‘Survivor 43’: Sami Felt Guilt For Blaming Gabler, Explains His Connection With Karla
Survivor can be a game of manipulation. Showbiz Cheat Sheet talked to Survivor 43 cast member Sami Layadi over Zoom on Dec. 1 about some of his lies and his unexpectedly close relationship with Karla Cruz Godoy.
[Spoiler alert: This article contains spoilers from Survivor Season 43 Episode 11, “Hiding in Plain Sight.”]
Sami made a game-time decision in his last ‘Survivor’ Tribal Council
Q: What was your plan going into [Tribal Council]? Did you know what you were going to say?
Sami: Yes. So by the time I got to Tribal, like dude, my back is totally against the wall screwed. And so I was like, I got two options. I can play on the fact that the one percent chance that I am going to stay in this game and use my vote and, you know, hope, that is right.
Or I just tell everybody what I’m going to do and hope that it goes my way because if I do somehow get out of it, then it was a flashy move at Tribal Council in front of the jury. And so I didn’t know what I was going to do until I got to Tribal.
And then I was thinking about the shot in the dark, and I was like, “Yeah. I’m playing that thing. I’m not going out being lied to.” You know, that’s never fun. So it was kind of a game-time decision.
Q: You admitted to lying to other people to Jeff Probst. Some people probably think that wasn’t the best move if you did stick around after this Tribal Council. But what do you have to say about that?
Sami: I wasn’t admitting to anybody that I was lying. That wasn’t like a shocking revelation to anybody. You know, at this point in the game, everybody knows. Everybody knows that that’s what I’ve been doing. And so I felt like my best angle was to be just like this changed man, this new person that’s coming out and saying, listen, I know that I did it wrong, but let me do right. And that was basically my goal with that.
Sami admits to feeling guilty about lying
Q: Why did Mike Gabler become your fall guy [for the Karla vote]? He was the fall guy before. So it’s kind of funny that your first thought was ‘Gabler did it,’ and then you realize that wasn’t going to work.
Sami: I had to say Gabler because there were two votes. Karla. Karla knew Owen [Knight] wasn’t with her. And so they only left me or Gabler. And I was like, “well, I’m not gonna say me.” So I put it on Gabler and backtracked.
When I could see it in my head, I can see, like, [Cassidy Clark] going to Gabler and Gabler fighting to explain himself, and I just didn’t like that. I didn’t like the way that that would have made me feel. You know, this is a game of lying and manipulating at its core. But I felt like, at this point, my best move forward was to come clean and admit that I was the one that did the wrong.
Q: So it was guilt?
Sami: Yeah. There was definitely some guilt there. You know, somebody that I trusted, someone else close with that I backstabbed. There’s some guilt.
How Karla and Sami became close in the ‘Survivor 43’ cast
Q: You were in the seven, Cody [Assenmacher], Jesse [Lopez], Karla, James [Jones], Ryan [Medrano] and Cassidy then you. You knew you were at the bottom. You approached Karla about flipping the vote on Ryan. Then you later said Karla’s opinion meant the most to you, and you tried to convince her to vote out James. How did that bond form? Because we’re really not seeing that.
Sami: Yeah, so a close bond formed as soon as she hit the sand. As soon as she got on the beach, like. You could pick up vibes from people right away. And Karla’s like, so, her demeanor was so chill. She was so easy to talk to, so easy to relate to, and she’s from San Diego! Like, I love San Diego. And like, that was like a big selling point for me.
It was like, who are people that are, like, easygoing? Like, I can talk to you easily. And so, yeah, Karla was so easy to talk to, so easy to get along with. And our relationship really formed from the seconds that we hit as a merged tribe.
And also forgot to note that Karla’s the one that got me in to vote out Dwight [Moore]. You know, when we voted out Dwight, Karla looped me in on that and took me in. And said, “if you want to be on the right side, this is the way that you should vote.”
And so, that was huge for me. That was huge for me. For her to keep me in the numbers, keep me in the know. This is such a pivotal point in the game.
Q: We saw Gabler tell Karla that Cody and Jesse were running the show and needed to come up with a plan to target them. Did she ever talk to you about that conversation or just talk targeting them in general?
Sami: No, no, that didn’t happen. Man, they were good. You know, they were just really good at managing the threat level and getting us to think that nothing was happening.
And, you know, for me personally, I didn’t see Jesse as a real threat until after him and Cody blindsided me on the day Noelle [Lambert] gets voted out. That’s when I thought, “oh, crap. Like, this is. This is no bueno.”
And besides the fact that none of us knew that you had the idols, right? None of us knew that. And I don’t know. It was definitely not a topic of discussion. Like, the viewers are like, “what is happening?” They’re good. What can I say?
Sami said he picked the wrong pair of castaways to target
Q: You tried to put a wedge between Cassidy and Karla by blaming her for your vote, saying her name first. Many fans are shocked that Karla believed you. Why do you think that seed was working? Or at least we’re told it was working?
Sami: Because me and Karla’s relationship was so good out there. You know, it really was good out there in a game sense, in a personal sense. Like we got along very well. And even after I voted for her, she’s, you know, she would tell me, “I don’t want to cut ties with you. Like, I don’t want to drop you off. Like, just cut you off. Like, I think we just go make something happen.”
And, you know, I could have gone two ways. I guess I could have been like, “listen to tell me what to do,” but that’s not me, man. I got to do something. I got to fight a little bit. So I had to come up with kind of throwing Cass under the bus a little bit, and obviously totally didn’t go my way.
Q: I think this is still just wild because of the edit because we’re seeing so much of Cassidy and Karla probably from day one. So it’s like, what was your perspective then on their connection being actually in the game?
Sami: That was actually the first day where I thought, “Oh, they might not work together. Like they actually might not be as tight as a pair as I thought.”
Because in my mind, the pairs were Jesse and Cody, and Cass and Karla. And, you know, my logic in this game was pairs are strong. Pairs are strong. I didn’t view obviously the right pair as strong pair. But, you know, that’s what I did with Elie [Scott] and Jeanine [Zheng]. Elie and Jeanine were a tight pair. And I thought they were really strong, so I didn’t want to go forward with them … at least with Elie. I did want to work with Jeanine.
But you know, I was very shocked at the fact that Cass was kind of dwindling on Karla’s list of trust. I was very shocked at that. And on the other side, I also kind of knew that there was a little bit of mistrust. You know, me and Cass had a good relationship to where we would talk about, OK, maybe Karla’s somebody that we should consider taking out at some point. So I knew there was little cracks in there and I was just trying to break it wide open. And, you know, we could have done that, but I totally, totally blew it.
This interview has been condensed for this article.
More ‘Survivor’ exit interviews from Showbiz Cheat Sheet
‘Survivor 43’: James Gives His Fix for the Knowledge Is Power Problem, ‘It’s Not Meant to Be Fair’
‘Survivor 43’: Ryan’s Secret Goal in His Merge Alliance Pitch, ‘It Was More of a Trap’
‘Survivor 43’: Jeanine Says ‘Kudos’ to Jesse Keeping Her ‘Baby’ in the Game
‘Survivor 43’: Dwight on That Idol Mystery and a Jesse and Karla Preseason Theory
‘Survivor 43’: Geo Responds to Cassidy’s ‘Sassy’ Comments and Says ‘Karla Had the Bullets’ Not Her
‘Survivor 43’: Lindsay Hates You Think She’s out for ‘Paranoia’ and Not Karla’s Strategy
‘Survivor 43’: Nneka Talks Struggling in That Challenge, Bonding With Cody, and More
‘Survivor 43’: Justine Says ‘Hats off!’ to Cody for Clever Idol Hat, Shares What the Edit Left Out
Morriah on Disappointing the Dad of ‘Survivor 43’ and Not Believing Gabler
