Survivor Live Internet Talk Show with Ozzy Lusth
Episode 14 Survivor: Cook Islands  Cast-Offs 
Segment 4 Transcript

Probst's Thoughts:  Ozzy.  I liked you early on.  Check the tape, I predicted you could win this game.  I liked your story.  I liked the pride you had in your ethnicity.  I like the fact that this game was made for you.  You live in the jungle.  All those factors worked against you.  Every single one of them made it difficult for you in this game.  But you fought and fought and fought to find a way to stay in it.  It was respected by all of us and I think it was respected by everyone on the show.  I have a feeling that there were some kids out there that were watching you and maybe want to be a little like you.  I think that's a good thing.

DR:  Jenna Morasca looks like she's wearing rouge but she's not.  She's blushing because her favorite contestant, Ozzy, is on.  What's going on Ozzy?

Ozzy:  It's not fair.  I wanted to be there so bad just to be able to talk to you guys. 

JM:  I wore my lowest cut dress for you.

Ozzy:  I can't even see you.  I'm in a room by myself talking to a smiley face taped under a camera.

DR:  Ozzy, well played, my man.  Unbelievable.  I think Jeff said it, it's like how do you decide between you and Yul?  Obviously one had the strategy and one was just a physical powerhouse.  What do you make of the whole thing, my man?

Ozzy:  I think what it came down to was the fact that I spent a little too much time fishing and not enough time politicking.  The times that I was out in the water trying to catch food for people to eat, Yul was able to get in there and change at least one person's mind.  That's all he needed.  It was that one vote that really came down to it and made him the winner.  But I just wanted to say that if it was going to be anyone to lose to, I'm glad it was Yul. 

JM:  We just talked to Adam and I would actually blame Adam for your loss because he voted for Yul simply because Yul voted off Jonathan.  He said he would have voted for you if Yul wouldn't have done that.  I think that's kind of a bad reason to vote for someone to win a million dollars.  He was technically the swing vote. 

DR:  Yep.

Ozzy:  Yeah he was technically the swing vote but there was like three swing votes.  Sundra didn't vote for me.  Candice didn't vote for me.  Adam didn't vote for me either.  It did come down to that one very key moment where Adam said the reason why he voted for Yul was because Yul supposedly masterminded the vote out of Jonathan.  That wasn't the case and I tried to explain to Adam but I think he was maybe thinking I was just scrambling to save myself or maybe he thought that Yul was really telling him the truth.  But in fact, Yul played a good game in that.  He was able to get in there in the very beginning and get to Adam in a way that was like a soft spot.  It was the emotional distress that Adam had when Jonathan flipped over and betrayed everybody on Raro's side. 

DR:  Give me a good breakdown.  Who were the votes that you did get because it was never said on the reunion show. We know you got Parvati's vote.  Who else was voting for you?

Ozzy:  I don't know for sure.  This is all speculation and based off of what people have told me, I got the vote from Jenny, Rebecca, Parvati and Nate. 

JM:  I would have gotten them all drunk last night and whoever didn't vote for me I would have taken them right off my Christmas card list.  They always say that Yul was the mastermind of you guys playing, in my opinion and not just because I love you dearly, without ever meeting you, in my opinion it was partially because of you that they made it that far because you kept winning all the challenges which then cushioned that tribe to safety throughout the game.  Don't you think?

Ozzy:  I truly believe that.  And not only that, my value went back to the beginning of the Aitutaki Tribe where I worked my ass off for a week straight setting up the foundation and really making it possible for us to go as a team that far.  Then when the mutiny happened there was a pivotal moment, if we had lost that challenge, that would have been it.  I don't think any of us would have made it as far as we did if we had not won that challenge.  I feel like I played a very key and crucial role in winning the challenges and providing enough food for us all to eat and do really well.  Becky gained two pounds and I don't think that has ever happened in Survivor. 

DR: Well, Jenna might bring up Katie from Survivor: Palau as someone else who maybe gained weight.  But Ozzy, one quick question, the point is kind of mute because we had Sundra on and she said that no she would not have forced Yul to use that hidden immunity idol when you're still at five going down to four.  But how much thought did you give it because had you been able to do that you my man would be sitting there with a million dollars?

Ozzy:  It's crossed my mind a lot.  I feel like maybe I should have been a little more sneaky at that point when Parvati and Adam were still around and we could have finagled it a little better but at the same time I really wanted to see the four of us in the top four.  From the moment the mutiny happened I really felt like I owed it to Becky and Sundra to get them to that point because that's what I said that I wanted.  I felt like we were solidified as a tribe at that time to make it to the top four if we could.  It's a million dollars, sure, it's a huge deal but at the same time, I played as hard as I could and I did the best that I could.  I'm just glad it only came down to one vote.   If it had been a landslide I don't think I could show my face. 

JM:  We haven't had a close vote like that in quite some time.  It's really exciting. 

Caller:  Me being Latino, I'm from Ecuador, what was the one thing that you missed from your parents home cooking?  Was it hot tamales?

Ozzy:  I'd have to say that I missed just being able to make a taco.  We had so much fish and it'd be nice to be able to wrap it up in something nice and warm.  And you really crave bread and ice cream and weird stuff like that.  Banana splits are another thing, I was dreaming about them. 

JM:  Me, too!  See, we're soul mates.

DR:  Oh my God, stop it.  I gotta cut this out.

Caller:  Hi, Ozzy, you're my favorite player of the season.  I was wondering if you ever swam competitively before on a team?

Ozzy:  Actually, I have not.  I did do competitive swimming when I was a little kid maybe for a season during one summer.  I was in love with diving.  I did diving from a very young age.  I dove in high school and I was captain of the diving team and went onto state competition.  That's what I really love doing.  I love to dive but swimming has always been a huge, huge love of mine.  I never really liked to swim competitively, though. 

DR:  Ozzy, let me ask you something that was touched upon a little bit at the final tribal council, a little something between you and Jonathan.  What's going on there?  You guys obviously not quite seeing eye to eye.  Did you guys talk at all last night?

Ozzy:  Yeah, Jonathan's a great guy.  I actually connected with him better than anyone else out there because we share very similar interests in film and literature and art and music.  I almost looked up to him as a father figure at times.  We rubbed each other the wrong way a little bit because we did have such similar interests and our personalities are both very strong.  Jonathan is a very, very outspoken person.  I think that he connected a little bit better with Yul because they would go off and talk strategy from the very beginning.  I think that Jonathan really respected the fact that Yul had a huge part in voting him out. 

DR:  A few episodes back where, say, you had the mud challenge...it's for reward, no big deal.  Did you ever think, "I don't need to win this because if I keep winning they might be tempted to get rid of me because I'm so good in these challenges."  Or you just couldn't let that happen?

Ozzy:  I just didn't want to look back and regret anything.  Say I'd come in third place, and I had supposedly thrown the mud challenge, then I would have regretted that for the rest of my life.  It was an amazing experience to be able to go and enjoy that reward.  I was surprised that no one else figured out to grab the large chunks of mud that were in the bottom.  I got almost double what everybody else got.  That was maybe a little too much but when you're in the challenge you're not thinking about that.  You're just thinking, I want to win it.  I wasn't looking at everyone else's bucket thinking maybe I should win by a little bit.  I wanted to win and I wanted to win as good a way as I could. 

DR:  You may know, we were very critical when you threw the challenge in week two.  But that's a whole other hour it would take to get into that so let's get to the phones.

Caller:  I'm glad that you just acknowledged that maybe Yul did not mastermind everything.  I suspected that he was getting credit for masterminding some things that maybe he didn't, particularly the vote out of Jonathan.  I wondered whether you guys had more to do with that than Yul did even though he got a million dollars worth of credit for it.  Did you and Becky and Sundra consider him a threat to the Aitu 4 because he said he wanted to take him to the end?

Ozzy:  No, I never considered that because we had made a plan.  I didn't know Yul had the idol until (inaudible).  But we all made a plan that Jonathan was only going to be around until one or two votes and we got the numbers that we needed and then he was gone.  It was fireworks after Jonathan switched over and Candice and Parvati and Adam called him a rat and cancer and all that.  So, Yul was able to use that emotional craziness to get Adam to eventually vote for him.  I think what it comes down to is, Yul is a very articulate, incredibly intelligent guy.  When we were giving our jury speeches I think he was able to outperform me in that case.  Maybe it has a little bit to do with him being a lawyer and have experience talking to a jury.  I don't know.  He did a great job and I gotta hand it to him.  He outplayed me in that aspect. 

DR:  Jenna Morasca is sitting here shaking her head no.

JM:  I was under the impression before you even got to the finale that Yul would step on his own feet during the jury trying to stick to  this whole integrity honesty thing.  That word to me means nothing in this game because it's Survivor, it's not real life.  I think the people had their jury votes made up almost before they got there. 

Ozzy:  Yes, yes.

JM:  I think you guys gave a pretty equal performance in the jury.

Ozzy:  I think you're right.  I think people did for the most part have their minds made up going into the jury.  I don't know for a fact but I do think that there was a little bit of jealousy on the jury's part in not wanting to vote for me because I did dominate a lot of the challenges in a lot of the game.  Maybe there was a little bit of animosity towards me because of that.  I don't think I placed enough emphasis on how hard it was to go out and fish and catch all of this food for people and provide as much as I did.  I think that people saw me doing it so much that maybe they thought it was easy.  The emphasis was placed instead on the social aspect.  Again, I spent too much time fishing and not enough time politicking.  That's what it really came down to in the end.  I missed a few golden opportunities.  One of them was convincing Adam that Yul did not have the Godfather status in getting Jonathan out that in fact he said he did.

DR:  You've had a few months to sit on this and think about it and probably stay up late at night wondering.  What did you think your chances were as far as winning this million dollars?

Ozzy:  I thought my chances were really good.  I thought it either was going to come down to a tie which I didn't think was going to happen but I really felt like I wasn't going to win just based off of counting up the numbers.  I felt like it could go either way but I felt like in the end Yul was able to convince them that somehow just playing a purely social game was more important than actually playing the Survivor game.  I felt like I did a better job in the all around game than Yul.  He was able to pull it out and that's just the way it works.  C'est la vie. 

JM:  You can also get a vibe after the final jury when they're still on location and you go back and you see the jury contestants.  You see them before the live show.  Sometimes you can get a little bit of a vibe whether they're like giving you the "I'm sorry" look.

Caller:  If it would have been the original Survivor final two and you win the final immunity challenge, would you have taken Yul or one of the girls to the final which would have gave you a landslide win?  Do you feel that you're a victim of the final three twist costing you the grand prize by allowing Yul to be in it?

Ozzy:  I would have definitely taken Sundra or Becky. Most definitely.  And yeah, I think I was victim to the final three twist.  Maybe I didn't make enough effort to try to out the idol when I had the chance with Parvati and Adam.  That was a mistake.  Maybe I shouldn't have sent Adam to Exile Island when I won the reward because those girls were plotting against me when they went back. Maybe I should have sent one of them to Exile just for fun. 

JM:  Also, your plans up to that point are for a final two.  You tell me if you were thinking, "I'll probably win the last challenge and take Becky or Sundra."  Then when they tell you there's going to be three it changes the plan.

Ozzy:  It totally changes it but I just had to go with it and try to formulate as best an argument as I could.  Sadly, it was too little, too late at that point. 

DR:  Everyone always says that you can be the best player in the world but there is so much luck involved.  Not that Yul was just lucky but there are so many twists and things that you can't account for and you just have to adjust. 

JM:  Finding the idol I think is lucky.  He was lucky enough to be sent there at that time when it was still there and find it.  That is a lot of luck to me. 

Ozzy:  That's very true. 

Caller:  If Mark Burnett were to call you and ask you to make another Survivor would you do it again?

Ozzy:  Oh, yeah, I'm out of here.  I'm gone.  I'll be on the next flight to wherever we're going, man.  I actually went through a fair amount of depression whenever I got back.  For me it was heaven.  Besides not having a surfboard and staring at these amazing waves for almost a month that drove me a little insane.  Aside from that I really felt a connection to nature.  Being in such a beautiful place, I drank in every single moment.  If the opportunity came I would jump on it in a heartbeat. 

JM:  I have put in a personal letter to Mark Burnett suggesting Ozzy for an All Stars.

DR:  If there is another All Stars.  I used to think that there never would be one now I sort of think that there will be one.

JM:  There will, absolutely. 

DR:  Jeff Probst said it last night.  You look like you were just born to play this game in all sorts of aspects. 

Ozzy:  What it really came down to was my childhood.  I was infatuated with reading books at a very early age and one of the first stories that I read was Robinson Crusoe.  I fell in love with that kind of a story of somebody being shipwrecked or lost on a deserted island having to survive on their own with only their wits and maybe a few tools.  I fantasized about that as a little kid.  The Blue Lagoon and tons of other movies kind of touch on that.  I loved that as a kid and used to go out and pretend that I was stranded out in the forest and make like a little fort and used to make traps.

DR: Well we loved watching you out there Ozzy.

JM:  You did a great job.

DR:  Sorry you weren't able to come here and do the whole thing in person.

JM:  Me, too. 

Ozzy:  Well hopefully we will meet each other soon. 

DR:  Thanks for a great season. 

JM:  I dislike this final three [twist] as much as I dislike the outcasts and the hidden immunity idols.  You saw the previews for next season shows they'll have two hidden immunity idols.  I just hate that because I feel like the person who has that will never truly perform to their ultimate because they don't have to. 

DR:  I don't think you can say that Terry Dietz did not perform to the best of his ability. 

JM:  I feel like you should always be on your toes on Survivor and the idol, I think they should give it an expiration date.  Win the idol and you have like six days to use it or it's not good anymore. 

DR:  Morasca is a little bitter because her guy didn't win.  Thanks to all of you for calling in. 

More Survivor Live Interviews:

Adam>>      Sundra>>     Becky >>     Ozzy >>