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Congratulations on winning!

Thank you so much! I'm happy to be here.

Going into the final tribal council, you didn't think you had a chance of winning against Russell.

I don't even like to get overconfident, because clearly, especially on our season, anytime you get overconfident, it seems like it doesn't work out for you. So I just wanted to keep a level head and make sure I didn't go into it overconfident.

Some people on the jury said their vote came down to you or Mick. Why do you think you did a better job than Mick?

Mick is an amazing person. I adore Mick; he's an amazing guy. From the jury's standpoint - and this is purely speculation on my part - the only thing I can think of is that maybe I did better at the final jury speech. Or maybe, since Mick was technically nominated leader of the Foa Foa tribe and then we lost so many challenges, maybe they held him responsible for it.

But that was such an arbitrary designation!

I know, right? I know. You know how people are; you never know how they're going to react in this game. It's not like he stepped up and said, "I want to be leader!" He really is truly an amazing person, though. I love him to death. As far him versus me, I truly don't know. I haven't had much of a chance to talk to anybody about it because when the live show ended, I went straight to interviews for two hours. Then I went to a couple of get-togethers, but of course we didn't want to talk about the game anymore; we just wanted to hang out. And then I started interviews this morning at 4 a.m.

I'm impressed that you're still perky.

[Laughs] I'm trying, I'm trying. Brett got me some pizza, so it's perked me up a little bit.

Russell was, and still is, extremely upset over losing.

I mean, it was a million dollars. And for him, I think the title was extremely important to him. He played an amazing game; I can't for one second say he didn't. The thing it came down to, the thing it always comes down to on Survivor, is the jury. Had it been a different jury, maybe a Richard Hatch jury, maybe he would have won this season. Unfortunately, it was not that jury. It was a different kind of jury, and luckily, it was a jury that would vote in my favour.

Russell thought the jury would vote like he would vote.

Exactly, exactly.

You clearly saw that each jury member had their own way of voting.

I did. I spent a lot of time building relationships and genuine friendships with people. I felt that I should figure out the voting criteria for many of them, so I did my best and it worked. It is what it is for both of us. I feel thankful that I got the majority and I won. Period, end of the story. It's non-negotiable!

Say it had been a Richard Hatch jury who voted for more aggressive, strategic gameplay. Would that have changed how you played Survivor?

I mean, I was strategic. I think the biggest move of the game was getting Erik out. That was the turning point of the game, and had it not happened, Jaison would have been voted out. Russell probably would have played the idol for himself and it would have been gone, so he would have had no idea, and that would leave Mick, myself and Russ, and that's just three people. At that point, Shambo probably would only have voted for Laura, Monica or Kelly and nobody else, and we weren't guaranteed that we could get them out if we only had three people in our alliance. You never know. It's a cause-and-effect game. I like to say that the audience sees a different game than we actually play. Honestly, I had a lot more strategy than what was seen, but I'll tell you, Russell is an amazing strategic player. No doubt. He played a heck of the game.

What were some of your strategic moves that we didn't see?

They didn't really show all of us Foa Foas getting together, bouncing ideas off each other and doing the pros and cons of each vote. But we did that quite often. Pretty much every vote, who got voted off was a group decision. It was a core alliance, and I thought they would show all that. I thought they would show that it was always Mick, Jaison, Russ and me. Always. Even back at Foa Foa. I always thought they'd show more of that, and they never did.

How do you feel about Russell being portrayed as this evil genius that led you and the other Foa Foas to the final?

That's the way it is. He is a great strategic player, and I don't want to take anything away from him by any means. He's an amazing player and he's a great person, and we can separate the two. We'll be friends forever. We were together since Day 1 and we made it to the end together, and that doesn't happen very often. People who make an alliance on Day 1 rarely make it to Day 39.

Your win has had a bit of a polarizing effect on viewers - there are those who think that Russell deserved to win, and others believe that the fact that you won proves that you deserved it.

I kind of look at it like a sales call: you've gotta close, and in this case, closing means the final tribal council. If you don't close, you don't make the sale. That night for me, I was able to close. That's the way it is. The jury is who decides the winner.

Last question, and it's an obvious one: what are you going to do with your million dollars?

Oh, my goodness. I'm definitely going to save the majority of it, but I'm going to take a nice vacation with my boyfriend. Maybe take a mini shopping spree, and maybe take my mom and sister shopping - something fun. And now, I'm going to do a little more Christmas shopping for everyone!

Oh, well, you have plenty of time left for that.

Yeah, a couple of days, huh? Plenty of time.