Michelle Yi
Early Show Interview Transcript

Transcript by James Barber  - 4.13.07

HARRY : Last night, on "Survivor: Fiji", when the tribes merged, people assured Michelle she was safe, but when the tribes switched again, Michelle was a big loser, because she was an unknown quantity.

(clips)

HARRY : Michelle Yi is with us this morning. Good morning.

MICHELLE : Good morning.

HARRY : You're laughing this morning. When you watched last night, what was your reaction?

MICHELLE : I was crying. It was really upsetting.

HARRY : I want to go back to the beginning of the show last night because you have your 2 separate tribes and everyone says you have to go to the [Exile] island. The merge takes place. There's kind of a feeling like you're feeling pretty good at that point, right?

MICHELLE : Yeah. At that point I had my alliance established. I'm really tight with Earl and Yau-Man, we've pulled in Cassandra, we've got quite a few floaters. It was a good spot to be.

HARRY : Yeah, it was a really good spot to be in. Then you get down to the challenge and you draw these little things and the next thing the new merge tribe is randomly split into 2. You guys lose...

MICHELLE : Jeff randomly pulls out the little note and says we don't have any time to deliberate before Tribal Council. That twist is definitely what got me.

HARRY : Man, oh man. Did they isolate you? Did you have any kind of opportunity to have a conversation even from where the challenge was to Tribal Council?

MICHELLE : No, from Tribal Council there was no talking, no touching; the first words we spoke were right there in front of Jeff.

HARRY : Wow. And as we saw on that clip, they were sort of like, "We don't know you, we don't have a reason to have you hang around." Did you know you were done?

MICHELLE : Once Alex said that, definitely, that was the moment I knew it was over. I knew Dreamz was kind of floating, and because we couldn't speak before Tribal Council, you kind of had to talk in tongues right before then. Alex just went out and said it.

HARRY : After the tribe merge, you guys come back to the original tribe site, which had been very luxurious and everything else, and you seemed to be one of those people who was ready to really rough it.

MICHELLE : Yeah, I was excited coming back to Moto and seeing everything gone, because camp luxury was great and all, but it's really time to play the game. I was excited that Boo, Cassandra, and Stacy finally had to rough it too.

HARRY : Yeah, they said it would really separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. You had a shot and you kind of end up in this surprise twist. Did it make you mad? Did it break your heart? Or what?

MICHELLE : It's a little heartbreaking to be the victim of a twist like that, but you have to expect. It's season 14 and in the back of your mind you know it takes strength, intelligence, but also a lot of luck to win the game of Survivor.

HARRY : Yeah, luck is a huge, huge, huge factor in this. Now you become popular in your own right within the game itself because of something that happened a couple of weeks ago in the show. This has been repeated and has been downloaded on Youtube. This has been seen by, had more than 80,000 hits.

MICHELLE (laughing): Yeah.

HARRY : We'll show this little scene a second, then we'll come back and talk about this.

(they play and laugh at the clip of Michelle falling off the platform in the E7 immunity challenge)

HARRY : Wow. I remember seeing that on the show and was like, "Is she OK?" You climbed right back up there. What happened?

MICHELLE : I'm so focused on Yau-Man and screaming that I didn't even realize I was at the edge of the platform. Taking that fall, oh my gosh. At the time you don't realize how hurt you are, but that's a 6-foot platform, and I definitely wasn't bracing myself. I still have scars from that to this day, actually.

HARRY : Wow, Michelle's got the scars to prove it.

MICHELLE : It's a little souvenir.

HARRY : Sorry to see you get knocked off the show. Good job. Thanks for coming by. Appreciate it.