‘Survivor: Kaoh Rong’ exclusive: Alecia Holden on Jason, Scot, fighting hard, and tough conditions

Through the first four episodes of “Survivor: Kaoh Rong,” it became pretty clear that Alecia Holden was one of the biggest underdogs of the season. She was on the outside of the Brawn tribe from the beginning, and had to spend almost the entirety of her run this season trying to figure out ways to stay alive.

Unfortunately, eventually she ran out of options last night, and was voted out by Jason, Scot, and Cydney to the point where they were happy to try and cast her aside immediately after the immunity challenge. Earlier today, we talked with the self-coined mental giant about some of the poor treatment she received from the other players, how the immunity idol find was crazier than it came across on TV, and also what she tried to do before tribal council to save herself.

CarterMatt – So let’s start with this: What has the reaction been like for you online since the show aired last night?

Alecia Holden – I’ve been getting tons and tons of support online, and a ton of negative feedback has gone to Scot and Jason with people saying that ‘if you’ve got daughters, you’re not portraying yourself as a very good role model for women or kids.’ That’s something that’s being said a lot.

So what’s the relationship like now? I’m guessing that they are not getting Christmas cards.

No.

So when did you start to feel like the other players were treating you badly? Did it start from the very beginning?

They put me aside from day one, saying ‘oh, she’s smaller so we want Blondie out.’ Well, my thing is that Scot said ‘I don’t want any weak alliances,’ but being weak is not having food and water and having your body breaking down. Scot spent 15 minutes on the fire and quit, and then napped in the shelter like it was kindergarten and nap time. It took me five hours to make [it] because we had a rainstorm before and everything was wet. When I made fire before the show, I could do it in minutes.

After I made fire we were able to have food and water and we were able to be stronger for challenges. I don’t think I was that weak on the tribe, but I was targeted from day one. They did not want to give me a chance.

So when was it that you really started to get angry and insulted?

They never really said anything to my face in the first three episodes, but it was in episode 4 when I decided to confront Scot. We were like David and Goliah; I’m not going to [back down] because he’s bigger than me. When he started being rude to my face, that’s when I started confronting him and standing up for myself. I did fight back a lot more than was shown. [At one point] Cydney shoved a lot of rotten fruit down her pants in the challenge, because we had to grab everything that we could. Cydney took the rotten fruit out of her pants, and then I went and fed it to Scot and Jason! I don’t know why that wasn’t shown, but I did stand up for myself and it was really funny.

How different do you think things could have been for you if you started off on a different tribe?

I do think I would have gone further on the Beauty tribe, but I held my ground as well could with the situation I was given.

You do deserve some credit for being able to survive the first couple of votes when it looked like you would be a target. So in episode 1, what did you do to ensure that you stayed over Darnell?

What the original plan was that I had a pretty strategic move in place. They asked me if I had an idol and I said that I ‘might,’ because I knew they would split the vote. I thought at that point that me and Cydney and Darnell were going to vote Jason, and it was gonna be a blindside. But then Cydney ended up not being that nice to me so I ended up just having to go against Darnell. It was either me or him. I did have a pretty good move in playing, but I didn’t think [anyone] was on board with me.

What was your relationship like with Cydney out there? It felt at times that she was reasonably nice to you, but then also she kept her distance to stay close with Scot and Jason.

In the second episode Cydney came up to me and ‘your choice, are we voting out Jenny or Jason,’ and I said ‘Jason.’ Then, Cydney comes back over to me and starts acting weird. She said ‘Alecia, we gotta change the plan.’ I asked why. She said ‘Jenny is acting different, she’s trying to vote you out and I want you to stay.’ So at the end of the day I trusted Cydney on that. I did have some trust in her.

And it changed from there, and you couldn’t have felt great when she told Scot and Jason what was going on with the idol.

That was the one mistake I made in the game. It was one of those things were everything happens so far and you just don’t think. I know that was my biggest mistake in the game. I looked a lot more for the idol than was shown, and it kind of made me look like I was just giving up on fighting for it, and I was doing a lot more than was shown.

When Cydney came up to me and said ‘Jason’s off looking for the idol,’ we went back over to where Cydney had been digging and Jason found the idol clue. When he and Scot started talking, I started taking a machete to the tree the clue box was on, but then the producers were like (using loud producer voice) ‘you can’t cut that tree down.’ So then, I tried to climb the tree, I was like halfway up it like Tarzan and it started swinging back and forth, up and down. I had to get down from the tree, and then when Scot did knock out the box Jason rams me as hard as he can, I fly down, and he caught the clue. It kind of looks like I gave up on the idol hunt but it was actually so much more intense than what you saw.

Let’s talk about the reward challenge yesterday because this was so brutal to watch. What was it like being there and going through a medical situation like that?

Going into the challenge, my tribe hadn’t had any food or water for a long time. I had been throwing up going into the challenge. Once we were in the challenge so many people started going down and it was a really intense moment. Caleb went down, and the producers called medical on me, as well, because my hands were shaking. So much was happening at once, and it shows that this game is real and things do happen. It’s not as easy as people may think.

Did you try anything after you guys went back to camp before tribal that we didn’t get to see?

Yeah, I tried to get Cydney to go against them, and that didn’t work, but I did try to talk to her about it. Then I just went off in the woods looking to see if I could find a twist or another potential idol.

Did you get the sense that either Jason or Scot were throwing the challenge, or at least not trying that hard to win?

They knew a swap was coming, they knew a target was going to be put on Jason’s back, and they knew they had to get me out.

This wasn’t shown. At the end of the challenge, I was on the puzzle and I looked at Jason and Scot and said ‘switch.’ They wouldn’t switch. I yelled ‘switch me!’ and they still wouldn’t, and Jeff was like ‘Alecia is looking at the Brawn tribe and getting no love from the Brawn tribe.’ They wouldn’t switch with me, they laughed at me, and we lost the challenge. I think they intentionally did that to get me to tribal because they knew I was a spatial threat and I was going to put a target on their backs.

So had you made it to the swap, was there anyone that you had pinpointed on other tribes as someone you wanted to work with?

I thought pretty much anyone but my tribe looked like they were friendly people (laughs).

Is there still a hunger in going back and doing this again after everything you went through this time?

Absolutely. I’m dying, dying, dying for CBS to give me another chance. I’d love to go back.

—

If you missed it, head over here to check out our full interview now with Caleb Reynolds from earlier in the day! Also, you can sign up over here to get some more TV news on everything we cover, sent right over to you via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: CBS.)