Kyle Ostwald’s ‘Survivor 47’ exit interview: ‘I gave it a buck-20 the whole way through’

On Wednesday’s 11th episode of “Survivor 47,” a new “Underdog” alliance formed from the ashes of another blindside against a power player. The new group of five had a majority among the final eight and so when one of them earned a new advantage and won immunity they knew they had all the power in their hands. After debating the pros and cons between taking out a challenge threat or a strategic threat, the underdogs agreed that ultimately it would be “the dumbest look ever” to not take Kyle Ostwald out after one of his rare immunity challenge losses. Read on for Kyle’s “Survivor 47” exit interview from the end of the episode.

With four immunity wins to his name by this point in the competition, Kyle only needed one more in order to tie the series record of five by one person in a single season (a title held currently by five players) and had already clinched a record for four individual wins quickest in a season (by episode 10). Because of that massive threat challenge level, Teeny Chirichillo and Caroline Vidmar campaigned heavily to vote him out now while they had the chance. They faced pushback from new “Underdog” allies Andy Rueda and Rachel LaMont who both would have preferred to vote for Genevieve Mushaluk instead, but knew that the risk of Kyle winning every challenge until the end, coupled with his “family man” storyline, was just too great.

SEE exclusive predictions: Who will win ‘Survivor’?

Indeed, even Kyle recognized that the lack of safety with immunity paired with his personal story of being out there for his family made him too big of a threat to ignore. “It stings a little bit having your torch snuffed knowing that the title of ‘sole Survivor’ won’t be yours, the million dollars won’t be yours,” Kyle said in his first moments ousted from the game. “But I’m pretty proud of myself and all the things I’ve accomplished and I think I made my family proud.”

In his closing statement, Kyle said that “There was only ever gonna be one winner in the end and I gave it my all – I gave it a buck-20 the whole way through and I’m proud of that.” Aside from his challenge prowess, Kyle was able to help pull off one of the season’s many blindsides by getting the best of Gabe Ortis last week, the player he was most closely aligned with in the game. Kyle explained that helping the majority vote out Gabe was the strategic move he needed to make in order to prevent Gabe having the chance to make the same necessary move against him first. As Kyle left the tribal council after the votes to eliminate him were announced, Gabe called Kyle a “hero” for his time in the game and showing gratitude to the very people that had just voted him out.

Kyle is now the 11th person eliminated from “Survivor 47” and the fourth member of the jury, joining Sierra Wright, Solomon “Sol” Yi, and Gabe. The players booted from the game pre-jury were Jon Lovett, Terran “TK” Foster, Aysha Welch, Kishan Patel, Anika Dhar, Rome Cooney, and Tiyana Hallums.

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