I can now bring you my fascinating, very enjoyable and super revealing exit interview with Survivor SA Santa Carolina's Kaseran Pillay who became the fifth last celebitant to get voted out after Ashley Hayden decided to use the girl power in the tribe to get rid of him.
Apologies for running this interview only now (I was out of the country hacking my way through a jungle). I spoke to Kaseran Pillay this past Tuesday but I promise you, you will want to read it. Kaseran Pillay shares phenomenal insight on the game, his choices, and gives some very honest and revealing answers about his time there. He laughed a lot. He made me laugh. I thought he was very honest and very sincere. He talks openly about how terribly hurt he was by what happened.
See who Kaseran Pillay calls ''beer'' (that he didn't want another taste of), what he really thought when Ashley Hayden told him he's going, what he really felt at tribal council and who he was completely in love with on the island. See why he says he played Survivor SA and what he has learnt.
For my full interview with Kaseran Pillay, click on READ MORE below!
How did you feel when Ashley Hayden told you she's going to get rid of you?
Thinus, I'm not going to lie to you. I was really hurt. I was hurt because . . . I thought we've created an unbreakable alliance. I invested a lot of myself in that. Also, we've become friends. And it's very difficult when a friend tells you something like that at the last minute, also before your last hurdle. I will never lie about that. I was very hurt. Let's face it – that was a very small part of the Survivor SA experience. I wish I haven't been voted off – of course. But I took great things away from that experience. In hindsight I can actually say it make me stronger and it's making me a better person every day. I now start to see things with more clarity.
Have you've seen Ashley Hayden since and what have you talked about?
I have seen her. We've done a few functions together. I have seen her and she did say to me that she's very sorry and that she played the game and all that. I totally understand. I understand that she played the game. However, I can't suddenly now not be angry. Or not be disappointed. If a friend does that, you do feel a little let down. And I invested a lot in it. Like she said: she was very logical about it and she played the game and she came there to win the game. Well done for her for getting so far as she did. We'll see what the outcome is.
When she told you Kaseran, what did you then try to do in the time that was left?
You know what [he laughs, but a happy laugh] . . . I was soooo angry. I went to go and try to get the immunity idol that I thought was still there. You know when you have that rage? ''Aaaaaaaargh, I now need to get this done! I need to make sure that this doesn't happen to me!'' After a while I really started loving being on the island. I loved everything about island life, so I felt I wasn't ready to go! So I went to go and look to try and find the immunity idol. I actually felt like I was going to dig all the way down to China to find it. Ha ha.
Did you think at all that there would be a possibility to persuade some contestants and to turn them around?
I have to give Ashley Hayden this on the way she played the game – well done! – because she told me really late on when it was almost time to go to tribal council. There was no time to change people's minds or to try and form a new alliance. I suppose that was my downfall as well. I was so invested in my bond with Ashley. If someone else voted me off it would have been cool. But I've invested so much in my bond with Ashley Hayden that it was almost to the detriment to any of the other relationships I had. ProVerb and I became really good friends but once that gender alliance – that gender block had been created – I knew it was completely unbreakable. I didn't realize it. You know we're all artists and things like that. I never even thought about a gender alliance because in our community – within our arts community – we don't really look at each other as men and women. We are who we are. So it never even entered my sphere of thought that there was a gender alliance. I was completely blindsided. That is why I was so disappointed. That is why I felt so hurt.
And then what did you feel at tribal council? Is there something you felt beforehand you want to get in to say?
You know what, at tribal council I did say everything that I wanted to say. The way things went after that, you could see that basically the girls just went ''Bugger that, we will go to top three and bugger the guys.'' If we had thought that way from earlier on as a gender block . . . and when it happened – when Okkert Brits and Gys de Villiers actually approached me – that's what went through my mind. They went: ''We need to change things up'' and I should have listened to them them. I was so confident. I was so confident in my block with Proverb and Izak Davel and Ashley Hayden that I couldn't see it. I wish I could have seen further that that. Maybe then I would have played the game differently. I definitely would have played the game differently.
Do you think it would have helped to try and persuade Ashley Hayden to NOT vote you off?
Pfffff. Okay. When Ashley Hayden pulled me aside and told me she was voting for me, I saw in her eyes the finality of that decision. Sometimes when you look at someone and they say something to you, you can just see they absolutely mean it. Sometimes you can go: ''Well, actually they just seem to be going with the flow.'' But I saw the finality of her decision. I saw how hard it was. But I also saw that there was no way that I was going to sway her. There was absolutely no way that I was going to sway her. I actually felt a bit . . . I then tried to sway GiGi. But by then it was too late. It was too late.
And I want to ask, the throwing of the figurative knife at tribal council at Ashley Hayden – when did you come up with that? Was that just an impulse thing and why did you do that?
Ha ha. It was a bit of an impulse thing but I have felt like that the entire day. The entire day I've felt like I had something lodged in my back. When I got to the torch, it struck my mind that actually the thing that's in my back at the moment is Ashley's knife.
Ha ha ha.
[He starts to laugh as well.] Ha ha ha ha, so I pulled it out and basically threw it at her, giving her the message of: You know what – keep this, because I'm sure you're going to need it again . . .
Okay. Kaseran, what was your strategy and did it change?
Okay. When I got to the island, if you remember, in the first episode I got voted out. In the very first episode when we got to the beach I was voted out. So that played very heavily on my mind – that when we eventually got to the island, I don't want to be that person getting voted out. I didn't want to be the first one voted out. My main goal at that time was to make it to the merge. I knew that if I made it to the merge, one of my goals would have been realized. I was also very worried about my fitness. I was completely stuffed. I knew exactly why everyone voted for me because it was almost like a mercy killing. If you can't handle the first day, how are you going to handle four weeks? My main strategy was to get to merge. Then when we got to the merge I wanted to get to the top five. The closer we got to the top five, the more I realized, ''Hey, I could possibly win this . . . I don't know. There's so few people left, I definitely have a chance.'' Then I realized I have a 25% chance of winning which is an awesome thing – especially coming from a situation where I was voted out previously. My main goal was to make merge, my second goal was to make top five and then to win.
Who of everyone there, did you like the most?
On the island I was completely in love with Ashley. I thought she was completely an amazing human being. Just because of the things we shared. We shared so much. We helped each other out during stressful times. She talked to me about her husband and her kids. We tried to cheer each other up. Also ProVerb. Proverb and I became very good friends. He's one of the most amazing human beings. And Louw Venter. Louw I've known previously from when I worked with him together before. I knew him but our relationship has now gone to a different level. We're really good friends now and I can call him up at any time and go ''Hey!'' And also Lady Lea. Lady Lea and I also became really, really good friends. I see them quite often.
Who did you like the least?
Ha ha ha. You know, my answer should be Ashley Hayden but I can honestly say it wasn't. I personally didn't really dig Darren Maule. I just . . . he's an acquired taste. When you learn to drink beer, you have to drink through all the bad beer first. Nobody really likes the taste of beer the first time. Unfortunately Darren Maule was like beer to me and I didn't want to have another beer. It was like ''Naaaah, I don't like that taste in my mouth. Nah, I'm not drinking anymore.''
Who do you think can still make it further and possibly win?
Now it's really down to the three ladies and ProVerb. But I see that gender block very, very strong. It came out of nowhere this gender block between these women and that's a block that . . . like ProVerb has been saying, he's remained under the radar and he hasn't really created any alliances. I'm hoping he could make an alliance and try and swing them.
Can you tell me what you have learned about human nature and about yourself?
What I've learned about the island is that you're true nature comes out. You're true self. You can't hide. People can come off the island and say "I was playing the game'' but you're true nature comes out because there is nowhere for you to run. The person that you see there is the person you are. You can't hide behind your TV personality and hide behind what people think of you. What you see is what you get. That is what the island does: it bring out certain things in people. I noticed it myself – I noticed certain things in people where I went ''That is really not cool''. I started to recognized that I also have that in me and then I tried to rectify it. What I took from it is that I recognized certain faults in myself, in other people. It was the first time that those faults were looking me in the face. What I took from that is I didn't want to be that person. Since I've come back I've made many changes. It also made me proud of the way I've played the game. I didn't screw anyone over. I didn't make alliances with people and break them and that was my nature. I'm a very trusting person and I'm not big on deception and lies. In the past I've been hurt by people who's lied to me. So me not lying to people was a bonus. When it comes down to it, me Kas - I can say no and not run with the pack. I don't need to give in to peer pressure.
Maybe as a very last final question, when you heard about Survivor SA and you were approached, why did you decide to actually do it?
Thinus, there's certain things in life that I'm always willing to try. To be able to push myself mentally and physically has been something that I've always done in my entire life. A few years ago when I did Going Nowhere Slowly I climbed Kilimanjaro. I climbed Kilimanjaro with three weeks notice. They told us, ''We're climbing Kili, do you want to come?'' and I said yes. Three weeks later we were at the base of the mountain and I climbed it. So, I'm always willing to push the envelope. People ask me: ''Will you do Survivor again?'' and I go ''No. I've experienced it.'' I know what I took from it and I know what I didn't take from it. To do it again wouldn't make me a better person.
Survivor SA Santa Carolina, Wednesdays, M-Net, 19:30
