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The following contains spoilers from Wednesday’s season finale of Survivor 46.
It wouldn’t be a Survivor finale without a little bit of controversy.
In Wednesday’s season closer, Maria Gonzalez landed in fifth place after Kenzie and Liz worked together to best her in an immunity challenge. Without safety around her neck, the challenge beast and mother of three was immediately voted out of the game. Once on the jury, she surprised everyone when she voted for Kenzie to win the million dollars over her No. 1 ally, Charlie, who also wound up in the Final 3 seats alongside rock ‘n roller Ben. (Read our full recap here.)
Below, Maria talks to TVLine about her unexpected jury vote, where her friendship with Charlie stands and what she calls her lowest moment in the game.
TVLINE | I’ve got to start where I’m sure everyone wants to start…
MARIA GONZALEZ | OK, go for the jugular right away. Let’s just do it. [Laughs]
TVLINE | After watching it all back, do you have any regrets not giving Charlie your vote in the end?
I just want to be clear. I was one of five people that voted for Kenzie. So it’s not my singular vote that made the decision. This is not a story about why I didn’t vote for Charlie. This is a story about why I voted for Kenzie, why I chose Kenzie and for me, yeah, that started at the Final Four fire-making when I watched Kenzie make fire, when I watched her having so much frustration and failure and doubt, and then come out on top and see what she was capable of. It reminded me so much of me and so many times where I have doubted myself. I have stumbled, I have fallen and I’ve had to fight to move on.
Then comes Final Tribal where Q has his question of, “What are you going to do with the money?” And everybody that knows me and loves me knows why I came on this show. Because I, for so many years as a mother, shelved my dreams, gave everything of myself to everybody else and became a shell of who I was as a person. It’s taken me years to fight for my passions, my dreams and I had the full support of my family to do that. And so when Kenzie said, “I’m doing this for me, this is a moment in time where I’ve given everything to everybody else since I was 15 and I’m taking this money and I’m starting my family,” it couldn’t help but trigger the rawest response in me, which was like, “Hell, yeah, girl. go for it!”
TVLINE | Have you talked to Charlie since then? What have those conversations been like?
Yeah, Charlie and I have spoken multiple times and have also visited each other over the last year. Obviously, the last week or two have been pretty intense and I have so much respect for Charlie and so much love for Charlie and so much care for Charlie. But ultimately, if we are going to be able to come out on the other side of this, the ball is in his court and if he doesn’t want to, then I respect that. It’s OK. But I do hope that we can because I felt like we had started to build a friendship after this. It’s just this moment right now is really hard.
TVLINE | Liz and Kenzie had to team up in order to beat you in an immunity challenge and subsequently take you out. You were gracious in defeat, but c’mon, tell us how you really felt about it!
I mean, if you could be my dentist, you can see the enamel that I chewed away at my teeth just to not say what I wanted to say in that moment. I was angry. I was so angry! It felt so unfair. I felt robbed. I felt all the things, but I try really hard not to speak when I’m full of emotion. I try really hard to come back down so that I don’t say something that I regret. And at the end of the day, it’s an honor that it took two of them to take me out. It’s an honor to be blindsided, like people get blindsided. So the fact that they felt like one of them couldn’t do it alone, but they needed the other one, to help each other, I have to feel pride in that.
TVLINE | People on Twitter last night were bringing up South Pacific as a reference. Jeff specifically told Albert that he couldn’t help Sophie beat Ozzy.
I have seen a little bit of that. This is not my place to talk about fairness and unfairness. I can just talk about what it felt like to me and it felt unfair. It felt like I was ganged up on. But, yeah, I don’t know the history behind what’s allowed and what shouldn’t be allowed. But yeah, it sucked. It totally sucked. It was hard to watch back. Tears [were] streaming down my face in that moment again being like, “Damn, like, is that OK? That shouldn’t have been OK.”
TVLINE | Tell me a bit about your idol hunt. Were you positive that there even was an idol to find?
I have had moments over the last year where I have woken up in this panic thinking how cool would it have been had I whipped out an idol, gone through my spiel — “You guys got me” — and then just surprised them. These delusions of grandeur that you can have.
I searched all afternoon. I think the biggest mistake that Kenzie made was taking Ben to the reward with her because it left me at camp searching. I searched the entire day. I was really hoping that we would have that moment where I’m looking and the idol’s right there and the camera’s pointing it out. I was hoping that that would come just to pour a little bit more salt in the wound. But no, it didn’t happen. I looked. I threw everything at the wall. I pitched everybody to everybody just to see if something was gonna stick and then I just accepted the defeat and it was OK. I knew it was going to be me. They did me a solid and told me beforehand.
TVLINE | Liz felt like she was a huge threat to win the game. Is that true? She seemed a little delusional from my couch.
I have a lot of love and respect for Liz. I think she’s hilarious. I think there’s no way that anybody would know. You’re playing the game, you see four Nami on the jury. You think, “Oh, that’s a potential for four votes. She’s the last person standing of her tribe.” So anybody could have reasoned in their mind why they could have been a threat to somebody. So, you don’t know and you don’t realize until the game is over.
TVLINE | Besides winning that last immunity challenge, was there anything you could’ve done to secure yourself a seat in the Final 3?
Maybe [not doing] the rock-paper-scissors. I think that was obviously a negative turning point, but there was a lot that wasn’t shown that went into that moment. That moment really started off with me saying I wanted to nourish the people who need to be fed. They deserve to have food, and so I choose Ben and then I’m about to choose Liz. Then I look at Q who’s like, “I chose you last time.” And so I was like, “Damn, you know, he’s a loyal ally. I like working with him.” I respect him a lot and I didn’t want to burn that bridge. And so my head said you gotta pick Q at this point. My heart said I have to pick Liz and then I froze, I didn’t know what to do, didn’t know how to make that choice and it ended up looking really bad in optics, right? But I do feel like that was a moment where the people that maybe didn’t perceive me as someone that has to go suddenly were like, “She’s gotta go and she’s as evil as Q” is,” in their mind, right? And so suddenly it was like, “These two, they’ve been working [together], and we didn’t even realize it.” I think that was the moment that they realized. So yeah, that was probably a really bad misplay at that moment. People have to understand that my intention was to pick Liz, I just got torn. It was a tug of war between head and heart.
TVLINE | Let’s pretend that Q played his idol at six and Charlie goes home. What do you think the game would’ve looked like for you from there?
Q and I had a path to the end. Q and I, as far as I know, we weren’t planning on turning on each other. Who knows, right? You gotta do what you gotta do to get to the end, but I felt confident enough in my abilities, my physical abilities, and Q felt confident enough in his. For me mentally, it was like, “If I can just get to this Final 5 and win this Final 5, I knew I could do fire. I felt pretty confident in pitching my case to the jury, no matter who I sat next to.
TVLINE | What was the hardest part about this experience for you?
Not getting the letters. That was tough. That was really tough. That was a moment where it broke me down to a point that, obviously I fueled it into something else, but it really got me. The lack of food, the lack of sleep, the cold, the wet, I could deal with all of that. That moment of just running through my mind visualizing where the kids were sitting when they were writing their letters, and how one wrote them in English, the other wrote them in Spanish and they wanted to make sure Jeff could read them if he read them on TV. I knew so much was going into that, that it just killed me. It killed me. That was probably my lowest moment.
TVLINE | How about your highest moment? When did it click for you that you could actually win this thing?
I think it started with the first individual immunity win and then I had to hide. Suddenly I was a threat and she’s strong and she’s a mom and whatever. The conversations began right after that. So I had to go back down a little bit. Then when it came the Tiffany blindside, she’s a beast. She’s amazing. She’s such a badass and she was coming for me first. So I’m like, “I gotta take her out” because she’s gonna come for me. Once I made that move and then the other challenge wins, I’m like, “Dude, I could totally take this to the end.”
TVLINE | Season 50. Do you want to play again? Yea or nay?
Listen, if you said I had to leave tomorrow, probably not. But give me a month or two and I’m ready to go. [Laughs]
Glad she lost. Her answer doesn’t really jive for me. Survivor is about who played the best game and deserved the win not who has the best plan for the money. Everyone could have used the money sans Liz. If the winner decided to get $600,000 in singles and blow it at the nearest strip club that’s their prerogative. Glad Charlie let the friendship go. I’d do the same.
Question. Has it always been an 8 person jury? I thought it was 9 to prevent a tie!
I have no idea if the jury was always 8 but you could still get a tie with 3 people you could possible vote for. Not that anyone would vote for Ben.
There is no possibility of a tie. If two of the finalists tie 4-4 or 3-3-2, then the third place finisher (in this case, Ben) casts the tie-breaking vote. And Ben has said he would have voted for Charlie.
Liz isn’t a millionaire she admitted it on twitted
Yeah, I’m very skeptical and I’ll leave it at that.
Maria’s choice to vote for Kenzie is hers, regardless of her reasoning. But it’s a really bad look for her, as it just comes across as Bitter Betty.
Maria was an outstanding competitor and if she was in the final three, she probably would have beat Charlie. But he got her before she got him, and that’s just the way things work. If she had kept her word and voted for him, she would have been respected and appreciated as a solid player who recognizes game for game. Instead she came across as bitter and entitled. That’s exactly how she acted when she didn’t get chosen for letters from home; just because she’s a mom doesn’t entitle her to those letters more than others.
I could not agree more! This, in a nutshell, is exactly what I’ve been thinking about Maria. The fact that she turned on Charlie at the end solidified my opinion that she isn’t as “wonderful” as we thought. She played a good physical and strategic game, but her social game left a lot to be desired. Also, her comment about Kenzie winning 5-3 ignores the fact that if she voted for Charlie as promised then it would’ve been a 4-4 tie with Ben casting the deciding vote.
Maria did tell Charlie she’d vote for him. I wish TVLine would have specifically addressed that with her. She cost Charlie a million bucks out of spite and her spin on events makes her look even worse. She knows she was wrong. Why else would she start the interview with “OK, go for the jugular right away?” I’d hate to be in her shoes. The backlash must be overwhelming!
I totally agree. Maria’s reasons for voting for Kenzie were lame. IMO it just seemed like Maria wanted a woman to win. I think if Liz was in the Final Three instead of Kenzie–Maria probably would’ve voted for Liz. Maybe that’s why Liz thought she had it in the bag.
Exactly! In the beginning, I chose Charlie & Maria as my favorites. If she was a true friend to Charlie, she would have wanted him to win if she couldn’t. I know Charlie would have voted for her and cheered her on if the tables were turned. I lost respect for Maria when she didn’t choose Liz for the reward and paired up with Q. I lost all respect when she didn’t vote for Charlie. She let her big ego get in the way.
I get the hint there’s more of a story to tell, but no one is willing to reveal it. At least for now. Something happened to change the Charlie/Maria dynamic and it wasn’t just Maria getting voted out.
Maria’s answers make her sound like a sore loser.
Maria lost votes the time she had to pick people to eat food. Charlie did the noble thing, but she blew off Liz who hasnt pooped or eaten in 3 weeks. She made them rock pap/sc .. and Q wins again. That’s not competitve at all. That chip on her shoulder got bigger and bigger. To solidify her poor friendshp she picked Kenz…
She tried to stab Charlie in the back and blindside him. Charlie said he would have done the same thing but the fact is he didn’t and she did. Then she told him that she would vote for him to win. Then she aligned herself with the one person that she knew everybody didn’t like. And she screwed Liz out of the food no matter what her excuse is. And then she bad mouthed Ben, a kind sweet person, tried to convince people that he was a lying manipulative jerk . She might be a very nice person outside of the game but inside of the game she was not a very good person or somebody whose Behavior anybody would be proud of. But I’m sure outside of the game she’s a fantastic mother and a very nice person. It’s just a shame she couldn’t have been that person inside of the game
I’m still mad about this, and don’t for a minute believe Maria’s excuse.
Even when she is (I think) lying about her vote for Kenzie, look how she explains it. It’s all “me, me, me, me, me,” “I, I, I, I, I.” She says she voted for Kenzie because she reminded her of herself — not because she was the most deserving. The theory she is offering is that she voted because of her own ego — that Kenzie was essentially her proxy, so it was like voting for herself.
Now, I don’t think that’s true — I think she was bitter and disloyal — but if this explanation is the best she can do, it doesn’t make her seem like any better a person.
I think she’s trying to use the whole female unite thing for her Kenzie vote, but it doesn’t jive when you don’t take another female (Liz) to sanctuary! Here’s another mom who bonded with her daughter over that very food being offered… she’s literally starving, more so than any other player, and you take Q??? Who just had a meal?? What is wrong with you?! So incredibly lame.
She clearly shows she’s petty and bitter at Charlie over the letters. As someone else commented, she doesn’t deserve the letters any more than someone else just because she’s a mom. I can say that as another mom, she’s just acting like a bitter, nasty woman.
And speaking of mothering, she should have been ashamed in front of her children. She said she was playing to make them proud since she knew they were watching. Wow. NOT something I would want to teach my children. She would have maintained a better moral character had she stuck to her promise to vote for Charlie.
Honestly, if she comes back in a future game, I won’t be able to watch. It disgusted me.