After the Villains won the Reward Challenge that saw them taking a giant cookie jar back to the beach with them, all eyes were on the massive stack of sweet treats. Any Survivor player knows that such a giant prize would almost certainly contain some kind of extra advantage, clue or even just an Immunity Idol tucked away somewhere.
For Mimi, it was imperative that she found something. “I can’t describe to you the level of anxiety I felt on that island,” she told 10 Play. “I have never felt so many emotions in that situation, in that environment, which is why I think I did get voted out.”
As soon as she landed on the Villains’ beach, Mimi said she felt like she retracted inwards. “I felt like part of my personality disappeared for a couple of days,” she explained. “I was thinking and went into my little hermit crab shelter. When I was ready to come back out to play, or to mix with the others and see what they were thinking, that’s kind of when I got voted out.”
Seeing the dynamics on her tribe, Mimi said she spent her first few days a little bit silent. “I was kind of isolating myself and I definitely felt like a lone wolf on that island. I felt like I had next to zero chance.”
Despite feeling on the outside, Mimi was one of the players who spoke up and called out members of her tribe when she believed they crossed a line. When George attempted to take a machete to the Heroes’ shelter she stopped him, she begged the tribe to leave some food behind when they were raiding the Heroes’ supplies, and when Michael threw George under the bus she stood firm in her belief that challenges were a team effort, not a failure of an individual.
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“I mean, from day dot I knew that I thought very differently from the rest of my tribe,” she admitted, adding that now looking back she wished she had landed on the Heroes tribe instead. Refusing to bite her tongue, Mimi said, “was either going to help my game or hinder it. Unfortunately, it did the latter.
“That’s why I put my hand in the cookie jar, I felt like that was one of my last lifelines. I took a risk,” she added.
"It was a prime time for me because it was obviously pitch black, the boys were talking, some of the girls were asleep. I had to do it in that moment... I did it, couldn’t feel anything, slowly put the lid back on the jar and that was that.”
Heading into Tribal Council, Mimi still felt like she had a massive target on her back, and while Simon plotted against his number one nemesis George, the tribe decided to vote Mimi out as a safer option.
Looking back, Mimi said there are many things that she’d do differently. “Now I’ve had time to think how I was in that situation, you’re a lot calmer now because you’re not riddled with anxiety,” she continued.
“But two of the things, I probably would have pushed harder to keep Anjali in, and the second thing I would have tried harder to appeal to Shonee and the girls and try to get them to turn on Simon and Jordie. But I knew that was a very slim chance.
“It was just an incredible experience, I’ve definitely never gone through anything like it and I would absolutely love the chance to do it again because I feel like I barely scratched my potential.”
Australian Survivor: Heroes V Villains airs Sunday - Wednesday at 7.30 on Network 10 and 10 Play on demand