Survivor 45 star Julie Alley says her feelings were hurt at final Tribal Council

It wasn’t supposed to go down like that. Julie Alley should have been in the final four of Survivor 45. But when Katurah Topps worried that her own neck might be on the line (it wasn’t) and changed her vote from Dee Valladares to Julie, Mama J was sent to the jury in fifth place.

What would have happened had Julie made it through that vote? Would she have won the game? We asked Mama J exactly then when we spoke the morning after the Survivor 45 finale. And we had other questions. Questions like: How come you voted for Jake even though everyone said he had an idol? Did you really almost vote Austin out instead of Emily at the final seven? And how did the jury react when you told them Dee had spilled the beans about telling you to play your idol?

We asked. She answered. (Also check out our finale interviews with Dee, Austin, Jake, Katurah, and host Jeff Probst.)

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What was going on at that final five Tribal Council vote? Everyone was all over the place, and you decided to vote for someone who had an immunity idol.

JULIE ALLEY: At the time, even when I went home, I had to guess who are the reasons that I went home, and I'm like, “It must have been Austin and Jake.” That was the craziest vote. I was aware of every vote at every Tribal I was in, I always knew which way it was going to go except for mine. I begged Katurah and I begged Dee to write down Jake, and they were like, “He's got an idol.” I'm like, “I don't care! I'm the one at risk. We all write Jake. I'm the one at risk. I'll take that risk. Let's go.”

And obviously I couldn't convince them. I still want to ask Dee what she meant when she said, “A person going home tonight and doesn't know,” and she's crying. I think she means me. But I knew I saw her and Austin talking on the beach and I was like, “Oh, Austin is going to vote me again.” So I knew and I was ready. I accepted it. I was like, this is what's going to happen. I've played my best game, but I couldn't control other people. When you had the Reba four, it was amazing. And we just picked. We were like, “You're out! You're out!” And it was so much fun. This one didn't happen like that. And I think at that moment, you’ve got to ask Katurah, but when Dee's crying, Katurah thinks Dee means her. So I guess she wrote my name down. How weird would that have been if  she had stuck with Dee?!

If Katurah doesn’t change her vote at the last second, then Dee is out of the game at five and you have a very good shot at making the final three. Everyone was worried about going against Mama J in the final three, so how do you think you would have done if you gotten there?

I would have won.

Jeff Probst told me you would have won.

In the game, I felt the entire time, I'm going to win. You put me in final three, I don't care who I sit next to, I'm going to win. I don't know if I believe that now because Tribal Council is three hours long and watching Dee and Austin and Jake fight for their lives up there — wow, that is way harder than I even thought. And so, I don’t know.

But I did know in the game, I didn't care who I sat next to. I was like, I'm going to win. That was so cocky, and I don't think I believe that now. But that's how I felt, which is crazy. I wasn't that much of a physical threat. I think it was just my social game. I loved my cast. It was an amazing cast, and they knew I loved him. So I think that's a weird way to play. But that was my goal and that's how I played.

What was the reaction like from the jury when you told them that Dee had, in fact, told you to play that idol to save yourself?

Amazing. They were like, “Wait, what happened?” Y'all are seeing an animated jury that we didn't see in real life. They were scary. And that's why we really didn't know where we stood. So coming back and getting the hero’s welcome, they're all like, “Mama J!" It was greatest night ever.

The only thing that's a little hard is it does come across — and I don't blame Dee at all — she's like, “You're going to play it, and you're going to vote out Emily and you're going to do this.” We had two seconds. So I know she feels bad. I think she said that she looks like she's bossy, but you don't have time in that small amount of time to be like, “How do you feel?” She's like, "I got to get this information across." So I get that.

And everyone's like, “Oh, you should have taken out Austin. He had an idol in his pocket." And I'm like, yeah, that would've been so flashy. That would've been so cool. But I couldn't see my way to the end. Had I taken Austin out then, now I've got Drew and Emily. Emily is the biggest gamer, amazing player out there. What she did with getting Bruce out, and I knew she was working Drew and Austin against me to break that up. I put that on her and I'm like, she's got to go.

So Dee gets the credit for that because she's like, “I told Julie to do it, and this is what I told Julie to do” — which she did. But it makes me look like I didn't have a say in that. And that was hard for me because I did get my feelings hurt. I was such an emotional player in that it was all relationships. That was my best gameplay, was to get Emily out. And I still stand behind it. And I don't blame her at final Tribal saying, “I told Julie what to do and this is what she did." She was fighting for her life. So I don't blame her for taking credit for my move. But that hurt.

You were having a lot of trouble with lying to people you voted out of the game, and often the mom type is unfairly blamed more than other players for doing the lying because mom is not supposed to lie. Did that internal struggle on your part over the lying fade away after you left the game, or were you still feeling guilty?

The Kellie and Kendra votes were the hardest. I really believed what I was telling each person. If I said, “It's you and me,” I believed it, and they felt it and I meant it. But then things would change. I felt like my role — I was the closer. Kellie came up to me and she was like, “Mama J, I don't feel good. I've seen people talking. I don't feel good.” And I was like, “You're fine, you're fine.” And so that was a personal betrayal, and I talked her off of that because I was the last one to talk to her before Tribal saying, “You are so good. Trust me on this.” And she did.

So when she turned around and was like, “What the hell guys?” I was like, “Oh, you mean me?” We were all involved, but I felt it. I was able to shake it off, except at the next Tribal, she's sitting there looking wounded and pissed. And then I did the exact same thing to Kendra! I meant it when we were eating our chicken that we were going to go together. But then things changed and she's like, “I don't have a good feeling.” And I'm like, “You're fine. It's you and me.” So I completely lied to her.

Those two hurt. Then everyone else when I was like, “Nope, you got to go." And I needed Kellie to go out because I needed her spot with Bruce. She had that. I didn't trust her. I needed her gone. And then Kendra, I needed her gone because she was coming after my girl, Dee. The betrayal really hurt after those two, but after that, I didn't feel so bad.

What’s something that happened this season that we didn’t get a chance to see on TV?

I was up at night and couldn't sleep, but it ended up working to my advantage. And once Sifu started snoring, I knew he was out. And then Drew, Dee, and Austin and I always met at night, and we carried that through the merge. They don't show how tight the four of us are. Nobody knew because we always met at night. We would share all of our intel at night. We'd wait until everybody was asleep, we'd meet out on the beach, share all of our intel, and then we'd go back and we'd talk to each other throughout the day.

But we got caught. Bruce would sleep on the beach, and I remember he caught us one time and that's why he was like, “Belo, why are we not talking? Reba was talking.” And they're all like, “No, they're not.” He saw it. No one else did.

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