Survivor 50 is here! Every week, Parade's Mike Bloom will bring you interviews with the castaway most recently voted off the island.While Survivor 50 has been full of plenty of surprises so far, perhaps the biggest is the enthusiasm Colby Donaldson brought to the beach. Indeed, over the 15 years he was away from the show, like Hollywood has done many times, Superman had returned to life. And so one of the show's original heroes was back for the landmark season, eager to find redemption — and some joy. And, while he ultimately left the game with no vote and no win, he left with another prize he had been pining for since the zenith of his days in the Australian Outback: An island experience that was sweeter than any Hershey Bar.Considering the considerable hiatus between appearances, Colby was eager to work with players both old and new. The exception, however, was the biggest unknown: Rizo Velovic. Or at least, that was the case initially. Indeed, as Vatu began to relax in a winning streak, the "Colbster" warmed up to the "RizGod," seeing a version of himself who started this journey all those years ago. But, while Colby basked in the majority, a couple of things poured a bucket of cold water (much like his brother did all those years ago). One of his allies, Kyle Fraser, was medevaced. And Colby faced another massive loss in his vote, as he went toe-to-toe with fellow challenge record holder Savannah Louie during the journey.
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But that was a matter for another day (or ten). While everyone was told to drop their buffs, Colby picked right back up from where he left off, albeit on a new beach. He was able to make amends from the first Heroes vs. Villains challenge with Coach Wade, going from being frogmarched to hopefully marching with him to the end. Unfortunately, the newly-named "Tide Walker" and "Oakbound Warrior" would soon be pitted against one another.The new "Blood Moon" twist divided the merged tribe up into three groups, which would each be going to Tribal Council. In the challenge, Colby's foot injury left him without a leg to stand on, literally, making him a sitting duck for the vote. And so, bathed in the glow of the fires he's visited many times before, he talked about his 50s as a time of reflection. And indeed, Survivor 50 in those few minutes became the show reflecting on its legacy players, both the impact the show has on its contestants, and vice versa. Colby's immense gratitude for the show that has occupied half of his life left everyone in tears. Because, at the end of the day, Colby Donaldson only knows how to play one way, and that's full-guilt.Now out of the game, Colby talks with Parade about the extent of his foot injury (and how he was almost removed from the game), who he was looking to work with and target at the merge, and the moment he found the most joy on Season 50.Related: Read our Survivor 50 pre-game interview with Colby Donaldson
So we have to start with where things ended at your first, and ultimately last, Tribal Council. There's been a lot of discourse online the past 12 hours about the fairness of the "Blood Moon" twist. Considering you didn't have a vote, when you saw the group you would be with, did you automatically think your number was up?Oh, yeah. Because one, it's the other four people that are in my tribe. Two, it's the challenge we walk up on. And I think, Mike, in an interview I did prior to the challenge, when they were asking me about my foot injury, I said, "Just my luck, we're going to show up to a challenge where you got to stand on the foothold." I'd done that challenge before in Heroes vs. Villains. I hated the challenge the first time. I hated it even more the second time. But those are the breaks, right? But, yeah, to answer your question, when I saw the other four, obviously Coach and I were playing the game together, so that was a friendly face. But it did me no good. Without a vote, he can't do anything to help me. And I just know Ciri etoo well. We had already heard on our beach. We knew that she was playing with several other players. We knew she had she had really started to get locked in. But also I just know how good a player she is. Ater I lost the challenge and Dee won it, I had to start thinking like Cirie. And her best move was to get rid of me. No doub. When you're that exposed, not having a vote and not having a Shot in the Dark, anyone would be a fool not to take that shot, because it's an indefensible position that you're in, and when you don't have the numbers. So yeah, a lot of luck in the rock draw. It's random. I hate the rock draw stuff. But I gotta say, my friend Genevieve had worse luck than I did. Not just at last night's rock draw with regard to her tribe, but in the entire game. She found two idols, and has to give both of them away. What are the odds of that?! So she caught some bad luck along the way as well.Let's talk some more about this foot injury. We saw you at one point say it was hyperextended, then you say it was a stress fracture. So what was the extent of your injury? And, as Dee and Emily speculated, if you had stayed, would you have been medevaced?They didn't show a lot of it, because, again, it didn't, it didn't matter in the storyline of things. I got voted out anyway. The first injury came by way of the Zac Brown challenge, and it was a hyper extension of my foot as we're pushing the boat up the beach. But what that did — and I learned after the game, once we got imagery — it tore a ligament in the bottom of my foot. So that wasn't good, but I probably could have made my way through the game. I certainly wasn't going to be a threat and physical challenges moving forward, but it wasn't an injury that was going to take me out of the game.Separate and unrelated to that, but ironically, on the same exact foot. At some point, I stepped on something after the Zac Brown reward that must have punctured my foot, because I began to develop an infection on the beach. And we're checking in with medical before and after every challenge. If you go to Tribal, there's medical tents there. You can go in and privately discuss things with the doc and and have them look at you. And he immediately knew. He said, "Colby, this isn't good. You've got an infection in your foot. This can't be related to the ligament injury. You had to have punctured your foot." He couldn't find anything in the bottom of my foot that looked like a puncture wound. And they can't give you any antibiotics while you're in the game. So he said, "We've just got to see what happens with this." And that was on Day 9. So by day 10, it's getting worse. Day 11, and I'm on the beach, and Chrissy comes over, and she knew it was bad. You could touch it, and it was scorching hot, which tells you right away, it's an infection. It was swelling, it was getting much redder. And then it started to develop a big — not to get gross — but a big pus pocket. So it was most definitely an infection. They can't treat that in the game. And so when I met with Dr. Joe, before that Tribal Council, I knew I was going home, and he was ready to pull me. But he wasn't going to do it if I didn't want to go. And I said, "Look, Doc, I'm not surviving this Tribal Council tonight. If I do, we'll reassess this tomorrow. But I'd like to at least go to Tribal without getting medically removed from the game." After I got voted out, and then back at Ponderosa, Dr. Joe kept coming to check on me every couple of days. And it ended up being one of the worst infections they've had in since Dr. Joe got brought on to the game. So it was bad. And that infection. Mike, I could not have made it through the game with that. There was no way I could have finished the game out. Not because of the ligament damage, but because of the infection. Cautionary tale to those of you wanting to go back and play again, or for first time players going. This is a little inside pro tip here. There are only two of us, Ozzy and myself, that did not wear our shoes at Ponderosa when we're doing our interviews. When I interviewed with you, Mike, remember that day we're all going around all the different media outlets and doing interviews? I wasn't wearing shoes that day. Strategically, I was toughening up the bottom of my feet. Ironic that I end up with a foot injury. But I was walking around barefoot everywhere, as was Ozzy. And I looked over there and saw Ozzy doing it, but we were just getting used to being barefoot all the time. And I was just on a I was on a production trail. This was a trail that production had made through the jungle so they could get equipment back and forth. But you can imagine the amount of traffic, and thereby the amount of bacteria on stumps and everything in the trail. But I've regretted that ever since going barefoot. Because the infection would have been prevented had I been wearing shoes, heading back to the holding area where they had us.That is absolutely eye-opening. One of the reasons why you get the boot here is, as Cirie says, you were perceived as the "head of the snake" of a possible old-school alliance brewing. How accurate is that? Who were you trying to bring together at the merge?I wouldn't frame it as an old school. Yes, there were those of us from the old school in it. But then there were old schoolers like Cirie not necessarily in it. But we also, Mike had some of the new era players. And that was part of my strategic game that I was very proud of. I bonded, like I mentioned, with Genevieve on Night 1. Genevieve and I were locked in Kyle. Obviously, he went out. Q went out. But those were also two new era players that I really bonded with. Rizo is another one. At this point in the game, Rizo and I have been apart for a while, but we're still on very good terms. I know Rizo is playing both sides of it, but I have to believe, and I've talked to him since, I still had a little bit of influence on Rizo at this point. And had I been able to make the merge and bring those together, I was pulling in players from a lot of different areas. So it wasn't just what people would assume is the old school group. And again, I don't know that I was the head of the snake at all, but I had a lot of friends on different beaches and a lot of ways to play. I'd put myself in a good position with most of the players. Now, there was a faction of players out there that I simply didn't connect with. And unfortunately, a few of those were on this little squad of five that I ended up with at this challenge.If this first merge vote had been with all 17 people together, who would you have tried to go after?Was it somebody that you were not friends with?Well, we had discussed Aubry and Tiffany on our beach. So if we just step back for a second to the Kalo beach, we had Coach, Joe, me, Chrissy and Genevieve over there. And so it was Aubry or Tiffany. So we always had a target. And in fact, going all the way back to the beginning of the game, when it was Stephanie Kyle, Q, me, Rizo, and Genevieve, we were targeting either Aubry or Angelina at that time, right? And so we sort of had our sights on Aubry early on, so much so that we really discussed throwing a challenge intentionally. Because at one point early on, Mike, Q didn't have a vote, and I didn't have a vote. So if we go to one Tribal Council, we both get our votes back. We both become valuable again.And we had the numbers to throw a challenge and take out Angelina, flush out Aubry's idol. We knew Aubry had an idol. We knew it even though we didn't find it in her bag. There were so many things that were at play. Some of it you've seen on TV, a lot of it you didn't ,where we knew she had the idol. So anytime we were going to try to take her out, we needed to split the votes. We came onto Kalo. So now we're looking at intentionally throwing a challenge so that I can get my vote back. And we had the numbers. We had the numbers with Joe, Coach, Chrissy, Genevieve and myself. I have no vote, Coach and Chrissy, let's say, vote for Tiff. Genevieve and Joe vote for Aubry. Aubry and Tiffany vote for Genevieve. Aubry plays her idol. So now we've got a tie. You go to a revote, the idol's out, and then the players with votes could then take out either Tiffany or Aubry, right? So again, there were many discussions about throwing a challenge intentionally, and that goes against everything Coach and Joe and me and all of us want. Nobody wants to throw a challenge. But Q is the first one that brought it up, and I thought it was ludicrous. And then I sat on the beach with Q and Genevieve, because she's exponentially more intelligent than I am, and she knows the game to a degree far greater than I do. I said, "Genevieve, run the numbers. Where does the risk fall here versus reward if we throw a challenge?" And Genevieve noodled on it for a while, and she came back to me and she said, "Colby, this could really work. I think we need to throw a challenge." And once I had a great strategic mind like hers on board, then I was ready. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I was ready to throw a challenge. We couldn't get everybody on board. Same thing at Kalo. Joe really didn't want to throw the challenge. Now here's a little tidbit, Mike. You've seen that one challenge that we won immunity last week.Right, with throwing the sandbags.Yeah, tossing the sandbags up onto the dish. Did you see in that first leg where Joe was in last place and looked gassed? He wasn't gassed. Joe was pulling up. Joe was giving the other tribes a chance to get ahead. Because we knew if we lost, we could navigate or execute what I was talking about in terms of the split vote. So that was Joe not being gassed out. He was acting like it, but giving everybody else a chance, in the hopes that we might lose this thing and be okay and go to Tribal Council. It was at the end that his pride came in, and I get it, man, you know. I'm sure he's sitting there throwing those bean bags up, and he's like, "Dude, my buddies back at the firehouse are going to give me all kinds of hell if I lose this challenge." And the male ego took over, and we ended up winning. And they didn't show this. But Chrissy and I are over on the bench, on the side. And we win. Normally, you just come off the bench and you're high fiving and cheering. And there was a camera on us, but they didn't cut to it in the edit. Chrissy and I don't even get up, and we turned to each other. And I looked at her and I said, "S—t, we can't even lose when we're trying." And that's the way we felt. We really wanted to go to Tribal Council at that challenge. And again who knows how things would have been different? You never know. Things could go sideways at Tribal Council, so it's always a risk. Tiffany could have had something we weren't aware of, whether it was an Extra Vote or an idol or something like that. So it is a huge gamble; it's a big risk. And it's a selfish ask of me, because I'm the dude without a vote. So if I'm trying to convince a tribe to throw a challenge intentionally, it just feels very self-serving to do that.I want to finish with the last words you tell the other players, and it was one of the first things you said in the opening of the season: Find the joy. What was the moment you found the most joy in Survivor 50?Well, the players were a huge component to it. And I meant that when I said the friendships I forged over there, or are so meaningful with so many people. And a lot of them, I didn't expect to become friends with so many players in the game. But my one of the takeaways from this time is the same as it's been on all my experiences. Some of the times I cherish the most are at night when everyone's asleep. And I wake up in the middle of the night and there's one or two camera guys. And I can go down the beach by myself, because there's no point in following me. I'm not talking strategy with anyone.The stars are out, the moon is out. And I talked to my family back home, and. And that will always be a gift from Survivor that you can only get in a situation like that. When are you going to be on a beach in Fiji in the middle of a game where things are so chaotic, and be able to walk down the beach by yourself at night, under the moon and stars, and really appreciate all that you love and you miss back home. You're in this game, but you're missing a whole lot that's back home. And I will always remember those times. Those are my favorite moments on Survivor, believe it or not. Ironically, are the quiet ones when I'm by myself. It's unmatchable.Finally, that Tribal Council was one major moment of reflection on both how Survivor has affected you, and how you have affected Survivor. What was it like to have Jeff Probst tell you, "One last time, Donaldson," before getting your torch snuffed, considering the relationship you've had over the decades?He hadn't called me by my last name in a decade and a half or more. That was his little tip of the hat to me. And I appreciate our friendship that he and I have had for a lot of years.
Related: Charlie Davis Reveals the Real Reason He Targeted Rizo on 'Survivor 50' (Exclusive)
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