by Gina Scarpa

 

It's not really Nina's fault (after all, she can't help being older) but she got off to a bad start with her Salani tribe on Survivor: One World this season. The younger women immediately hit it off and formed an alliance, leaving Nina, Monica, and Christina on the outs. On last night's episode, at their second tribal council in a row, Nina was voted out of the game. Today, we talked to her in an exclusive interview about her time on Survivor: One World.

 

Q. Gina, RealityWanted: Were you a fan of Survivor and did watching it make you want to try out for the show?
A. Nina: Always a fan, from day one! I really enjoyed the first season and in fact, when the first season came out, my daughter was an infant. I had three very young stepchildren and I thought, "Wow, that looks like a cool concept!" and I would've loved to have done it then. It wasn't in the cards then. The opportunity came up later in life and I felt like, "It's now or never and I should really give it a shot!" I felt that I was still in pretty good shape and my kids were old enough to not need me as much.

 

Q. Gina, RealityWanted: It's interesting to watch the group of women try to work together this season. Did you feel that divide, because your age, right away and was there anything you could've done?
A. Nina: Interesting to say the least! It was divided along age, that was clear. I know that, at the very beginning when were divided by gender, Colton was pretty upset and thought it was the worst case scenario. I felt that as well, specifically because in an all women tribe, my age was going to be a factor. The five women that aligned themselves together did so quickly.

 

Q. Gina, RealityWanted: Speaking of Colton, we didn't get to really see your opinion of him hanging around your camp every day. Did you think he was a distraction?
A. Nina: Total distraction. He was just a total distraction. He came up to me and he came up to Monica and would say, "Oh you remind me of my mom." It's like, "Okay, I already have four kids and you need to go back to your tribe." I'm not there to mother anybody and neither was Monica. I think it was a huge mistake on his part to abandon his tribe and try to pal up with the women. He must've had some plan in mind. I guess we'll all find out soon enough. A couple of the women were okay with it but I think it started to wear thin after a while. We had so much to worry about.

 

Q. Gina, RealityWanted: What was your opinion of the men choosing the win in that first immunity challenge instead of competing until the end against you guys?
A. Nina: To be honest with you, I don't blame them one bit. I think Troy said it best: "We're all here to win and compete for a million dollars." If the shoe was on the other foot, we would've taken the win. I don't blame them at all. I think that Jeff said to think about the strategy long-term but I think they made the right decision. I didn't hold that against them, it was a smart move, because I think they realized there would've been potential for us to beat them at that challenge.

 

Q. Gina, RealityWanted: You definitely went after Kat at tribal council and tried to convince the others to vote for her. When you look back on it, is there anything you wish you said differently?
A. Nina: I stand by what I said. I think that Kat was really the person who should've gone home. I think she was a distraction for the tribe. I felt like she really let us down in challenges. It was frustrating because I think the alliance wanted to give her another chance and my argument to them was, "Okay, we don't have that kind of luxury." Every time we lose a challenge, one of us is going home. If you keep going down this path, you're going to have to start voting out your own alliance members.

 

Q. Gina, RealityWanted: Is it me or is Jeff Probst being a little more vocal this season. As a fan who has watched previous seasons, do you feel that way too?
A. Nina: Yeah, I do. I think his comments are helpful. I think his comments were helpful to me. Whether or not they carried any weight with the women... clearly, it didn't. I appreciated it because he was saying things that I wanted to say. But I think he realizes that he has to be careful and not have an influence on decisions. He's a master at it and he's very good at bringing things out of people and getting them to have that dialogue. You have to be good at that. Otherwise, we'd all be sitting around looking at each other.

 

Q. Gina, RealityWanted: Even though you were only in the game for a short period of time, was the experience of playing what you thought it would be?
A. Nina: It was everything I thought it would be and on the other hand, it was nothing like I thought it would be. It was emotionally draining, it's very intense all of the time. If you have any aspirations of winning, you've gotta be on your game 24/7. I was not able to do that. You have to keep some of you comments in check. I speak my mind and that was ultimately my demise. If I kept my comments about Kat to myself, would it have made a difference? Probably not. I had to go out guns a blazing. But it was great, it was a blast. Even the challenges I competed in, the first ended very suddenly and the second one was stand on the end of a beam. That was very disappointing. It was fun while it lasted, but I wish it had been longer.

 

Survivor: One World airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on CBS.

 

(Image courtesy of CBS)

 

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