“I was a little embarrassed for him.”
Hai Giang was determined to come in and playSurvivorhard.
If that meant strong-arm Tribal Council negotiating tactics, so be it.
Hai Giang reacts to learning about Omar’s big lie on ‘Survivor’.Robert Voets/CBS
If it meant nonsensically smearing blood all over his chest for no good reason whatsoever, so be it.
What does Hai have to say now that he knows about Omar’s big ruse?
What happened out on the island that never made to TV?
Robert Voets/CBS
And how the heck did he explain all that amulet blood smeared all over his body?
We spoke to juror number four to get his reaction to everything that went down.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What happened, Hai?
Hai Giang on ‘Survivor 42’.Robert Voets/CBS
How did all go wrong?
Why are we talking right now?
HAI GIANG:We’re talking right now because I think that I got outplayed, right?
As simple as that.
I think the edit was very spot-on in its retelling of that afternoon.
I was extremely comfortable, and I’ll tell you why I was comfortable.
The edit didn’t show my relationships with a lot of the people in the majority.
Drea, Omar, and I were extremely close.
Drea was my number one.
Mike and I had been working together since day three.
I think Lindsay said it best when she said “We have to even the playing field tonight.”
It was literally that.
Everything was slow motion.
Lindsay was not talking about evening the playing field to take out Jonathan.
She was talking about takingmeout.
And I was like, “Oh my God, that brilliant.”
The answers were brilliant.
Everyone was really on top of how they were making me feel that afternoon.
And I was just really impressed.
[Watching the episode] was actually the first time that I learned in depth about his lie.
He’s lived with me longer than all of these other people.
He knows the way I speak.
He knows the way in which I carry myself.
So for him to think that I’d just be out here saying, “Mike’s my puppet.
I control his vote.”
First of all, that doesn’t even sound like me.
He unraveled my game in one short conversation with Mike.
So, very confused for Mike, but very impressed by Omar.
Well, I’ll lay out the atmosphere that night.
And honestly, when I learned about the second Tribal, I was really distraught.
I was blindsided by some of the reactions.
I completely understand why that Tribal unfolded the way it did.
So when they were reacting to Rocks' blindside, that was authentic.
That’s how they felt in that moment.
I think it’s time to target him."
And unfortunately, that’s what did me in.
Tell me about your relationship with Romeo.
That’s not the case.
He immediately took that piece of information, went back and told Tori and then Tori told Chanelle.
Chanelle brought that informationbackto me.
So somehow the information that I told Romeo was relayed back to me.
So immediately all trust that I had for Romeo was broken.
There was no way I was going to work with him again.
Similarly, he really did not enter the merge the same person as he was pre-merge.
And as a result, no one wanted to be associated with him.
But the edit only showed you that he was paranoid because he was at the bottom.
Why get so upset there?
I love Romeo today, but he really played a game tied to his religion.
Same with that night.
I asked him straight up.
I’m like, “Did you vote for me?”
“No, Hai.
I swear on my creator.
I did not vote for you.”
I took that very personally.
I’m like, “Don’t do that.
Don’t use religious whatever to persuade me because I don’t buy it, first of all.
And second of all, it’s really out of bounds.”
And that is something that I did not appreciate.
So did you wanna go to the end with Drea?
Whom did you envision as your final three?
My final three were Omar and Drea.
And he really bonded with me on a really deep level.
That conversation really made me trust him.
I think you are such a lovely person.
You have so much empathy for animals and other people.
And I really resonate with that.
I would love to go to the end with you."
And Drea was the same.
Right after we got the amulet together, I was like, “I wanna play with her.
She is fearless.”
But Drea, on the other hand, was fearless.
She was like, “Oh yeah, absolutely.
Let’s take this amulet.”
And that is someone that I was so attracted to.
We are going to the end together.
Mike was always in the plan as well.
Because I wanted to play with empathy, but Mike was really driven by his emotions out there.
And that was really hard to reconcile when it came to making strategy happen.
That afternoon, it was too late to save Lydia because the train had left the station.
Omar had spent a large part of the afternoon laying the foundations for a Lydia blindside without telling me.
A lot of people online were like, “Oh, Hai, that’s a lot of BS.
You wouldn’t have gone to rocks.”
I would’ve gone to rocks, because at that point I would’ve been next.
[Laughs]Honestly, me putting blood on myself was fun.
I am a very camp person.
I wanted to do it.
it dawned on me.
I was like, “Oh my God, I don’t have an excuse.
I was overzealous with the blood and now they’re going to catch me in a lie!”
But honestly, no one asked about it except Jenny, so it worked out in the end.
What did you tell Jenny?
I wish they would’ve shown more of the relationship building at early Vati.
Those are some of my favorite memories ever.
