‘Survivor: Worlds Apart’ exclusive: Nina Poersch on vote, immunity idol plan, difficulties with Jenn, Hali

Nina Poersch had a journey that was at times difficult on “Survivor: Worlds Apart.” She was treated at times like an outcast on the No Collar tribe, and even on this past episode, was largely shunned during the Reward / Immunity challenge.

Despite some very difficult moments, we found her to be fairly upbeat during our one-on-one exit interview today. Much of that may come from it being so many months since the show filmed, and from also being somewhat at terms with everything that happened. With that being said, it is still pretty painful to go back and have to relive much of it on TV all over again.

CarterMatt – First of all, was it hard going back and watching your elimination happen again?

Nina Poersch – It was hard, and I watched it twice! I live out in LA, and I have East Coast feeds, so I watched it once in private with my husband, and you know what? It wasn’t bad until I started to get all these text messages from friends. Then, it got really hard, and I watched it the second time with friends and it was much easier doing that than I thought it was going to be.

It’s odd. You sit there and you’re watching and you still think ‘maybe I’ll make it,’ even though you know you’re not! (Laughs.) You still sit there and you have that litter glimmer of hope that someone is going to change their mind and change their vote, and you’re going to make it through.

Before you went to tribal council last night, did you have any reassurance from anyone that you were safe? Were you surprised at all by the vote?

I knew I was gone. No one really made me feel like they were going to change their vote. We talked about it, and I said ‘you really need to get rid of Will and keep me. He’s not doing good in challenges, and obviously he flipped.’ I really tried talking to them, but I could tell that they weren’t going to change their mind.

Were you surprised at all that there were two votes cast against Will, and not just one? We assumed that Hali, Jenn, and Joe would have voted together.

I wasn’t surprised at all because they all thought I had an immunity idol. I knew going in that they were going to be splitting their vote, and that they were probably going to split it between me and Will. I was hoping against all odds that two of them would vote Will, and then mine would be a third. It didn’t happen that way. They all thought I had an immunity idol, and that I had been out looking for it since we landed on the beach. I spent hours and hours looking for it, but I never did find it. I knew that the only thing in the game that was going to save me after losing that challenge was the hidden immunity idol. I didn’t have it; they asked me all the time ‘do you have it,’ and I said ‘no, I don’t have it,’ but they all thought I was lying.

Let’s talk a little more about that. Vince told me last week that he had a plan to convince them that you had an idol. How did all of that come about?

They thought I had an idol. Vince had told them ‘you know, you guys are not really talking to her a whole lot, and she has been out in the woods a whole lot. I almost think she may have found an idol.’ He kind of planted a seed that there was a possibility that I had an idol, and they started asking [because of that]. I talked to him about that and said ‘Vince, they think I have an idol, we should do something about that.’ He’s like ‘okay,’ and he ran off and did whatever Vince does out there. He came back and said ‘okay, we’re going to pretend like you have the idol. They’re going to split their vote.’ Originally he wanted to vote Joe off, but he came to his senses and realized that we needed the muscle. He’s like ‘who do you gone,’ and I said ‘I want Jenn gone.’ He then said ‘we’re going to vote Jenn out,’ and he went and told Will.

I didn’t know that Will had been working both sides; neither Vince nor Will told me that Will was feeding him intel on what the other three were going to do. I just thought that this was all Vince’s idea and working to get them to split their vote.

This is an impossible question, but is there something that you wish you would’ve done out there, looking back?

Well, the biggest thing I wish that I would have NOT done was told Will that Vince was concerned about his health. When we talked about that, Will and I, I was just trying to give him a pep talk about being exhausted. Then, I let it out that Vince was worried about that. I didn’t want Will to be voted out; I needed him in the alliance! I needed him and Vince, because the other three were not going to ever come on my side. I would have totally loved to take that conversation back, and to have it never happen.

Was it difficult to watch that immunity challenge back last night, where you were basically told to stay away? You held it together pretty well in the moment, but how upset were you on the inside?

I was devastated on the inside. I didn’t want them to see that, so I kind of held back. I already had a meltdown or whatever you guys want to call that. At that point, I’m a pretty strong person and can take a lot, but it was pretty devastating. I just bit my tongue in the moment and not let them see how I was really feeling.

Was Joe really more accepting out there? He told us last night that he has done work with the deaf community, so did you feel like he made much more of an attempt to connect than some of the others?

You know, Joe did appear to have a lot of compassion for me. But here’s the thing: Joe being involved in the deaf community made him know that I was going to struggle, because working with the deaf community, he can see that they do struggle in the hearing world. He had an advantage in knowing that I would struggle. Had he not known that, I could have spun it a whole different way, and they would never know I was struggling. He came at me in the very beginning and asked if I was going to be able to do challenges, and I asked him why. He said ‘you can’t hear, so what if we have a calling challenge,’ and I said ‘well, then I’ll be the caller.’ And he said ‘well if we’re calling back, are you going to be able to hear us,’ and I said ‘yes, I can hear you. I’ll be fine. I can do challenges just fine.’

Right there, he plants the seed the first day that he already doubts me and my ability over not being able to hear.

Why do you think it was that Jenn and Hali did not try in your eyes to connect? Was it your hearing, or do you think that age or just differences in personality and lifestyle played a factor?

I think it was probably all three. I think age played a really big part in it. I think that my hearing did play a part of it, but some of that may be due to Vince telling me so much that they didn’t like me and wanted me out because of my hearing. That was just something that he said to me that made me think they didn’t like me because of my hearing. But I do think age played a big part in why we couldn’t get along. It didn’t have to play a big part, but I don’t think they felt that way. There was one point when Vince told me that we were all going to sit down and have dinner, but I wasn’t there. He said ‘Nina’s not here, should we wait for her,’ and Jenn said ‘no, why should we? She’s not part of the tribe.’ As for whether she said that I don’t know, but that’s what Vince told me. That, coupled with the fact that Joe had already approached me, it all made me feel that way.

I don’t know. It could be that they were young. Jenn said that she had never had a deaf person in her life, so she didn’t know how to react to me. Maybe Joe said ‘I think she’s going to struggle, because I work with deaf people and I’ve seen them struggle.’

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