Bruce Perreault (‘Survivor 45’ exit interview): ‘They made me feel comfortable’ and ‘kudos to them’
On Wednesday’s 10th episode of “Survivor 45,” it was time for another blindside on original Belo as Emily Flippen devised a plan to make Bruce Perreault feel so comfortable in the vote that he might not play his hidden immunity idol. After stubbornly playing the game for 20+ days, Bruce decided to trust someone else and opted out of saving himself at Tribal Council, causing him to be the next in “Survivor” history to be go home with an idol in their pocket. Read on for Bruce’s “Survivor 45” exit interview from the end of the episode.
Early in the episode, Bruce, Emily, Katurah Topps and Jake O’Kane all considered the fact that they were up against a core alliance of four original Reba players that were seemingly never going to break ties with each other. In their plans to topple that alliance, Bruce decided that he could create a lie to tell everyone that he’d given his idol to Kellie Nalbandian before she was voted out and so he no longer has his. In theory, this may cause them to pile all their votes on him so that he could use his idol and take one of them out. Katurah did not like this plan and Jake fell for it, but it was later unearthed as a lie not to be taken seriously.
After Bruce lost the immunity challenge to Austin Li Coon, he realized that everyone was aware he still had his idol and so a new plan had to be created or Jake would go home as the second option. That’s when Emily and Katurah stepped in to throw “mama” Julie Alley under the bus as a player that no one should want to go to the end of the game with. But Emily was still keen on getting Bruce out so she set out to make Bruce feel comfortable enough that the four non-Reba players were solidly voting for Julie in the hopes that he’d take a gamble and not play his idol. And that’s exactly what happened.
“I didn’t play my idol today because I was convinced otherwise,” admitted Bruce after the fact. “They hatched a good plan. They made me feel comfortable which kudos to them.” Emily’s plan to get the game’s most stubborn player to trust her worked, and it went off without a hitch. As Bruce left the TC area, all the players in the game smiled widely as the jurors, who had desperately wanted Bruce out before their own exits, cheered as well. In the end, Bruce was the only player that voted against Julie while old Reba voted for Jake and Julie joined Katurah, Jake and Emily to have the majority four votes on Bruce.
Despite being the target of everyone in the game for multiple weeks, Bruce was in good spirits on his way out of the game. “I’ll keep smiling no matter what though, that’s what I do,” he began. “I had a blast. It’s just been absolutely amazing and I’m very thankful to have a chance to come back. I love this game. I truly love this game,” he concluded.
Be sure to make your predictions to influence our reality TV racetrack odds. You can keep changing your predictions until just before the next episode airs on CBS. You’ll compete to win eternal bragging rights and a spot on our “Survivor 45” leaderboard. See our contest rules and sound off with other fans in our reality TV forum. Read more Gold Derby entertainment news.
SIGN UP for Gold Derby’s free newsletter with latest predictions