by Gina Scarpa

 

Last night, Survivor unveiled its 32nd season and brought back the popular Brains vs. Brawn vs. Beauty theme. Survivor: Kaoh Rong introduced us to 18 new castaways, including Darnell Hamilton, a Chicago postal worker who now has the unfortunate distinction of being voted out first. After his Brawn tribe came in last in the first elimination challenge, it came down to him or Alecia Holden for elimination. We chatted with Darnell today to find out what went wrong despite his efforts to stay in the game.

 

I have to say… I’m a little surprised to be talking to you right now. Are you surprised that you were the first one voted out?

Yeah, I was shocked. It was tough.

 

Initially, when looking at the Brains and Beauty tribes, how did you think your Brawn tribe stacked up?

I thought we were good, we were the bomb, the tough ones. You look at the Brains and you’re thinking "Oh Brains, they're gonna malfunction." With Beauty, it was gonna be like a big college party. Who's better? Who's prettier? A lot of issues but we're the Brawn, we're gonna take it far.

 

You connected with Cydney right now and it looked like the two of you might be able to take your game far. What was it that made you want to align with her?

She's a really cool person and we just clicked. I told her, when we were talking, "If we get to the end together, I wouldn't vote you out."

 

Dropping the goggles in the elimination challenge seems like a mistake that anyone could make, even though it was a big mistake to make. Do you feel like that should have been the thing to send you home?

I don't think I should've went home. I kind of understood because we were there partly because of me. But there were a lot of things that went wrong in that challenge, not just me. It was an accident. It's not like I did it intentionally.

I thought that for a minute, during tribal council, you were going to be able to tug on the heartstrings of your tribemates and fight to see another few days. Were you able to elaborate on your story at all?

Yeah, I told them a lot about my life, how I had to fight for everything. I'm a fighter, I don't give up. I keep pushing.

 

So why do you think after the tie vote, that it ended up being you?

I think at first, they were trying to flush an idol. There was a lot of idol talk around camp. I think that decision was made at camp. At tribal council, with Alecia, they were thinking, “She's dead weight, we can control her.”

 

Given that your time in the game was so short, what do you feel the fans didn’t get to see from you?

Just my loyalty, my leadership qualities. They didn't see the bonds that I built with some of the players. You can see in tribal how I was affected. I was building bonds and they got me out the game because they were intimidated by that.

 

 

Survivor: Kaoh Rong airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on CBS.

 

Photo credit: CBS