by David McAlpine

Last night on Survivor: South Pacific, Ozzy's number two Elyse Umemoto, a 27 year-old dance team manager from Las Vegas, faced off with Christine on Redemption Island, after her team deemed her too threatening to keep on their tribe. In a heated game of shuffleboard, Elyse lost out on her chance at redemption. Today, Elyse talked to RealityWanted about her tribe and Redemption Island.

Q. David, RealityWanted: What made you audition for the show?
A. Elyse: When I competed at Miss America (as Miss Washington), they did a reality show that year. Someone told me that I should look into Survivor and asked me if I'd seen any of the episodes. I said no, so they directed me to the site and told me to fill out an application and do a video. Soon enough I was getting vaccinated and on my want to the South Pacific!

Q. David, RealityWanted: What was your strategy going into the game?
A. Elyse: The strategy that I had was essentially a non-strategy. I was trying to take it minute-by-minute and go with the flow. I'm not a Cochran, you know? I'm relatively new to the Survivor world, and I think I was at a disadvantage being new to the game. Going back into the game I would have done the same thing: roll with the punches and see what happened next. I wasn't going to take on a strategy like Jim or Brandon, those guys had clear, overt plans and personalities. It just wasn't meant to be.

Q. David, RealityWanted: Clearly you and Ozzy were close. Did you think you were that obvious to your tribe mates?
A. Elyse: I did feel like Ozzy and I were pretty close, but I didn't think it was as out in the open as it apparently was. I thought it was more accepted that it was the group of five of us, or perhaps the four of us, but beyond that, I didn't think there was that much to worry about. If I could go back, that's the one thing I would change, I would make that relationship more invisible. That's definitely what led up to the Tribal Council.

Q. David, RealityWanted: What was the point where you knew you were going home?
A. Elyse: The prelude to that moment was when I saw Dawn's name? I saw it come up, and I knew that something was wrong and something had changed. I didn't really know it was me until Jeff flipped the last card, but I was in complete disbelief. Immediately, my wheels started spinning to try and figure out who did what, what changed, what happened, who voted how.

Q. David, RealityWanted: You got to spend some time with Christine on Redemption Island. What's your impression of her?
A. Elyse: Earlier in the game, Christine had been very vocal about not trusting Coach, so I thought she was going to get voted out early. When I got to Redemption Island, though, this woman did as best as she could to make me feel welcome, it was like this big, warm hung after you just got run over by a Mack truck. She offered me a place to sleep, shared her blanket, showed me where the fire was, where the poker was, where the rock was to throw at things that crawl up your leg--Im definitely rooting for her to win.

Q. David, RealityWanted: Christine had been out there for a *long* time. Did you think you could beat her in the duel?
A. Elyse: I did, I absolutely did. I didn't go into it thinking I could dominate, but I went into it with the most optimistic of hopes. Clearly everything that I thought was going on in the game had just been thrown out the window, so I stopped trying to go with what I thought I knew.

Q. David, RealityWanted: The duel looked pretty difficult. How hard was it?
A. Elyse: It was a lot harder than shown on TV. The disks were really heavy and personally, I don't play shuffleboard. I'm not 85 and I don't take cruise ships often, so I've never played it before ever. I thought it was very anticlimactic that my time on Survivor ended this way. I thought I'd be scaling waterfalls and racing through the jungle and swinging on vines, and I got eliminated because basically I can't play pool.

Q. David, RealityWanted: Would you do another reality show?
A. Elyse: Possibly. Rock of Love? Definitely not. Another sort of competition show, I think so. Survivor might not be the best outlet, but I think I have a lot more to offer and a lot more to show than what came across.

Q. David, RealityWanted: What do you take away from the experience?
A. Elyse: Was it fun? Absolutely not! It was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, but I'm a better person for it.

Survivor airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on CBS.

(Photo courtesy of CBS)

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