On Sunday evening Killarney Jones (45), a martial artist, became the first tribe member of Utara to be voted out of Survivor South Africa: Champions on M-Net as the third contestant in this season of the reality show to be let go.
TV with Thinus interviewed Killarney Jones who talked about why she's not a fan of Mark Fish, the stitches she secretly had in one of her fingers, what she thinks of Zan, whether she knew people were plotting behind her back, why she found climbing Kilimanjaro much tougher than Survivor SA and revealing many more surprising things.
What do you think of Zan?
Well, right now, and always, from the time I changed my alliance with him, I don't think very highly of him. I have certain principles and values in life, Thinus, and when you form an alliance or you have loyalty to someone, its a loyalty that carries out all round, not just applying to one thing.
So if I'm loyal to you, I will be loyal to you in front of people, behind the scenes, that's who I am. I feel that if that's broken and you show a different face then ... I'm a black and white person. I for you, or again you. And right now I'm against Zan.
Do you think there was a most evil person?
There were a lot of evil people there because everybody's fighting for positions. I'd have to say Zan was definitely .... he would do anything to win, step on anyone head. So that's evil in my books. Shane probably following shortly behind.
Other than that ... Look, I'm not a fan of Mark Fish. Lets put it in simple English. He would be in that circle of most evil.
Okay, because I wanted to ask you, you said in the show that Mark Fish is more a liability than he's an inspiration. Why?
Because a person who is the captain of a team or a group of people lead by example. So if you want people to be motivated, show motivation. If you want people to work hard around the camp, lead by example. And he was just the opposite of all that.
I felt that he was fairly lazy around the camp site, I felt he didn't understand and try and get to know the people in our team. You know Thinus I coach people and the only way you're going to get to know people is to sit down and get to know them. Sit down with them and watch them around the fire, see how they interact with each other.
If someone says to you I've won five championships of this sport, as a sports person you know what physical sports entails, what strengths these people have to have to make it in sports like that. You should know that. He didn't know that. He didn't take the time.
He was just hanging on for dear life and going with the flow whatever the case was. Completely disinterested in gathering us up and finding out who needs to do what. He wasn't.
If you look at the footage where I asked him and I said 'how about speaking to the people around camp. You're the leader here, see that everybody pulls their own because it's starting to cause a bit of negativity - there's lazy people. How about as a team leader just have something to say to everybody'.
What was interesting for me about you was that once we started watching Survivor South Africa: Champions, the ordinary viewer might not know unless they've read your bio that you're a strong sports woman, you are strong physically.
But what we saw you doing was sitting and being involved in trying to make a fire, being hands-on with actually setting up the camp, and really building the tent. Was that hard for you, or different to step back and do different things than just showing your strong?
I'm a team player. I have in the past done camping and I've done training out of town in very rural circumstances. So I'm used to roughing it. But as you say I am a team player, I like pulling my own. I'm not a lazy person.
In fact I'm a hyper active person. I'm not someone who can sit by and watch people work hard and not help. Me doing that was not for anything other than just pulling my own and trying to use my strength to contribute positively towards the team.
I'd like to ask you who'd you like to see win?
Buhle. I'd like to see her win. Simply because I can relate to her. After seeing how the voting went, I really, really think she is 'what you see is what you get'.
And knowing a bit about her and being a strong women, I think its very, very important as a role model if you have children, of if you have people look up to you, that the youth in South Africa today look up to women who are pulling their own equally in society and I think she's one of those.
She's one of those who go out there, she's a go-getter, she's a strong person. I'd like her to go far in the game. I'd like to see her win.
I wanted to ask you, you were so good at making alliances, and getting people on your side and building loyalties. And then people started doing that towards the end behind your back. Did you realise, or did had an idea that people are suddenly forming an alliance behind you to vote you off?
I found that out in the eleventh hour. And that's why I worked doubly hard to form an alliance that would try and keep me in the game.
This is why you suddenly saw me becoming very active in forming alliances because Buhle told me that "your on the hit list". She said "your on a hit list".
Up until then I had no idea that I was on a hit list. And once Buhle told me that I was on a hit list, I thought that it was time to really step up the game here. That's when I stepped it up to strategise to make sure that I stay in the game.
Was there an emotional moment for you? You make me feel like one of those people who - unlike Zan - know when to keep things in even though you're very angry, or happy or emotional, and that you know when you can show how you really feel, or not not show it.
Did you ever feel as if you're going to lose your temper or go out of your mind but just contain it?
You know, when you're in the arena and you perhaps find out somebody's a dirty fighter - it happens often in the martial arts arena - people are out there to win, especially on the international level. It's all about honour. You learn early in the sport: be an honourable person. There's a time and place for everything.
To create a scene for the hell of it, its pointless. There's a time and place for everything. And it clouds your judgement, Thinus. If you are out there as a loose cannon, you can't think straight.
So in the past its served me well to know when to do certain things, when to become emotional and when to shield it.
And yes, your right, I have been shielding when I wanted to just pull my hair out! And if I had to pinpoint some of those times, it was mostly when decisions around challenges were made which Mark Fish was responsible for. For me those were the most challenging ones where I just wanted to confront him and say 'Listen Mark..."
But I thought to myself "You want to stay in this game, this man is going to go to the end of the game with you, and he's going to try and promote you". What you don't want to try and do is spoil a relationship before you had a chance to play the rest of the game.
What about the show surprised you the most?
Wow. What surprised me the most was ... I would have to say Stephen.
During the game, you're probably not aware if it - I had four stitches in one of my fingers due to an unjury I incurred during a challenge where the box carrying a puzzle fell on it. I had a very big open wound so I needed stitches.
During that time I was very disoriented because I've lost a lot of blood with that injury. Stephen stepped up and said "Wow, I've never seen such a brave person. Lets just sit one side". And he was really very supportive.
Seeing the footage of today's episode [4th episode] I was quite surprised. I thought "Wow, I did not expect Stephen to turn around and be so passionate about voting me off". I was quite surprised by that.
You've climbed Kilimanjaro. Was that or doing Survivor South Africa: Champions the harder thing to do?
So I climb for a week after than with pneumonia and I climbed down with pneumonia. So for me physically it took a toll on my body.
I got up with a fever, you sleep with a fever. You hallucinate because you have a lack of oxygen and now your body is trying to fight the pneumonia.
It was for me one of the biggest learning curves in my life. But I'll tell you what, Thinus, it prepared me for Survivor South Africa, as strange as it sounds.
I had to pull out all the stops when I was on Kili and I was sick. So when I got to Survivor I said how bad can this get? You tell me how bad can this get? You know when we reached the last base camp on Kilimanjaro I couldn't walk from my tent to the pit latrine which was 12 footsteps. I couldn't walk it, I couldn't breathe. I was completely out of my head with fever.
So I would say the one prepared me for the other physically. Emotionally Survivor rules hands down. In terms of mind games. When I got to Survivor - man, the mind games are just out of this world. You cannot fathom it until you're there.
What do you appreciate the most after having returned to civilization?
Hardship is not a big thing for me. I can rough it, I can camp for however long to get the results I want to get. But I think being around the people that you love, magnifies it when you're away from them and you're surrounded by strangers and have to make decisions 100% on your own.
I come from a very close-knit family and my partner's close with me as well. You can bounce ideas off them and to see something from someone else's perspective its always easier to make decisions, even though I'm a very strong-minded person.
And I like being around the people that I feel close to and I like to feel their support. So for me when I got out of Survivor and I got back home it just made me appreciate those people so much more.
Survivor South Africa: Champions is on Sundays on M-Net at 17:30
