Best to watch the video of this interview as Kellie's pretty expressive at times. She provides some good background info that we weren't shown.
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Kellie Nalbandian blacked out after Survivor blindside

The stunned player also threw her buff against a wall... as one does.

By Dalton Ross

Published on November 16, 2023

"What the hell, guys?"

That was a shell-shocked Kellie Nalbandian after she was surprisingly voted out on this week’s episode of Survivor 45. Kellie was on the receiving end of an epic blindside when Drew Basile and the Reba foursome decided not to vote for the obvious consensus target in Jake O’Kane and instead take out their biggest threat from the Belo side in Kellie.

Kellie was absolutely stunned by the maneuver, stumbling around the Tribal Council set and even forgetting at first to bring her torch to Jeff Probst for the ceremonial snuffing. And just like that, a major threat to Survivor 45 was off to the jury.

We spoke to Kellie the morning after her televised ouster to find out what happened after the cameras turned off. Also, what would have transpired if Jake had agreed to not play his Shot in the Dark? Was her amulet to blame for her exit? And does it hurt to go out before her “ball and chain” Uncle Bruce? We asked Kellie all that and more, and you can now watch the full interview above or read it below.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: You actually looked like you were in a complete state of shock by your blindside. What do you remember about that moment, or is it all still a huge blur?

KELLIE NALBANDIAN: I actually mostly blacked out. Obviously, I think one of the most memorable things I said was, “What the hell guys?” And Kaleb had to tell me several days later that I said that. I had no idea, no recollection of even saying that. So that will tell you how shocked I was.

What about after you walked out of Tribal Council? Were you still reeling as you waited to do your final words interview and then went to Ponderosa? What was the night like after the cameras cut off?

So after I walked out, you go into a little area and I ripped my buff off and threw it at the wall and someone was like, “You have to put that back on.” I was like, “Okay, I don't want to.” But I was pretty shocked for a couple minutes, and then I was mostly just angry. But it's the game and I respected and I knew the second that someone kind of figured out where I was and what I was doing, that it would be a problem. So it happened a little sooner than I thought.

What was it like watching it all play back on TV?

It's a little jarring to watch yourself. I don't remember that whole moment very much. The thing that's burned into my memory the most is Kendra crying for me. I was like, get you an ally that will cry when you leave the game.. I very honored and love her so much. That's really all I remember from that. And then obviously that I forgot my torch — not my best moment. But I don't really remember anything else. So watching it back, it's a weird part of Survivor having to sort of relive. I kind of have a couple months to be like, “Okay, this happened to me, I'm fine.” And then you have to relive it and watch it again. It's like re-experiencing drama.

I know you don't remember a lot of it, but was there anything else notable that went down at that Tribal that didn't make it to air?

I think we missed a lot of what was happening on the beach right before I left. Obviously, you could see that I had some concern that I would be a backup vote or a ricochet vote. And I did spend a lot of the day trying to avoid that problem by getting Jake to vote in a bloc with me and Emily. And unfortunately for me, Bruce losing his vote was really a nail in the coffin.

I did not expect that the auction would result in something like that. And I kept Bruce around because he was voting with me and loved me so much, I don't even know why. And then when I needed him the most, he wasn't there. And so a final 10 vote becomes a final nine vote and that makes it, you only need five votes instead of four without Bruce.

And then Jake was very clearly going to play his Shot in the Dark. I think people might be confused: Why did I tell him [to not play it]? But it's because it was very obvious that he was running around searching for idols. He was pretty erratic that day. Kind of hard to get through to. And that really limited my options there, because working with financial analyst Emily Flippen, she's looking at the math. And when I maybe have three votes — I'm working with me, Kendra and Katurah — that's not going to be able to move the needle anywhere when I don't have Jake, who wants to play a Shot in the Dark and Bruce doesn't have a vote.

Well, let's say you had the math. Let's say Bruce has his vote and Jake's now feeling a little more comfortable. What play would you have tried to make?

So what happened when we first got back to the beach was me, Emily, and Kendra were at the water well, and basically Emily and Kendra were like, “We're kind of nervous about somebody. We don't really want Jake to go..” And I'm like, “Okay, who are you nervous about?” And it was one of those 1, 2, 3 situations, and they said Dee.

It also really didn't make the show that Dee and I did have a pretty close bond. I'm not going to say we had some sort of massive strategic relationship, but it was very clear to the both of us that people were viewing us in a similar way, especially after the pole challenge: These are the threatening women in the game. So we had a couple conversations where it was like, “Okay, we should both stay here as a shield for each other.” It was kind of like a game respect game sort of moment.

And I think that's where you can see some of the hesitation come through from Dee and Julie specifically on wanting to vote me out, because Dee was sort of viewing me as a bit of a shield in that timeframe. So that's not my ideal person to go, but I was like, “Okay, if this is who Emily wants.” Emily really is a linchpin here. I mean she is in between these two old tribes by this point. I have to give the Reba folks props for that.. I don't think it's as obvious to us playing on the island as it is to everybody at home how tight that group was. And so the plan was basically, don't have Jake play Shot in the Dark and then Katurah, me, Kendra, Emily and Jake put all our votes on Dee.

It's interesting because you're talking about taking a shot at Dee, and Dee and Julie took a shot at you. We see Emily go to Drew and tell him about the women’s alliance…

I know, what a narc.

So when you guys talked about that women's alliance, was anyone really thinking that that was actually a thing at all?

Honestly, I don't think so. I was like, obviously I would love women's alliance. That's my dream scenario. But we're a little bit too far in the game to form a full six person women's alliance. But for me, I was just looking at it like, I love my options. So I was like, this is another option for me.. I'm not going to shut anybody down.

And I was a little bit frustrated with Bruce at the time, and if this was something I could use to make a move and find some new allies…. Because at this point in the game, really the thing I think that crushed me so much is all of my best strategic allies were going home at Tribal Councils I was not at. I lose Brando, I lost Kaleb. Bruce loses his vote. It just sort of felt like I couldn't catch a break in some instances.

I think in this game you really need someone who you can bounce ideas off of. And it’s hard when you're starving, and you're losing all those people without having any say — it is part of the game. It is what it is. But I think that really put me on my back heels in terms of coming into the merge with a group that wasn't gelling together. And I really tried my best to bring them all in and have us work together — like on the final six vote I trying to get Kendra and Bruce to see eye to eye. It was half my day.

How would you describe your experience of playing with Uncle Bruce out there?

Listen, I had to say, Bruce has such a good heart. He is such a good man. But you see how I talk about him, he is a little bit of an anchor. He was hard to work with. He just is a little bit his way or the highway. He had a vision of how he wanted to play the game. It's kind of old school vibe, and I'm able to sort of look past like, “Oh, someone said this about me, but I need them for this vote.” That's not really how Bruce was approaching the game, and that's what made it so frustrating to play with him. But it was one of those things where it was day two and Bruce is like, “You're my number one ally.” I was like “Really? What?”

But it was great. For the beginning of the game, it was beneficial to me and that's why I kept Bruce around and that's why I didn't feel that concerned with him still having his idol because I thought that there was a decent chance that if I knew I was going to go, that Bruce would play his idol on me. And he told me he would not play it on Jake, which is why I didn't really go down that route. We did explore that just a bit, but with him not having to vote and being immune, he's basically a spectator at Tribal Council. So once he was like, “I'm not going to play my idol on Jake,” I was like, well, you know how hard it's to convince Bruce to do something he doesn't want to do.

Did it hurt a little bit to go before him? Be honest, Kellie.