Tiffany Seely’s life has been about survival. Even before entering a season that host Jeff Probst recently said was meant to starve them to the point of cognitive breakdown, she had a massive health scare in her thirties, forcing her to take her life into her own hands to prevent a possible breast cancer diagnosis. She brought that fighting spirit to the island, going from an early target to an important part of her small but tight alliance. Unfortunately, when the merge hit, Tiffany’s story changed. And despite a couple of chaotic Tribal Councils, her time of survival on Survivor came to an end on Day 16. The first few days in the game, Tiffany found difficulty balancing, both literally and metaphorically with small tribes and constantly fluctuating relationships. Despite getting targeted by the men on her tribe in the premerge, she maintained a close majority with Evvie Jagoda and Liana Wallace. That took the teacher to the head of the class, to the point where she even steered the vote to get rid of David Voce. Coming out of the premerge, the Yase trio had their sights set on Xander Hastings. But when Liana sought different alliances and targeted her former tribe members, enemies became allies. The “baby turtles” of Yase left everyone shellshocked when Xander flushed Liana’s “Knowledge is Power” advantage, leading to mass confusion. But they weren’t out of the woods yet, as the vast majority of the newly merged tribe had yellow on their minds. With Evvie immune and Xander in possession of an idol, the focus landed on Tiffany. Angry at her name being thrown out as a decoy, Heather Aldret attempted to put a plan into motion to shift things at Tribal Council. But despite some tense and huddled talks, the plan seemed to revert to the mean. Survivor alternate Tiffany became the main target and the first member of the jury. Now out of the game, Tiffany talks with Parade.com about what exactly went down at that last Tribal Council, the various states of Yase pre- and post-merge, and navigating both relationships and “situationships” while playing the game. There were a lot of names being thrown out going into Tribal Council last night, yours included. Obviously, a lot happens at Tribal proper, but what was it like for you as you were scrambling around the beach trying to figure out who to vote for? That last day, nobody would talk to me. I was pretty upset because I showed a lot of loyalty to Xander. I didn’t keep any of the stuff he gave me, but I gave it back in secret so people could think maybe I still had it. I was playing a long game, and I was playing with a lot of people who were playing shortsighted games. With Xander in particular, the loyalty that I showed was pretty good. For him to have flipped the minute we got back was odd. So what was your reaction at Tribal Council with all of the whispering and plans to change seemingly, only for it to come back onto you? When we got to Tribal, I thought, “Be smart, Xander. Use your idol on me. Listen to what I have to say. We’re going to grab this game and flip it upside down.” We had everything going into the merge. Everything. Liana flipping blows everything up. Xander flipping…what the hell? Why? Then Heather does some theatrics at Tribal Council, and it could have been Heather than night. Then Deshawn throws a baby fit, and Shan says, “Okay, Deshawn, whatever you want.” All of a sudden, Shan has spoken and has given her power to Deshawn. They flip it to me. But here’s the crazy part. It was so messy, but nothing was flushed! Is that not the [expletive] vote out ever? It’s stupid. Your final words made it clear that you thought it was a bad move that you left over Xander. Can you elaborate on that? It made no sense. Liana, who’s been after Xander the entire freaking show, is now gunning for me because she [expletive] up and didn’t do what we told her to do?! We told her to give the extra vote to Shan when she got to that mountain. We wanted to get Ua with us. And what does she do? She takes it! And she forgets to tell Shan that she didn’t tell us, but does tell Shan how tight she is with us. So, of course, Shan is going to be like, “Oh, did you get it?” She had no idea Liana was doing this behind our backs. Then Liana is mad at me! I’m not sure how that happened, but okay. Liana writing my name down, dude. Seriously. If she didn’t write my name down, it would have been a tie. And Liana wanted Xander out so bad the whole time. I’m [expletive] fighting with this girl over Xander. This happened back on Yase. I’m like, “Okay, we are in high school again. Stop it with Xander. He’s powerless right now. Voce is a freakin threat. He’s strategic. Let’s get him the hell out well. We can manipulate Xander in a second. It was a [expletive] way to go out. And they didn’t show me throwing a fit on stage. What was the fit about? It was when Heather says, “Sit here and don’t move.” You think I [expletive] sat there and didn’t move? No! I was like, “Hold on. That’s my cue.” I got up. I was like, “Is this woman serious? Right, I’m going to sit here while you mastermind a plan. Kill me.” So I got up, and I went to Xander. And he wouldn’t speak to me. It was stupid. And the vote was too close to use my Shot in the Dark. It was too fractured. It was too messy. And I thought maybe my vote would actually do something, and it almost did. You said at Tribal Council that you felt there were a couple of people making the decisions for the group of Luvu, Ua, and Liana. Were you trying to throw the target onto anyone in particular with that? At Tribal, I was specifically trying to keep my big fat mouth shut. (Laughs.) Because I was [expletive] fuming inside because Xander flipped! And Liana was giving the cold shoulder to me. What you didn’t see is Liana thought I was talking about her in the shelter at one point. Meanwhile, I was like laughing at something else. What am I, 12? I wanted to shut my mouth and watch these people implode, because there’s such a [expletive] hot mess. They don’t know what they’re doing. And so I was quiet until Heather was being a “mastermind” and said, “Sit here, I’ll be right back.” That’s when I realized, “I can’t use my Shot in the Dark. Because they’re such a freaking mess that they don’t know what’s going on.” Ultimately Deshaun was my demise, because it was supposed to be split between Xander and me. Xander was supposed to go home. But Deshawn threw a fit because he didn’t want to lose Heather. Because he was so fractured in his group, and he had her as a number. Shan ultimately gives her power to Deshawn and says, “Whatever you want, dude.” And if Heather was “rah-rah-rah"ing for me to stay, she put my freaking name down! Another brilliant move. The round prior, you, Evvie, and Xander make this big move by giving you his idol and letting Liana steal a fake idol from him. How did that plan all come together? The way you saw it on TV was obviously not exactly how it happened. I knew about what Liana had. I ran around and told Evvie. What you didn’t see was that Evvie and I were the closest there; we were ride or die. They made it look like Liana and I were, but I wanted her out from the jump, and Evvie wouldn’t do it because she wanted to go “girl strong.” And I wasn’t going to fight that with only six people on a tribe! So, before Evvie and I tell Xander about Knowledge is Power, we concoct the plan together. We realize we can’t give it to Evvie, because everyone knew she and Xander were super tight. They were going to look at her. We knew to give it to me. We went and told Xander the plan. We went to Tribal; he showed the fake idol that he probably had saved from Yase when he was trying to dupe me. Like I’m some schmuck who didn’t know he had everything! (>Laughs.) You saw my faces. It was so pathetically poor. It was embarrassing. I was actually secondhand embarrassed for him. And he didn’t even tell me about all the advantages! He didn’t tell me about the extra vote. I was like, “What’s in your bag, Xander?” And he was like, “Oh…this?” And I was like, “Oh yeah! Like I didn’t see it coming out of your bag. Also, I went into your bag. And also I knew everything. But okay.” Sorry, Mike, I’m a little upset. After Sydney goes, it looks like you, Xander, and Evvie all throw each other under the bus. Danny vocalizes that he’s not sure if it’s performance. How much of it was for you? One hundred percent no performing. Ultimately, I was ride-or-die with Evvie. But Xander flipped, Liana was gone, and Evvie had the necklace. There was nothing there! They were so afraid of us. They were afraid of me, even with the way I walked. It’s just New York energy! A lot of the cast loved me, so there was that social threat. But at the same time, I was keeping it pretty low-key. I was not comfortable with that head thing in the challenge. I was way high up; it took me six times to even get it straight before we shot the challenge. I was like, “Oh my God. Did I do something weird when they measured me? This [expletive] thing is falling off my head. Do not let it fall off before someone else.” To be honest, I was okay with not winning that. I didn’t want people to perceive me as a challenge threat. I had just won throwing up the balls. Give me balls and rings, Mike! (Laughs.) (Laughs.) Survivor Second Chances 2: Balls and Rings is your season! (Laughs.) I’m your girl for that! I want to go back to talking about Evvie. It’s really interesting you say they were your closest ally out there, considering we saw a few times that you told others you didn’t trust them. Talk to me about that dynamic. I know for a fact that Evvie and I were ride-or0dies. But I also know that she’s gone in with everybody. I was very well aware that she had Xander in her pocket. She had Liana in her pocket. She had me in her pocket. But I was like, “Go ahead and play because I can just sit back while you play.” We were just in lockstep together. We were strategizing together. Every time I thought of something, she thought of it at the same time. It was a perfect marriage of strategy. Let’s go back to the premerge. It seems to us like you steered the vote away from Xander and onto Voce because you were paranoid and confused about the idol rules. Was that the case? No, that didn’t happen like that. Listen, Xander talks like that all the time. So saying, “Butterflies are dead relatives saying hi,” is nothing new. For instance, one day, we were walking around with fish guts, which smelled like death. And he said, “If you think a Bach concerto in your head, you won’t smell it.” I was like, “Are you okay? Are you really okay?” I couldn’t think of a Bach concerto if you killed me! So when he said that butterfly thing, I was like, “Typical Xander.” I knew it was a little wonky, but it didn’t really sound very different than who he was. I knew Evvie was overplaying and had finals deals with everyone. I didn’t trust her 100%. And Liana didn’t want her name on the block. And that is why it’s switched to Voce last minute. I told Liana, “I don’t give a shit. My name was out there last night. It was supposed to be fake Liana, but they can vote me.” I figured we get Voce because he’s more strategic. Xander’s [expletive] is not even active and probably won’t be for a while; let’s be real. And Xander was definitely more loyal. He was willing to work with the girls more. Voce and I were husband and wife on the island. He’s a goddamn brain surgeon. Of course he’s strategic! Everybody thought it was crazy for me to change the plan. And it wasn’t. In our preseason chat, you talked about finding “situationships” rather than relationships on the island. But considering how intense and personal the game got, were you able to walk away with any tried and true relationships? I really believe if you have one person you’re loyal to, and they’re loyal back, it’s very important in this game for how you feel mentally. And who I am socially, and if you don’t like me, that’s just more fodder for me to get you to love me. The more you hate me, the more you’re going to love me by the end of the show! (Laughs.) I’m just a relationship person naturally, so I wasn’t really that concerned about relationships. But the “situationships” were very important. There were so many situations, especially in this game with all those twists; it became luck. A lot of it was pure luck, like a rock draw. Like Erika drawing that rock, and then Xander was so nice and sat out. He’s Paleo; he doesn’t even eat freaking cheese! And we’re not even going to talk about all the people that sat out the Immunity Challenge. Because they all had advantages and somebody in their pocket. It was so performative. I wanted to be like, “Oh, you guys suck! This is so stupid; you all have something.” But you know, Jeff had to shut me up because…New York (Laughs.) But I was fortunate to come away in a relationship. With Evvie, it’s almost as if the minute we stepped on that island, I found a long-lost sibling. You know how you find your best friend in college? I found my best friend on this show. You can’t help it. You’re out there; you’re vulnerable. And sometimes, a real relationship’s going to come out of those votes. Voce and I are super tight, best best best friends. And I’m super close with Sydney. Sydney and I had some hysterical laughter, as you can only imagine with two New York girls together. The boom mics would come in, and they’d be like, “Oh [expletive] no” and back away. (Laughs.) There are some great people on the show. I made great friendships. But Evvie is wonderful. Evvie was someone really super special. Next, check out our exit interview with Sydney Segal, who was voted out in Survivor 41 Episode 7.
