“Survivor 46” star Soda Thompson explains 'complicated' relationship with Venus

The ousted player also says all was not as it seemed on the infamous tribe immunity idol grab.

In the end, Soda did goda.

Everyone from the Nami tribe — especially Tevin Davis and Venus Vafa — was gunning for Soda Thompson on this week’s episode of Survivor 46. Tevin deemed Soda far too great a social threat to keep on the island, so he moved the votes (although not his own) to take out his Nami singing partner to clear a path for himself in the game. Meanwhile, Venus was working the same angle to get rid of the person who seemed to alternate between her biggest ally or enemy, depending on the day of the week.

How does Soda feel about Venus and Tevin now that the dust has settled? Whom did she want to sit with at the end? And what was really going on with grabbing that tribal immunity idol from Venus? We caught up with the first member of the jury to see where her head was at the morning after her televised ouster.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Tell me your thoughts and what’s going through your mind as you see your name keep coming up at Tribal Council?

SODA THOMPSON: So the first one, I was like, “Okay, yeah, I know Venus is going to vote for me.” But then I was like, “Whoa, this is really happening!” And then it's like you blink and it's over. That's it. You take the pill, you're out of the Matrix.

You were hugging Venus and giving her credit for the move and telling her you loved her. How do you feel about that whole situation now 10 months later?

I asked her if it was her because I assumed it was her, but everyone's going to be confused about me and Venus because they didn't show the whole spectrum of our relationship. When we hit the beach day one, we were number ones with each other. We spent a lot of time together. Randen didn't like that. He was like, “Watch out for Parvati,” and that's why you see me going back to tell her like, “Oh, Randen’s saying this.”

So day one, day two, we were just all together all the time. And then I tried to get her and Tevin together, but Tevin was like, “No, I just don't trust her.” Hunter was like, “No, I don't trust her because Tevin doesn't trust her.” I went in between Tevin and Venus and tried to get them together, which is why Tevin and her had that deleted scene of them talking, because I tried to get them together. I ran back and forth between Venus and Hunter all the time, which also Hunter attests to in his interview that he did with you, and that is really what made me so threatening to everyone, because I was talking to literally everyone.

So we had a very complicated relationship, and you could see it. She's a very assertive person and is very matter-of-fact like that. And I'm very, “All right, your feelings are valid. I hear you.” I have to be neutral. I have to be Switzerland because we're playing a game for a million dollars. So the way it was edited, in my opinion, was not accurate. It was from one perspective. So that moment at the end, it's chill. I knew our relationship had gone up and down like this, so I was not surprised to see that make the edit because of how they were putting it all together.

What was your reaction when she accused you of voting for her on the Moriah vote?

I mean, I was like, “It wasn't me!” and it was truthful. But she had it in her head that it was like, “Soda’s coming after me, Soda doesn’t like me.” I was responsible for a lot of her not-good experiences, and it was just like, “Oh, here goes another one.”

So I was like, “It really wasn't me,” but what could you do? Luckily, Charlie spoke up about it and then later we had us walking off, which happened after Charlie said, “I wrote your name down.” They put it before, but that actually happened after. I was again trying to be very like, “Bro, you came at me, but I didn't do it, so whatever.”

How surprised were you to see some of Tevin’s confessionals about you and “Soda got to Goda” and wanting to distance himself from you?

I'm not surprised. He was my second number one, but very quickly became my first number one because, like I said, after day two it was very clear everybody was like, “I don't trust Venus. The socializing isn't there. I don't trust her.” So if I'm attached to Venus, I'm going down with the sinking ship. I cannot. So that's why I started leaning towards Tevin and Hunter more.

But by that time, it was already almost too late. There had been seeds planted inside of Tevin’s mind. So I'm not surprised to see the confessionals of him saying I have to go. He admitted in a lot of his other confessionals, I'm a social butterfly, I am outgoing, I am musical. I am very similar to him in a lot of ways, so that could be intimidating. I understand. He literally said this, I'm not making stuff up. So no, I'm not surprised.

I remember talking to all of you before the game, and I was like: There are a lot of big personalities in this cast, and the two biggest are Soda and Tevin. And then when I saw you on the tribe together, I'm like: Oh, this is either going to go great, or this island will not be big enough for the both of them. Do you think there was any of the latter in Tevin wanting to get rid of you?

Yes. I think it was, "This island isn't big enough for the both of us," honestly, because he said it in his confessionals, and that was part of it. It was like, “Oh, she's talking, she's talking. She likes to talk to everybody.” And it's like, he does too! But it's okay if he does it, but not if I do. And listen, that's Survivor. I think in a perfect world we could have used each other as shields in a way, because if there are social threats that are obvious and clear and you want to hide behind them for a little while, use them as long as you can before you get rid of them. Getting rid of them kind of leaves you vulnerable without a shield. But that's my fantasy in my own head.

How big was it for your group to have the second Tribal Council and you make the jury instead of heading home?

Clearly, it was a huge deal because without having gone second, I wouldn't be on the jury. So it was huge. I'm really glad my team was able to pull out that win. Also, it was very strange eating before getting voted out. I was like, I should go to Pondy starving, and I wasn't hungry.

Because you and Tim were voted out on the same night, even though he leaves and you stay on the jury, did you all have a chance to meet up and compare notes?

No.

You were separated?

Yes.

It's even more interesting now that you say you and Venus were so close, so early. With that in mind, what do you want to say about what was going on with the immunity idols that Jeff would walk over and give to Venus, especially considering that they even replayed you taking it from her as a flashback and turned it into a storyline on the show.

I know. I don't appreciate editing like that because I am really not a person who is like, “You don't deserve this,” or anything like that. And that's what it came off as, which I was really not happy about. Thinking back, I honestly don't even remember doing that, but knowing myself, I was probably like, I'm just so excited and we all work so hard. Of course, that was framed to be “Soda's jealous, Soda doesn't like this.”

If that's your opinion, you can have that because that is not what I was doing at all. And yes, to your point, he does directly give it to her all the time. We do end up passing it around and sharing it, but that was just a very confusing way of manipulating things that were happening to make it look worse than it was.

There’s that second time where you start to do it and then you pull back and don't do it.

I'm like, “I'm just excited to be here. Let me touch it.” That's honestly what I'm thinking in my brain probably because if I would've done that maliciously, I would've remembered, and I don't do things maliciously. I'm not that kind of person.

Let's talk about your long-term game and strategy. Who did you want to sit with at the end? Or were you playing an adaptable game where you really hadn't thought that far ahead?

Yeah, I was really playing an adaptable game and I learned very quickly via my blindside that there were people who were thinking six steps ahead. Had I gotten another vote further, I probably would've picked up on all that information and the heaviness of the gameplay and been able to be flexible because in life, that's how I am. I'm very flexible to challenges. I just rise to them.

But I can't be thinking too far into the future because I'll miss out on what's happening in the present. And I think I was so focused on just being myself and being like, this is me in my sphere. I'm doing what I can with this. Not necessarily thinking about all the other permutations going on in the back of my head, like, I should have played my Shot in the Dark. I was as vulnerable as Venus or Charlie was, honestly, because of how many cracks were on Nami. So I think that was the Achilles heel — not necessarily running all the permutations in the back of my mind and just trying to be too much in the present moment.

What’s something that happened on the island that didn’t make it to air that you wish we had a chance to see?

Okay, so TMI, but I have a huge fear of butterflies. I don't like them. I'll hold a spider, I'll hold a caterpillar or anything, a snake, not a butterfly. Stay away from me. Everyone's going to laugh at me, I don't care. But one of my castmates was sharing how butterflies were a big part of their healing journey when they had lost a family member. And anytime they see a butterfly, they get happy, and I have what's classified as a phobia, an actual phobia. I get physically hijacked if I see them. It's been since I was a kid.

But after that, I was able to be around them. Suddenly, I even sought them out to touch them. And we had this moment before a challenge where we saw one and I was like, “Look, oh my God, a butterfly. And I was like, “Oh my God, who am I?” And then in my confessional after that, I started crying. I was like, “This phobia has been hijacking me for years.” It's crazy that Survivor kind of broke that open for me, and it still remains true to this day. I'm a little bit better around them than I've ever been.

Butterfly therapy! I love it. So how is your jury reaction face game, because we already got a sneak peek at it and I imagine it’s pretty strong?

Okay, so at the first one, I am probably this [makes huge shocked face]. Then I really am like, “Okay, I need to be stoic, I need to be chill. I need to not give too much away.” So you'll see it progress.

So what's it been like to watch everything back? You live this very intense experience with a lot of highs, a lot of lows, and then they replay it all on TV almost from a somewhat different perspective 10 months later. How has that experience been for you?

It's been interesting. The whole part of the Survivor journey has been really great. I think this was probably the most difficult because there are things being spliced together that you have no control over. And it becomes a different story, really. I mean, not just from other perspectives, but they're taking a bunch of different things that happened at different times and putting 'em all together. And if you don't have a good sense of what you went through and in getting feedback from your cast, stringing things along together, you will fully believe what you see on the television as what happened when it really is not all exactly what happened as it happened. So it has been very interesting, rewatching it back. I've enjoyed a lot of it. I've questioned a lot of it.

Would you do it again?

Maybe.

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