“Nobody believes they will be the first to go”

In the first episode of “Survivor 47” on Wednesday Jeff Probst called the start of the season's first immunity challenge “one of the worst starts to a challenge in 47 seasons.” In that competition, the six members of Gata were one of two tribes whose paddle boat capsized in the water, sending them on a collision course to Tribal Council, where they ousted the political speechwriter and podcaster Jon Lovett by a vote of 5-1. Read on to read his farewell interview on “Survivor 47” at the end of the episode.

“Nobody thinks they'll be the first to go,” Jon said in his first thoughts after leaving the game. “When you take a risk, sometimes things don't go the way you want them to, but that's why they call it a risk.” In hindsight, perhaps the risk Jon took was sticking to his alliance from day one with Andy Rueda. After their loss in the immunity challenge, the Gata tribe was shocked when Andy expressed his concern that he was disliked by his entire tribe, that he knew they would vote him out, and that he was already considering abandoning his best friend Jon to stay.

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Even after Andy apologized to the group and many continued to see him as a liability for the future, Jon did not trust the women to use Jon as a deception to tell Andy, and so he made the decision to stick with Andy and try to build his own majority against Anika Dhar. Jon believed he could convince Sam Phalen realizing that Anika is the physical burden on their tribe and should go first, but Sam wondered if Jon, rather than Andy, was the greater threat to a strong Gata. From then on, Sam and the women of Gata had to make a decision: keep Andy because of his strength in physical challenges, or keep Jon because Andy's inconsistency makes them too nervous.

Jon hypothetically thought that his community back home would get a kick out of the Gata tribe ultimately deciding to keep Andy around longer. “This will bring a lot of joy to my friends and family who will be making fun of me for years,” he said. And then, hinting at his own positivity, “Maybe it will be worth it in the end.” A huge fan of the show, he even looked forward to the comments he will get from the audience, knowing the reputation that comes with being the first to be voted out. “First out – let me have it, guys. Let me have it.”

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