Brando Meyer (‘Survivor 45’ exit interview): ‘Being vulnerable is something that I wouldn’t trade for anything’

On Wednesday’s fifth episode of “Survivor 45,” the Belo tribe made their first trip to Tribal Council. As the post-swap tribe most evenly mixed with two original Reba, two original Belo and one original Lulu, the vote was a split decision between which original tribe would be allowed to keep their full numbers in the game. With a gutsy move to sway another castaway in his direction, original Belo member Brando Meyer proved to the others that he was playing too hard and was voted out. Read on for Brando’s “Survivor 45” exit interview from the end of the episode.

Brando’s strategy at the new Belo tribe was to test his connections with new people since he saw his connection to Kendra McQuarrie as one of the weakest from his original tribe. His first attempt to build something new was with a “nerd alliance” with Drew Basile (original Reba) and Emily Flippen (original Lulu), but despite a shared interest in Pokemon, Drew was not interested in working with Brando. From Drew’s perspective, it was not an option to allow the original Belo tribe to head into the merge fully in tact with six players.

After they lost immunity and were faced with Tribal Council, Brando made another play at Drew by throwing Kendra’s name under the bus, but Drew saw right through it. When their conversation became a game of calling each other liars over who initiated what, Emily actually believed Brando over Drew, but was later swayed by Austin Li Coon when he earned her trust by being fully transparent about the advantage he earned on a journey away from camp.

In the end, Brando’s social game was not slick enough for him to save himself from being voted out. Despite that shortcoming, it’s the social experience that he looked back on as he left the game. “As someone who wasn’t the most social kid growing up,” he began. “Being out here with a bunch of strangers, learning about them, and just being vulnerable is something that I wouldn’t trade for anything.” He added that “playing ‘Survivor’ is absolutely unbelievable and I got to meet all these amazing people and learned so much about myself. I can push myself to limits that I never thought that I could.”

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