Jelinsky says Q first brought up quitting sweat task on Survivor 46

There were “several” reasons to watch the Survivor 46 season premiere. And whether several does or does not mean seven may remain open for debate, it is undeniable that David Jelinsky was at the heart of many of those reasons.

Jelinsky — who insisted on being called by his last name in homage to some of the previous legends of the game — kept popping up everywhere you looked. There he was on the puzzles for both the challenges. There he was taking on the Sweat task. There he was on on the Journey. There he was as the star of the season’s first Tribal Council. Unfortunately for Jelinsky, none of those things went particularly well. To make things even worse, he hurt his feet, lost his water bottle, and was allergic to coconut.

As a cumulative result of all of that, Jelinksy was unanimously voted out of his tribe on day three, and as a punctuation mark on his epic run of futility, none of his tribemates even spelled his name right on their parchment. We caught up with Survivor 46’s first casualty to find out how things went so bad so quickly, his reaction to Jeff Probst getting him to own his actions, and what it has been like sitting with his result for the past nine months. The David Jelinsky experience begins now.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: I mean, I almost don’t even know where to start, so let’s begin with this: What does several mean?

DAVID JELINSKY: Several means seven. And I stand by that, man. We got to start a petition. I've seen a little bit in my DMs. This is not a new thing in the world, I'm just bringing light to it. So I'm speaking for the people and we're making a change.

Probst and I spoke about this and he says the Sweat tasks are meant to be extremely difficult, but they are also tested out multiple times and designed to be completed. So what happened?

I read a little bit about your article yesterday and the main thing was you have to have your fingers on those holes. You couldn't put your shirt around those holes. So it was hard, and it was meant to be difficult, as you said. I was tearing up my feet as we were going. I didn't wear my shoes, and production didn't say that I could not wear my shoes. That was just a Jelinksy thought. I seemed to have a lot of those out there where my mind wasn't really working the way it was supposed to be working. And before you go out there, they prep you like, “Man, make sure you wear your shoes out there, especially when you're walking on coral.”

So for at least an hour and a half, I was going back and forth, back and forth, just walking on the coral barefoot, and my feet were super torn up. The most accurate representation of it was probably Fishbach in Second Chance. My feet were messed up. I have scars on them, even today. I couldn't wear shoes for a month. It was hard. I couldn't even stand.

And when it comes to quitting the Sweat task, which I did own that, that was not a thought in my mind until Q had presented it to me. Now this is what I'll say: Q got me. That's good gameplay. The fact that he was able to turn that around and flip that on me like, “Hey, when the going gets tough, Jelinksy is going to quit” — that kind of sucked in the terms of quitting wasn't even an idea in my mind until he had mentioned it to me. But hey, the fact that he did it and was able to use that to his advantage, more power to him.

So what did he say? How did he bring it up?

I actually went back to grab my shoes. I was gone for about five minutes, put my socks and shoes on. And when I came back, Q goes to me, “Look, Jelinsky, I don't think we're going to finish. What do you think?” And if I'm being honest with you, Dalton, we were going back and forth. I was outpacing him by a mile at first. He's a football player, I'm a basketball player, I have endurance. And it even showed in the show that my jug was probably a little more full than his was, for the record.

So I came back with my shoes and socks and he had said, “Jelinsky, I don't think we're going to do this. What do you think?” And I'm like, “Bro, yeah, I don't think we're going to do this. Let's conserve our energy for the challenge and move from there. We'll get our flint and pot, and machete after that." And I was confident that we would win our challenge, especially looking at Siga. Siga has nobody above 5-11 maybe. And just strength wise, background wise, I really thought that we'd be able to pull it out. But you can't assume in Survivor.

Q told me before the game that the one person he wanted to work with out of everybody was you! Then you end up on the same tribe. So why do you think he lost faith in you so quickly, because he seemed to be the one driving the vote?

Yeah, no, he definitely was. Q didn't like that I had a mind of my own. And when you have two people like that, it never really tends to work out because you have two separate ideas, and a lot of times you won't be thinking the same way. So Q's going to do what's best for Q, and I'm going to do what's best for me. And so when those don't align, obviously you kind of become at odds at one another. But inside of the game, I really wanted to work with Q, even up until I got voted out.

Let's talk about the Journey. I actually don't think what you did was as crazy as it seemed, and I understand why you did it, but maybe you just didn't have the time to think about how your own tribe was going to react. Did you panic when Maria told you she would tell her entire tribe you were a big liar if you deceived her with your skull card?

That was actually shown afterwards, after I revealed I had the skull card. That’s when Maria said, “Okay, Jelinsky, just so you know, I'm going to go back to my tribe, and if you're deceitful, everybody's going to know." But it actually took a while for me to convince Maria that I did have the skull card, because at first she thought I had the vote card and she opened it up with a question to me and Tevin. She goes, “What color was the pen on the voting card parchment?” I knew the color. Tevin didn’t. The color was blue. And that kind of shifted the dynamic from the beginning and I had the upper hand.

But as we kept going, Tevin was actually the reason that I decided to fold, because he's just such a large personality. And that's when I started to realize, “Okay, I could either go back to my tribe and talk this out and explain my actions and have 17 — or “several teen” — people in the game who understand my decision making and who don't think I'm a liar, or I can go back to camp with 12 new enemies and with one extra vote in my pocket. And hey, I'm not saying an extra vote isn't a good advantage, but compared to being a liar that no one will trust throughout the rest of the game, it seemed like an easy evaluation to me.

Wow, that's interesting. So you were more worried about Tevin than Maria and what he might do and say?

A hundred percent. And I think that's because Tevin was really the person that I was battling against in that moment. I was confident that I could convince Maria I had the voting parchment card, which I was doing at first.

I was there at that Tribal Council and it was really quiet and it was really awkward when you went up to get your torch snuffed. What was going through your mind at that point?

What was going through my mind? Man, that's a great question. Everybody says they black out, but honestly, I'm a guy with a lot of thoughts. I got a lot of thoughts in my mind. So I was thinking of things to say to Jeff. I was thinking whether I should make a little scene, maybe try to be remembered a little bit more — because if you get voted out, man, your tribe doesn't rock with you. You just got voted out unanimously without even voting. So I was hurt, I was definitely hurt, I was blindsided.

And another thing is my friends and family all said I was going to be the first boot. So that came in my mind. My girlfriend, she told me that I was going to be the first boot. And so it's just kind of unfortunate that that became a reality, but I should have probably listened to those who know me best.

What has it been like for the past nine months sitting with this, knowing you were the first one out, you never got to cast a vote, nobody even spelled your name right on the way out? It can’t have been easy.

No, it hasn't been easy, but I honestly feel like I'm doing pretty good. In fact, leading up to this point, everyone in the entire cast, even once the jury made it back to the states, they told me, “Jelinsky, you are a legend. There genuinely has never been a first boot like you.” And that kind of made everything easier. You don't know what CBS is going to show in the show, but I honestly feel like my essence was translated throughout the entire game.

And apparently this will not be the last time that you hear “several” in the show. It was even joked about that the merge tribe name was going to be Jelinksy. So I really feel I'm really at peace with it. And I think the cast and everyone's just made me feel real good about what went down out there. And every single day I would choose to be the first boot and go out guns blazing, legendary and remembered than to be someone who was voted out way down the line and not remembered at all like Carter in the Philippines, I don't know, just a random example.

Listen, you put yourself in the line of fire every single time. You attacked every single thing. You put yourself on the puzzle for both challenges, you did Sweat, you did the Journey. And as a viewer and as a producer, that's exactly what everybody wants to see. But were you surprised when Probst came at you a little bit at Tribal Council there?

I actually was surprised by that because I knew what happened with Q in my perspective. I wasn't the one that quit, Q brought it up to me. And in my mind, I genuinely did not have a thought of quitting until he had brought it up to me. And I didn't fold until late in the Journey. And that was when I was doing an evaluation of, “Okay, I can go back to my tribe with two new friends and a lost vote opposed to 12 people who now hate me.”  So, in my mind, I genuinely thought I was making the best decisions possible, but Probst didn't agree with that. And we have this new Probst who's trying to push at you a little bit at Tribal, but that was definitely shocking to me.

How was that first night at Ponderosa when you were by yourself trying to run everything through your mind?

I didn't realize how hungry I was, and I was only out there for three days, but my mind was racing and I was doing everything there was to do out there. I was looking for idols every single night. I didn't sleep. And I didn't know Tiff found the Beware Advantage until literally last night. I thought she found that on day four when I got voted out. So that was a surprise to me.

But I was looking heavily every single day from day one. I pulled a Game Changers Tony. As soon as I hit the beach. I told them, “Okay, I'm going to go look for the idol.” I said that openly. I didn't give a damn. That's just kind of how I operate. I'm a risk taker. I know I folded in the journey, but that's a huge risk. Who tells your tribe, “Yeah, I'm going to go look for an idol right now?"

So I guess to answer the question in the entirety, it was lonely. I was racking my mind for sure, but more so I was shocked at how physically taxing the game was. And I genuinely feel like a lot of the elements got the best of me out there. That's kind of where my mind was at.

In your final words after being voted out you talked a lot about how you are the type of player they ask to come to play again. Do you think you’ll get that invite? They’ve done it before with Francesca.

You don't realize until everything slows down that there was only one first boot to ever come back in the show’s history and that's “Francesqua.” It would be an honor if I was selected to come back, and I genuinely believe that I have a very real chance to come back.

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