Day 15 in Samoa began with the promise of a big reward — food. In a series of activities not unlike leadership-program trust exercises, the teams had to toss rope, roll on barrels, cross barrels with planks, then toss bags onto barrels. Saanapu, distrusting and disorganized at camp, got it together to win a Hungry Jack’s hamburger BBQ. Vavau, still showing some of their old might, took the next-best offering of a Whopper Junior for all.
While the winners swooned over burgers, viewers cringed at the lancing of Kate’s underarm ingrown-hair abscess. The boating accident survivor handled the pain of emergency treatment with grit even as Jonathan LaPaglia shared details of the procedure in a TMI play-by-play.
But after an immunity challenge that relied on strength (hello, Craig!), weaker Saanapu found itself at tribal council once more. Kylie finally played her idol and in a revote, the tribe ousted Tegan.
Who spoke to Tegan Haining, a Sydney-based, 33-year-old personal trainer and model, about becoming the sixth person to leave Australian Survivor.
Q: So Nick was up to his old tricks at tribal council?
A: He sure was! Yeah, I definitely should have read that better and just written his name down in the first run and not been relying on the second vote to get him out. But that’s hindsight for you, right?
Q: It seemed you had formed a decent bond with Flick and Brooke?
A: I think we did have a strong connection and they did want to take me forward but you’re out there and you really want to win challenges and at the end of the day, Nick was a guy who was the only option they had at standing up in the challenges against those other guys. They chose to keep him around over the loyalty they might have had with me. They had a tough decision to make and I don’t hold it against them at all.
Q: So was Nick as intense in real time as he seems to be on television?
A: Yeah, he was pretty full on. He got more full on as well when we went to Saanapu. He really was running around like a crazy person doing everything around camp. Brooke is not a fan of him, though, so I am really curious to see what’s going to unfold in these next episodes.
Q: Also intense — how you guys really tore into those Hungry Jack burgers.
A: Wow, let me tell you. I mean, I’ve never eaten so many pickles on a burger in my life. It was GREAT. For about an hour, we couldn’t get enough. We were told to be careful and we took that information and forgot about it and ate two burgers each, I think as fast as we possibly could, and we all laid on the beach like little beached whales.
Q: So when Nick took you over to Saanapu with him, was that a good or a bad thing?
A: No, I was happy about that because I knew I was in trouble in Vavau. They weren’t a fan of me from Day 1, and I think when he took me to Saanapu, it was a fresh start for me. It didn’t go to plan, but I really enjoyed my time over there.
Q: We saw you showing off some island beauty tricks with Flick!
A: That exfoliating, we were just mucking around a little bit. Obviously, now we have plans to make millions from our Saanapu Exfoliating Cream, but I don’t know if it’s going to sell. We’ll see!
Q: You are based in Sydney now. What are you up to?
A: Now that I’m back here, I’m going to use a lot of the experience that I had gained in London in training celebrities to form my own program called the Seven Day Quickie and I am working on that now and launching in Australia soon, which is exciting. I find there are a lot of plans out there that seem long and intimidating. They are 30 days or they are 12 weeks and a lot of people in my industry, they want to get fit or feel better in a week, so I wanted to write a program that’s a quick fix for everybody rather than having to commit to these daunting four to 12-week programs. A lot of people just don’t have time for that, especially busy mums or celebrities.
Q. Who was the celebrity you enjoyed training most when you were in London?
A: Oh, for sure David Beckham was a highlight. I was lucky to train him over there. I was working with James Duigan, who used to train Elle Macpherson for 15 years, so he had a huge celebrity following, so I was very lucky to train them at Bodyism over there.
Q: Would you play Survivor again?
A: I would. I would love to go out there again with a new strategy and be more aggressive and outspoken than I was this time.
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