Today, Survivor Australia‘s champion Kristie Bennett is one happy lady.
The 24-year-old, who on Tuesday night discovered she was $500,000 richer, spoke to Mamamia about her whirlwind experience on the hit Channel 10 show.
“The last 24 hours have been a hundred miles an hour,” the former senior account executive – who quit her job to fulfill her eight-year-old self’s Survivor dream – told me.
“It’s been exciting, it’s just great.”
Overwhelmingly, it appears, the quirky and popular contestant looks back on her time on the Samoan island with positivity.
“I was so happy with how I was depicted on the show,” she shared.
“It was absolutely accurate to who I am in the real world. I’m definitely super quirky and I’m so proud of that, I love being different and unique and I think it’s really important people embrace that.”
Despite winning Channel 10's online fan favourite poll in an absolute landslide (at last glance, Kristie's slice of votes was nearing 70 percent compared to Lee's 20 and El's 10), she says things panned out differently with her fellow contestants.
"Out there it was really tough because I felt really alone and very isolated," she admitted. "I was the least popular one out there.
'"[That's why] I’m so overwhelmed with how much I’ve resonated with the viewers."
When it comes to the audience's split reaction to the final immunity challenge — where she cried and pleaded with Lee to drop out and let her win — Kristie said she was perplexed.
When she found out some people thought it was unfair, she thought, 'What do you mean? It’s a game... like what?! I don't understand the problem. It's a game!'
"There’s no need to attack people who disagree with you," she added. "Everyone has their differing opinions about Survivor, and everyone has their own boundaries."
Kristie said runner-up Lee had no qualms about how the final immunity challenge played out, either, explaining: "We all had mutual respect for each other out there."
You can read Mamamia's Survivor finale recap here.