In a devastating blindside last night (November 15), Kellie Nalbandian was eliminated from Survivor 45 (joining the jury alongside Kaleb Gebrewold), and now she is spilling all of the tea…
When Kellie’s “closest ally” Bruce Perreault outlasted Julie Alley to win the immunity challenge, despite losing his vote during the return of the Survivor Auction earlier that day, Kellie thought Jake O’Kane would be the easy vote at tribal council that fateful night. After the great deal of chaos that he caused at the previous tribal council while trying to save Kaleb Gebrewold from elimination, Jake had a massive target on his back — however, Kellie was deemed as a bigger threat by the Reba majority.
At tribal council, the Reba majority — consisting of Julie Alley, Dee Valladares, Austin Li Coon, Drew Basile and honorary Reba member Emily Flippen — blindsided Kellie, causing her to leave the game in a state of disbelief, repeating the words “what the hell guys” over and over again while grabbing her torch and other belongings.
While the critical care nurse stayed loyal to her allies, causing her to fall short at tribal council, her game could have changed entirely if she decided to proceed with the idea of a women-only alliance that was mentioned at the start of the episode.
To kick off episode 8, the six women left in the game — Kellie Nalbandian, Emily Flippen, Dee Valladares, Julie Alley, Kendra McQuarrie, and Katurah Topps — proposed the idea of an all-girls alliance, with the intention of targeting the four men left in the game.
Kendra shared with the camera, “It’s six-four right now. This could be our opportunity for six badass women to start taking out some guys,” however, not all of the women were on board with this plan, causing Kellie to be eliminated far too soon.
“I would love a women’s alliance, but it’s going to be tricky, because Dee and I are still four strong with Drew and Austin, who I trust a hundred percent,” Julie dished in a confessional, referencing the alliance she has built with her original Reba tribemates (with the exception of eliminated castaways J. Maya and Sifu Alsup, of course).
As we saw during last night’s episode of Survivor 45, Julie and Dee (as well as adopted Reba member Emily) stayed true to their alliance, targeting Kellie instead of sticking with the girls. After her devastating blindside, fans have just one burning question — how serious was the idea of an all-girls alliance, really?
Kellie dished about what did not make it onto our television screens in an exclusive interview with Entertainment Weekly. Keep scrolling to see for yourself…
In said interview, reporter Dalton Ross asked Kellie, “When you guys talked about that women’s alliance, was anyone really thinking that that was actually a thing at all?” Her response was rather disheartening to viewers coast to coast, admitting that it was never actually in the works.
“Honestly, I don’t think so,” she dished. “Obviously I would love women’s alliance. That’s my dream scenario, but we’re a little bit too far in the game to form a full six person women’s alliance… I was just looking at it like, ‘I love my options,’ so I was like, ‘This is another option for me. I’m not going to shut anybody down.'”
On Survivor, it is key to have as many connections as you can, and in Kellie’s eyes, the women-only alliance was a way for her to form closer relationships with people who she had not worked with just yet (such as original Reba members Julie and Dee).
In addition to this, another reason why Kellie entertained the idea of an all-girls alliance was due to the rocky relationship that she had Bruce, her so-called “closest ally,” describing him as an “anchor” that was weighing her down on numerous occasions.
“I was a little bit frustrated with Bruce at the time, and if this was something I could use to make a move and find some new allies,” she spilled. “At this point in the game, really the thing I think that crushed me so much is all of my best strategic allies were going home at tribal councils I was not at… I think in this game, you really need someone who you can bounce ideas off of, and it’s hard when you’re starving and you’re losing all those people without having any say.”
Admitting that the idea of an all-female alliance caused her head to turn away from her original Belo tribemates, the plan was not feasible as a whole.
While Kellie Nalbandian is already greatly missed on our television screens, to see how the rest of Survivor 45 unfolds, catch 90-minute episodes of the beloved competition series every Wednesday at 8pm ET/PT on CBS.
Could the women-only alliance end up happening after all? Only time will tell…