was in town I went through to Laura's with fellow Survivor junkie (and
autograph collector!) TV Plus's Clayton Morar. Earl and Laura had just returned from spending the day at Robben Island, we arrived at about 18h30 and spoke and spoke:
The Amazing Race
Tashi: Jeff mentioned that it all happened very quickly for you - getting onto the show and leaving for it. How'd you get cast?
Earl: I’d never really watched it since the first couple of seasons so I wasn’t really that familiar with it - I was a last minute replacement. People who’d been cast dropped out at the last moment and the casting director saw me at a restaurant. And the rest is history.
They chose me to be on The Amazing Race - they picked me twice to be on the Race. In 2005 they saw me and my girlfriend at a gas station and some casting person said: “Hey, have you heard of The Amazing Race?” and we were like: “Yeah, we want to be on it.” But my girlfriend couldn’t do it and a year and a half later I met another casting person - with another girlfriend - they had no idea who I was, nothing or that I’d been asked before - but I couldn’t do it again.
At that point they had my my number and said they’d call back to see if I changed my mind but then they phoned to say they had another opportunity on Survivor. I was in Fiji two days later.
Fast fact! After winning the show Earl took time off to travel his own TAR. Places he's visited include Dubai, Australia, Europe and now SA.
$Tashi: Once you’ve won Survivor - does life change in a Big way?
Earl: Yes it changes it pretty instantly. I was able to walk into my job and give one day notice - not two weeks, one day. What changes is your life - not really being on the show but being on TV and the money gives you so much freedom to do what you want.
You have to spend it wisely, living in California you learn to spend it wisely because it’s a very expensive place. When I got back I said I want to be the richest Survivor winner ever - that’s my goal to be the most successful Survivor winner.
Clayton, $ and I (touching as much $ as possible)
War VetsEarl: The hardest thing to do when you get back - especially when you’re in the finals, - I had a hunch that I’d probably won but to keep that secret when everyone knew I’d gone on the show.
Every week people would say: “So when are you getting off?” and I’d say “Next week.”
It’s a big deal for us to watch the show when it’s on because we don’t know what other people are saying. You watch and go, “Oh, so that’s why they made that decision - I didn’t know that!”
You do call each other in between though! When you eat, sleep and drink together as we did you have a bond so they can’t expect us not to call each other. When everyone gets back we’re like war vets - “No-one understands, “ you know. It’s not just Survivor, all reality shows are like that I think.
Earl autographing his pic for Clayton's Collection
Late Night With EarlI put so much thought into the game - I’d stay awake three or four days straight. I’d lie and think: “What can I do to get them on my side?” I was invisible, I worked really hard, I built the fire, I helped with decisions - I decided I’d let other people take the power and have it in the background. That’s how I started off.
It was Mookie and Rocky who thought they were running everything while I was gathering people for a rebellion. It’s a game where you can’t get emotional.
Impossible (would have to talk!)
Before you go to the island you’re around each other for about three or four days but you can’t talk to each other. We can eat together but I can’t talk to you so you just size everybody up - so you look at anything, what someone’s T-shirt said, someone’s tattoo.
Everybody had these different little quirks that you could look at and size. People thought I was like this professional athlete.
Curse of the Car
Tashi: Dreamz - I laughed ‘cos at first when he didn’t live up to the deal I was fuming but then afterwards I decided “It’s Survivor - it’s what you’re supposed to do.”
Earl: I’ve been defending the guy for a long time - he was lying, cheating, stealing since the beginning. I wouldn’t have been in the position if I was Yau-Man ‘cos I wouldn’t have gave him the keys until he gave me the immunity, not the other way round.
What a lot of people don’t know, what happened, Dreamz offered him the necklace before Tribal Council and Yau-Man said: “No, we’ll just wait for Tribal Council.” I was standing right there. I was like “Are You sure about that? This is gonna be interesting.”
You can’t let people think that long out there. He thought about it and thought: “I’m gonna keep it.” That was the game changer right there. That was big shock, I was already preparing my strategy against Yau-Man - what I was gonna say, I had it all lined-up. When James went back on that - the look on my face was like “Wow” that was honest shock because I didn’t have a clue he was going to do that.
Yau-Man knows he took a chance that’s why he was always okay with everything. He knows he took a chance because we all had a deal set up - they didn’t show any of that stuff. We all agreed that whoever won the car would give it to Dreamz. We knew he didn’t have a car and all of us did and we were like “I don’t want a big truck anyway.” The only person who didn’t like that was Boo, he was like “I want a truck to put some crawfish in,”.
I told Dreamz about it and said, “Just be prepared for strings attached.”
Tashi: What would your deal have been?
Earl: It would have been similar - Dreamz was already on my side anyway, we set up an alliance on Day 2, we talked on Day 2, in the rain, no-one else was around but we worked it out.
Earl On ...Papa SmurfHe’s a vietnaam vet - that guy could sleep in any condition - he could fall asleep in the mud and snore like a bear.
The juryNo-one was harsh towards me - I just answered their questions honestly. It takes a lot of work to vote people off and then have them on the jury and get them to vote you for the money. It has to be a slow death.
StacyTashi: Why did everyone have such a beef with Stacy? When they said all those things about her in the challenge. She didn’t seem to do much - at
all?
Earl: She was one of those people that became drunken with power because they thought they had all the power on that team, they were winning all the time, they thought they had the game figured out and she became kinda bitchy with hers and a lot of people didn’t like her.
I knew were she was coming from though - she really got a grilling and it bothered her tremendously. She didn’t know why and I told her why, “It’s how you appear to be, it’s the things you say, your behaviour.”
She told me about her life, we started talking more and I thought, “This is an opportunity to steal this person away.” I drove a little ledge between her and Alex - *
luring voice* “Come on over here, he wasn’t there for you, come on over to this side."
I talked to her for about three hours about everything and even Yau-Man talked to her and she came over to our side and it helped her because she went further in the game.
MookieWhen we had that project of building the house together - that you get to see personalities, work ethic, what people are trying to do - we built that house together and you find out people’s personalities immediately.
Some people are lazy immediately, others are bossy - you’re finding that out right away, some people are know-it-alls. When I saw Mookie’s personality I thought, “I’ll take a step back.”
Yau-ManI was one of the only people who saw value in him from the beginning. I could just sense “This guy's going to be valuable”. He had a good work ethic, he was a smart guy - I tried to find something in common with everyone.
With Yau-Man, he knows a lot about philosophy and science and that’s how we started bonding - I saw we had a lot of common sense whereas a lot of people were there for show. I found out he grew up on an island, he already knew how to open up coconuts, use the land - that’s invaluable.
BawlingPeople were crying all the time. I don’t cry - maybe on the inside.
Fans vrs FavouritesThey wanted me to be on it but there aren’t any winners, they decided they didn’t want any winners last minute. I was going to do it for my charity and when I heard I was mad, I was “Why don’t they want me now?” but then I understood why.
As for what Earl's up to now - he's owns an internet company, he's working with his charity and he's got his own production company.
"Mark Burnett has to watch out for me because I'm coming as a producer!"