Reality Dish Exclusive Interview: Bob Crowley, Winner of Survivor: Gabon

Interviews



Teacher Bob Crowley is the winner of Survivor: Gabon by the count of 4 votes to 3 over Susie. Bob almost didn’t make it to the end, but then he started winning challenge after challenge. That ultimately made him the winner of $1 million dollars! I talked to him the other day about his Survivor experience and here is what he had to say…


Josh Clinton: Hi Bob, how are you doing?

Bob Crowley: Hey Josh, I’m doing very well.

JC: So sole Survivor. Not bad for a guy who most people would compare to Bill Nye the Science Guy.

BC: (Laughs). Yeah, Bill would have been a good one too.

JC: (Laughs). What does it mean to also be the oldest person to win Survivor?

BC: I’m a little proud. Hopefully AARP will stop sending me letters now.

JC: Right. Did you, in your wildest imagination, think you would become the “challenge monster” that you became on the show?

BC: Not in my wildest dreams. Is there any way you could speak a little quieter? Because I am living a dream right now, and I don’t want you to wake me up.

JC: Okay, I got you. Knowing that the Kota alliance dominated the jury, did you feel you had an advantage gaining votes?

BC: No, because the jury consisted of four Fang and three Kota members. Well I guess you could say that. Randy swung both ways and was a Kota member at one point, but he was never part of the alliance. But the only strong votes that I thought I had were Corrine, Marcus, and Charlie. I knew I had their vote. I didn’t know if I had Randy’s vote because of the whole scam with the immunity idol. But I think I lucked out, because he disliked Susie more than he disliked me.

JC: Yeah. Why did you turn on Randy then?

BC: It was really obvious to me that I was going to go home next, if I hadn’t given Randy the idol. It’s a game. I knew they wanted to get rid of Randy, but they wanted to get rid of me first. It was just a way for me to stick around for another week.

JC: Going into the game, did you have a specific strategy that you wanted to use?

BC: Yeah, pretty much the strategy that I did use. I wanted to fly under the radar in between the trees, I didn’t want to whack one of those while I was flying too low. That worked well. I wanted to be a provider, which I think I did a very good job of that. Also, I wanted to be friendly. So I think that saved me in a couple of instances. I also didn’t want to sort of reveal my physical prowess. I mean I extremely physically fit for an old man, and I think that they thought of me as an old man. So that sort of allowed me to fly lower under the radar, because they didn’t consider me a threat. They did towards the end of the game, when I needed to crank up my game and the challenges. Although, I am pretty physically fit and athletic. I was also very lucky.

JC: Right. You seemed to start “outplaying” everyone strategically at the right time. Was it something you planned?

BC: Well the problem with Survivor is you can plan all you want, but most of the time your plans don’t work out. That was what I was thinking I wanted to do, and I was lucky enough to be able to do it. You can plan all you want in this game. Like look at poor Marcus. Marcus just lost because of bad luck and he also inadvertently trusted Crystal. He certainly broke his guard. I don’t know. It’s an interesting game.

JC: Yes, it is. Who did you get along with the best during the game and who did you least get along with?

BC: I got along with Charlie the best. He is just a delightful kid and I love him to death. He’s just a nice guy. One the best things about being on the show was having Charlie as a friend now. You know you make all of these alliances on the show that you hope last to the end. Well in real life I have about 30 years left, so I hope to go to the end with Charlie as a friend. The one I liked the least was probably Kenny. Although, I think that Kenny got a little arrogant and then he got really angry at me. He didn’t take losing very well.

JC: Going into the final tribal council, did you think you had a good shot at winning the million dollars?

BC: I knew I had a 50/50 chance. I knew I was either going to win it or I wasn’t. I always say that as a joke, because you have a 50/50 chance at everything. You either do or you don’t. But I knew I had 3 votes, and you needed 4 to win. I thought I might have had Randy’s, because he didn’t like Susie at all. But I was also hoping that he respected a little bit of my game, which I don’t think he really did. I didn’t get his vote. He didn’t vote for me, rather against Susie.

JC: Okay, I understand. Were you surprised by anything that any of the jury members said to you during the final tribal council?

BC: The one that surprised me the most was Kenny’s. He just seemed to think he was above it all. That he could lie and cheat and deceive people, and the rest of us couldn’t. He also didn’t seem to remember the contract that we had. We actually did renegotiate the contract, and I renegotiated it very clearly with him when we were at the gorilla sanctuary. In that, I told him if I thought he was in trouble I would give him the idol. However, when I found out that he was planning on taking the idol to blindside me, all bets are off pal! I wasn’t even going to vote for him. I was just going to let other people vote for him. I wasn’t going to stab Kenny in the back. I tried to persuade to him that it was like trying to hire someone to kill me, as opposed to doing it yourself. Kenny just didn’t seem to get it. He was very angry about that.

JC: Right, yeah. Would you do Survivor again, if you got the chance to?

BC: I would think so. I had such a good time, I don’t think I would hesitate to do it again.

JC: Cool. What are you going to do with the money?

BC: Well I owe several thousand dollars on a house that I didn’t even pay $100,000 for. I’ve got a kid in college. My retirement has dropped in half and have just broke even. But I am going to take a bunch of money and take my wife, Peggy, on a honeymoon because we never got to do that. She was only in Gabon with me for 4 hours. So what I would like to do is bring her back to Gabon as tourists and let he see some of the beautiful parts of Gabon. Even though I saw all of it myself, I want to give Peggy the honeymoon we never had.

JC: Very cool. Did you learn anything about yourself from this experience that you didn’t know before?

BC: Gosh, I’m always learning about myself. There wasn’t anything..actually yeah. Now that I think about. What I learned is that I’m not a very spiritual person. I appreciate the environment and all of that, but the interactions I had with the gorillas sort of freaked me out. It really did touch my soul. I never thought I would hear myself say that, but I didn’t have the same family that I had there. It was an amazing sort of enlightenment to see the gorillas. I really felt an attachment to them. It was really strange. I have hear people say that before, and I thought it was really corny. And I even feel corny, thinking about it. But it was something I didn’t realize I wanted to do until afterwards. I can’t work with the Red Cross, because I can’t give any blood because I went to Africa, even though I didn’t have sex with the natives or anything. But I would like to bring light to the plight of the gorillas and the plight of the jungles there. I would just like to show that there are parts of Africa that they are burning down, which is having major problems on the greenhouse effect.

JC: Right on. Well that is all I have for, but thanks for your time and good luck with everything.

BC: Okay, thanks very much!

I'm not embarrassed to say that my favorite television show of all-time is The O.C. I live by the motto "you can't fight fate!" More importantly, I watch WAY too much television, but I do so for the benefit of everyone reading this now. So to my mom and my wife, I say thanks for reading! To everyone else that might stumble across this, remember TiVo should be your best friend!