Lindsay Dolashewich is all about balance. In her day-to-day as a dietitian, she knows the way to keep components of nutrition in sync for a healthy life. And in the game of Survivor, many called her the most well-balanced player of the season. She was a physical presence, seemed to get along with just about everyone, and helped make some of the biggest decisions of the game. But unfortunately for Lindsay, a Survivor resume is not like a diet plan. Her competition saw how threatening she was. And after losing a crucial challenge, it was time the “fighter” got knocked out. Lindsay started the game in a very unconventional way: Covered in fake blood and with an “Advantage Amulet” in her hands. But despite the dirty start, the majority of her game was fairly clean. Her physical prowess, along with Taku’s challenge dominance, put her in a safe spot for the first half of the game. And she quickly formed a bond with fellow challenge standout Jonathan Young. When the tribes came together, she reunited with fellow amulet holders Drea Wheeler and Hai Giang, and they all became part of a cross-tribal majority. But things took a significant shift for Lindsay once Jonathan attempted to mount a blindside against Drea. Lindsay became frustrated by the demeaning and stubborn behavior of her closest ally, and it started to have her look to greener pastures, namely Omar Zaheer. After winning her first individual Immunity Challenge, Lindsay opted to go head-to-head with Jonathan and risk elimination via random draw. While she failed to win against him, she prevailed in the game of chance. And when she didn’t have to “die,” she decided to “do.” That is, she and Omar organized a plot to help Mike Turner avoid getting his idol stolen, voting out Drea in the process. The plan left Lindsay as the last amulet holder, which automatically turned it into an idol. Despite it expiring that round and being immune, she opted not to play her newfound prize on Omar, fearing it could go back into circulation. Unfortunately, that led to the elimination of her closest ally, putting Lindsay on an island as the final five quite literally traveled to a new one. The next day, Lindsay hustled to find a crucial challenge advantage. Unfortunately, that’s the last puzzle of the day she succeeded on. She lost out on immunity by one mere piece to Mike. And the others, in turn, decided Lindsay was too threatening to be a piece in their endgame, sending her out unanimously. After the finale, Lindsay spoke with Parade.com about what happened during that climactic final Tribal Council, everything behind why she didn’t use her idol on Omar, and why her relationship with Jonathan fell apart at the merge. How are you handling everything right now? It must be such an odd mix of emotions getting to watch yourself be voted out of Survivor only two days shy of the Final Three. It was awesome. I’ve been so happy throughout this whole process. I know a lot of people probably think, “Oh, you probably are so bummed that you didn’t make fire. You should have grabbed that idol from the tree and you would have made it.” I could beat myself up about that all the time. But I had a kick-ass time. I loved being on the jury. I had so much fun at Ponderosa. As much as I probably will regret this financially, I love how I ended up. (Laughs.) I had a great time, more than I thought I would. You were one of many jurors who didn’t have their minds made up going into the final Tribal Council. What made you decide to ultimately vote for Maryanne to win? It was both what Maryanne said and what Mike said. Going in, I really didn’t know who I was going to go for. There were too many question marks to have any idea of where we really wanted to land. For Maryanne, it was really being able to have her express what her gameplay was. What did she do that was worth a million dollars? And I think that she explained it great. There was a point where Jeff was like, “Alright, it’s been a long time. I think we need to wrap it up.” And I’m like, “I don’t really know if I’ve made up my mind. Do you guys know yet? Jeff, we need more time.” And then that’s when Maryanne brings out her idol that she found. And we’re like, “Ah, this is amazing!” We had no idea. So the fact that she had an idol in her pocket that we didn’t know about was huge. Then she discusses why she had to do what she did at the final six and who she needed to be surrounded by. It was incredible. She is Rain Man when it comes to Survivor strategy. So when she explained it all, we were like, “Whoa, she is way into the game. She is so observant and so aware of everyone.” And for Mike, it didn’t come off that he was as aware of what everyone was doing. He had his own personal feelings toward stuff. But we had to decide, is he really true to his word and not realizing he’s breaking his word to everybody? Or does he say that, but truly knows he was breaking it? If you truly knew he was breaking it, Kudos to you. You got us all. But when he really confirmed, “No, I truly felt that way,” it made us realize, “Okay, then you might not have really been as self-aware as Maryanne was.” She just really destroyed it. So she deserved the win for sure. Were you upset when she admitted she came very close to playing her idol on you the night you got voted out? Surprisingly, no! I honestly really believe that. When I got voted out, I already knew I was going home. When Mike and Jonathan were having their food reward, me, Romeo, and Maryanne were all talking. We’re sitting by the fire, and I really just feel like it’s not going to go well. And then Maryanne looks at me, and she whispers to me, “I can’t play for you. I won’t win if I keep you. I’m so sorry.” And I knew how honest she was in saying that, that I was like, “I give you a lot of respect. And you’re totally right.” I knew there was a fat chance of me getting farther. Who would want to take me? I understood I had to get them to hate Mike and Jonathan enough to keep me instead of them. So I respected her, and I knew that she really was torn because I knew that we had a very close bond. So I had no hard feelings whatsoever. I give her all the respect for being honest to tell me in advance that she just couldn’t do it. I loved her for that. We didn’t see many of your relationships early on at Taku. Who were you closest with? I was definitely the closest with Omar. But I was very close with Maryanne too. With Jonathan, it was more so, “You’re the biggest threat outside of me. So therefore, once I’m gone, you’re gone.” And I was like, “You’re right. You’re my shield.” But there wasn’t a lot of really good social strategy between Jonathan and me. I would say Omar, Maryanne, and I were tighter. Jonathan was really the fourth for the extra number. But we decided when we wanted to be going into the merge, we didn’t want to let anybody see that we were close. Let’s do our own thing. On the note of Omar, we have to talk about your decision to not use your idol on him last episode when it was about to expire. Talk to me about everything that went into your thinking. Oh, there were so many things, Mike. So if you have a hot second, I will fill you in. So if you already know, Omar had an idol nullified that he found in Taku with Jonathan present. So at this point, he then tells me that he wants to use it on Mike later. And Jonathan does not want me to know about it. At this point, I’m very close with Mike. A lot of people didn’t see it on TV, but Mike and I were actually very close. So as much as I was very close with Omar, I had a very strong pull to Mike that I wanted to save him as long as I could without Omar knowing that was my private little thing. So when Omar tells me about this Knowledge is Power with Drea, at this point, I’m like, “Oh, how do I save Mike? Let’s see if we give Mike the idol to somebody else. And then we get rid of Drea. Then Mike stays close to us.” Jonathan caught on to it and saw that I told Mike about it. Then I had Jonathan pull me aside and was like, “Did you tell him?” And I was like, “Yeah, and I felt uncomfortable saying it’s you because Omar told me about this nullifier that you didn’t want me to know about. “There was more to that conversation that happened. But that’s the short version of it. So that’s what tipped Jonathan off that Omar and I were tighter than he realized. Now he’s mad at Omar, so he tells Mike about this nullifier. So now, Mike is coming to me getting all pissed off. For every inch of his being, he wants me to tell him about the nullifier. I can’t turn on Omar. But I want Mike to know that I’m keeping him safe. I’m like, “Listen, as long as Jonathan doesn’t win, then you’re good. Everyone else is out to get you. But I’m going to do what I can to save you.” And how does all of that play into the amulet? So if I played my amulet on Omar, I would have had to get up and do it in Tribal. If I had played that, I would have lost my trust in Mike because of my promise that I really wasn’t against him. Maryanne is going to know that I’m closer with Omer than I was with her. So for those reasons, I didn’t feel comfortable playing it when I felt very secure in that. Now, the biggest problem was I didn’t realize that it really didn’t matter. When we were a five, I thought it still mattered who your relationships are, when it doesn’t. The other big picture here is, when it’s 26 days, it’s a lot less time. The amount of time that it takes for you to get a gut feeling, figure out what that gut feeling means, figure out what the plan is, who to talk to, how to orchestrate it, and what to do moving forward, is not that much. Omar and I did what we knew made sense at the time, because there wasn’t enough time to gather all the information. But I also think I left camp longer than I should have. I lost the pulse. I was like, “I’m gonna go finally go take a shower in the water for once and wash my hair.” It was the one time I took a moment to relax. Everyone seemed like they were napping at camp. And I gave them more time than I did the whole game. I was usually staying tight with everybody else to make sure I knew what was going on. And I didn’t, so that was my fault. Otherwise, I probably would have played it. But there was still that risk of the relationships I would have broken. Speaking of the amulet, you, Hai, and Drea all were brought together by it on the very first day. But did you actually want to work with them once the merge hit? I was very nervous about doing the fake blood stuff. I’m happy they convinced me to play and have the amulet. In any other season in the past, if you play something crazy in the first episode, you’re already screwed. So I’m like, “God, this is a bad idea.” But I’m happy that they convinced me. But when the merge happened, I didn’t feel very close with Hai as much as Drea. It didn’t feel like a threesome. I noticed that Hai and Drea were very tight at the merge. I’m like, “That’s weird. They weren’t on the same drive, and we had the same thing together. Why am I not involved in this?” Hai didn’t feel as genuine to me. But then, when it came to the Tori vote, that’s when things changed. I already really wanted to work with Drea the whole time, and that was a moment that I was like, “We’re two strong, independent women. Let’s work together.” Honestly, Tori was going to go home regardless. Even though people didn’t see it based on how the Tribal ended up going. But at the fire, I was whispering to her, “Play your idol.” At that point, I knew I couldn’t turn Jonathan around. Maryanne still wanted to keep Tori, which makes sense because Tori said in the last Tribal Council in front of everyone, “Maryanne, I want to work with you. I’ll never write your name down.” So why would Maryanne vote her out? So it had to come down to me telling Drea to play her idol. Then Drea and I could then run this game and use our amulet for our power. So I felt close with Drea up to that point. She did have a little bit of loose lips going forward. But that’s where the bond was. Let’s talk about your relationship with Jonathan. It seemed like you two were thick as thieves, though you indicated to me earlier that wasn’t the case. And things seemed to fall apart when you felt his strategy and the way he spoke to you had turned you off from him. Talk to me more about that. It was probably Day 5 when there was an incident that happened. It was the first of several incidents with Jonathan that I had, and then I noticed more with other people. So it was a learning curve. In the beginning, I was like, “That was really snippy and rude.” And then Omar even mentioned it to me the next day. He pulled me aside and was like, “Are you okay? I really didn’t appreciate the way Jonathan spoke to you. I just want to make sure you were okay.” I was like, “I really appreciate you acknowledging that.” Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time I’ve been spoken to this way. This isn’t the first Jonathan I’ve come across before. I have tough skin. Then it kept happening. I knew I needed to treat Jonathan a certain way. He’s very alpha; he’s very controlling. He doesn’t really appreciate how I am. So I had to kind of placate to that, which was infuriating because I would never deal with that in real life. But it’s a social game, so you have just to appease it. So that was where that was going. I also had to realize Omar needs to be the one to tell Jonathan ideas because he’s not going to listen to Maryanne or me. And fortunately and unfortunately, everyone thought Jonathan and I were tight for whatever reason, even though we were not. I think it was because we were both strong competitors that they just clumped us together. That was a very big fear for me. Because if they think we’re both a threat and Jonathan has immunity, they’ll say, “Let’s cut off the limb and just get Lindsay out.” I don’t want to be the sacrificial lamb because I’m tied to him when I’m not at all. But the positive part was no one had any idea Omar and I were so tight, because everyone thought that Jonathan and I were together. So it was advantageous for that. But it was infuriating that people thought that Jonathan and I were so tight. Your edit in the endgame seemed to have you hyperfocused on voting out Jonathan. Was that really the case? Great question. Strategically, it was very true in the edit that I wanted to get Jonathan out. But I wasn’t the only one who wanted to get Jonathan out. For me, he was the only one I was worried about that was going to win a challenge. I knew if he won the challenge at the Final Four, he wasn’t going to take me. With everyone else, I felt like I had a better chance of them trying to take me. So I was like, “Okay, well, he’s my biggest risk for that. That is my biggest threat not to take me to the end.” Secondly, when Chanelle left Tribal Council, she said, “You better not let Jonathan make it to the end.” So I said to everybody else, “We’re going to look stupid to the jury if Jonathan makes it this far. She said it. We all know it. We’ve all been talking about Jonathan, yet he is still here. We’re going to look dumb.” So that was my pitch. But it was a personal pitch because I knew he wouldn’t take me. In retrospect, do you think you were too focused on voting him out? The reason why I really was blinded to get him out was how he spoke to me and some other people. It was infuriating. I would never accept that in real life. But because it’s a social game, I can’t say anything. So I’m like, “You know what? I’m going to beat you at the one thing you’re good at. And that’s what I’m going to do as my edge.” But I’ll admit there were some blinders. In the end, when Maryanne was asking, “What should we do?” I was like, “It has to be Jonathan.” If I had been more open-minded and asked, “What are you thinking?” she would have been more open to telling me that Omar was going to be the one going home, and I wouldn’t have been blindsided at that vote. I would have saved Omar because Mike and Jonathan were already butt buddies at this point, so I was already screwed there. So that was on me to be so confident that I wasn’t open-minded to listening to other strategies. That was a blinder on my end. You went out touted as “the fighter” and the biggest threat to win. I know in the preseason, you told me you were a perfect representation of everything about this game. How do you look back on your success, even if you didn’t get the million dollars? I was proud of what I was able to bring to the table. I definitely wasn’t surprised because I really felt like I had it in me. It was really awesome when I had the opportunity to take that challenge and prove that it was true. I really felt I was well-rounded, being a good strategic player, a great social player, and great at challenges. I knew the challenges were going to be my stronger suit. But I didn’t really piss anybody off. I felt like I had great relationships with people. Even at the end, Maryanne’s like, “I kind of was torn to wanting to take you at the end.” It was definitely a humbling experience altogether. But it was an awesome way to go out. My biggest worry was that I was going to be shown as a threat, whether a challenge threat, or, hopefully, a social and strategic threat. But I was trying to be as under the radar as possible. Going back to your Taku question, my whole game plan was to be under the radar as long as possible. Jonathan wanted to be in the front. Go for it! Show everyone how great you are and let everyone else see that you’re a threat. Let Maryanne and Omar do the puzzles. I know I’m good at puzzles. I did the triangle puzzle with them. But I don’t need everyone else to see it. I’ll just be the extra person and just do great in the background. I tried to be in the background as long as I could. Granted, I’m not the only great player here. There were a lot of great players. I just was lucky enough to make it to how far I went. But my name wasn’t in anyone’s mouth the whole way through. I take that as a pat on my back. That was a great way to go. Next, check out our interview with Jonathan Young, who was also eliminated in the Survivor 42 finale.
