‘Survivor: San Juan del Sur’ interview: Julie McGee on leaving the game, Jeff Probst, rice issues at Hunahpu

Before tomorrow night’s new episode of “Survivor: San Juan del Sur” comes on the air, why not take a quick look back with the contestant who eliminated herself on the show this past week? We’re of course talking about Julie McGee here, who joins the likes of Osten, Lindsey, Purple Kelly, and many more to step away from the show.

We actually thought that Julie had a good chance of lasting for a long time this season prior to the past few weeks, but things seemed to go downhill following John Rocker’s exit from the show. We spoke a little about that in our interview last week, and also discussed some other events that have been significant to this season so far.

CarterMatt – Let’s start with everything we saw on the show. Do you think that they portrayed everything leaving up to your exit accurately?

Julie McGee – Of course they can’t show everything, and I get that, but it was just so funny and [weird] to hear everyone call me a ‘thief’ … In order to be a thief, you have to take something that’s not yours.

At that moment, I was packing up the food for everyone; a couple of them were full, some of them [brought things back], and I was thinking ‘hey, your a** is going to be hungry in the morning, so you better work on collecting this food. Put it in your shoes, your pockets, whatever you needed to do.’

Two days later, I was looking to have some crumbled-up nuts in my bag that had been carted around with my dirty underwear. [When it came up I was just thinking] ‘You guys are taking care of each other, I have nothing. Get off my a**! What’s the big deal?’

Let’s talk about rationing, since you were around for all the rice drama on Hunahpu. Who was responsible for all that: Was it Missi, Drew, or someone else?

A little bit of both! It was all of that. I think that we were cooking a little bit too much, but also, we were winning every challenge, so no one was going home, and we were continuing to eat the same amount that we were on day one.

On the other tribe, every few days someone was going home, so there were less mouths to feed. They were also rationing a little bit more. It wasn’t like we were like ‘hey, here’s this big bag of rice. Let’s just [feast] and have a whole bunch of leftovers’; there have been people saying [lately] that there was enough for leftovers. I’m going to disagree with that. I just think that we did cook a little bit too much, and we did have more mouths to feed.

Do you think that you would have had a completely different outlook on the game at the merge had John still been around?

Absolutely, without a doubt. It’s a catch-22, because when he left the game I thought ‘finally, I don’t have to worry about him being an a** over there and causing problems. I can focus on the game.’ That’s what I thought at the time.

But, when it came to the merge, we merged with mostly couples, and I was going ‘what the hell.’ [With] the other singles, you have a strong guy [in Jeremy], Natalie’s a strong woman; I’m not saying I’m a strong woman, but I did see all these people and think ‘where is my place in all of this.’ With John I would have absolutely been able to draw some strength and move forward.

So let’s talk a bit about Jeff Probst, since I felt like he was relatively nice to you compared to other people who quit. Was that your experience when you were out there?

I was not sure what to expect when they said that Jeff was coming to talk to me. It was a quick decision that I had to make, I wasn’t able to sleep on it, and my head was spinning.

Then all of a sudden I was there with Jeff, and I know how he treats people in that situation. I think that he was trying to learn what was happening to me, and the whole experience of Blood vs. Water. He was trying to learn, too, and he really saw what I was going through, and he had some sympathy for me.

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One of the reasons we feel like Julie said she had to make a “quick decision” is that Tribal Council was coming, and had she not quit when she did, the entire dynamic of the game would have been changed.