Survivor: Worlds Apart eliminated Lindsey Cascaddan during the first half of the special two-hour episode of the CBS reality competition's 30th season on Wednesday night.  

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Lindsey, a 24-year-old hairdresser from College Park, FL, was voted out of her Blue Collar tribe, called the "Escameca" tribe, on Night 11 at the season's fourth Tribal Council session. She was ousted right before the three tribes switched up and became two.

In an exclusive interview with Reality TV World on Thursday, Lindsey talked about her Survivor experience. Below is the first half. Check back with us soon for the concluding portion.

Reality TV World: Would you say you were blindsided? Were you convinced Rodney Lavoie Jr. was going home?

Lindsey Cascaddan: No, I don't think it was safe to say I was blindsided. I mean, I'm not a dumb woman. I knew and know that there are always chances of you going home. I went into our Tribal Council kind of confident that we had a plan, but I also knew that my name had gotten brought up. And I knew there was a chance that that plan might have flaws -- might have folds.

You know, I think as soon as I saw the three-way split, I knew that there were things happening that I hadn't necessarily planned for but knew could happen. My tribe thought I had an idol and I held out hope that they might still go the Rodney route, but at the end of the day, they got the bigger threat out.

Reality TV World: Going into Tribal, who did you think you had voting with you besides Sierra Dawn Thomas and why do you think they would choose to keep Rodney over you? You'd initially think it's because of the Immunity Challenges going forward but Sierra blamed Rodney for actually slowing everyone down.

Lindsey Cascaddan: Yeah, Rodney's definitely not a strong competitor as far as actually being quick and graceful and getting through things and using his head. He is always the one turning his head and looking and saying, "What do I do!?" or "What's next?!" or "Help me!" or something.

So I don't necessarily think that's a safe assumption. I think, you know, I definitely had Kelly Remington on my side and I thought that I had [Mike Holloway], but I knew that Mike was sort of a swing vote only because him and I had had our arguments in the days leading up to Tribal Council.

But I thought Kelly was for sure with Sierra and I. And I ultimately think they got me out instead of Rodney because I'm an alpha personality and I am just the type of person that you're either going to get me out first or you're never going to get me out.

And at the end of the day, when you look at someone like Rodney, he's a great person to try to take to far in Survivor because if you can get him to the end, who the hell is going to vote for that guy? Not a lot of people.

So, for me, I do have a bold personality, but I'm also pretty likable and can kind of keep up with friendships and make people laugh in the down times and the hard times. I think that one of the alphas had to go.

And Mike's real problem with me was that I kind of ran our camp. I mean, I built our shelter from the bottom up with Sierra with no help. We were always the ones doing laundry. I was always the one cooking. I pretty much rationed our food from Day 1.
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And I wasn't afraid to make decisions whether that be sit out or whether that be call someone else to sit out or whatever it was. I was always a decision-maker and I was always a big player in our tribe. And I think that I was a really big threat.

Reality TV World: You just mentioned how some of your tribemates thought you might've had an idol. Knowing you didn't, did you think anyone else did? And were you always off looking for an idol or no?

Lindsey Cascaddan: Yeah, I was always looking for the idol, and I didn't think that anyone else had it just because I feel like I have a pretty good read on people being a hairstylist. It just didn't seem like anyone had the idol. It didn't feel like anyone had the idol.

And to be honest, unless someone was with me climbing into trees and climbing over cliffs and digging into caves and rocks and whatever, it didn't really seem like anyone was looking for the idol. So I could see why they thought I had it for sure.

Reality TV World: Were you and Sierra as tight as your tribemates thought? Because that didn't really come across on TV.

Lindsey Cascaddan: I think Sierra and I were much tighter than what it appeared on TV, but we were as tight as people thought we were, which I think you saw a little bit of last night.

Sierra and I were really, really close. We were definitely kind of this little duo that Mike definitely even said to our faces, "This is a threat. You guys are, like, this power couple. You're like big and little. You're each other's opposites and you're also a lot alike. You're both really competitive."

And I have a very big personality in a very little body and Sierra has this big body. She's beautiful and confident, and she is just this quiet storm of a woman. So, yeah, I think what you saw and what you heard is definitely accurate. Sierra and I were ready to go to the end together.

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Reality TV World: Okay and I asked that because I wanted to know if you thought Sierra had every intention to go back to your tribe after you were voted off and trust them and work with them again. I don't know how much of a role Dan Foley attacking her about all the things she had done wrong played in her strong desire to flip on them.

Lindsey Cascaddan: I knew 110% walking that bridge at the end of Tribal that Sierra would go back to camp and never trust them again. And the thing about that is that all I could do leaving was just hope and pray that there was a tribal swap or merge coming really soon. Because if there wasn't, Sierra was next.

Reality TV World: Why did you decide to confide in Dan first after the Immunity Challenge in telling him to vote out Rodney, or was that just the editing? If it wasn't, did you trust him or think he was on the outside and you could therefore reel him in?

Lindsey Cascaddan: Well, here's the thing with Dan. He is our token fat guy. He was the huge blubber of Survivor and his only goal -- very openly -- was to not be voted out first. He would vote for anyone that wasn't himself. He didn't care who it was and he just said very openly, "I don't care who I go for. I don't care who goes home. I just don't want it to be me because I love this game and I want to be here."

So I knew that I needed to get to Dan because if I could get to Dan, he knows enough about Survivor to sway other people, and Dan's also friendly, funny and stupid enough to sway whoever he was working with at the time -- which I knew was definitely Mike.

But I didn't know who else he was working with. I didn't know who else was trying to get Dan, so I wanted to make sure I had gotten to him first, because he just didn't have an opinion and those people are really dangerous.

Reality TV World: After the Immunity Challenge, Mike said he was happy about the loss because you guys could finally determine who is in the majority alliance and draw lines in the sand. You just said you weren't sure who Dan was working with, so what about Rodney? Did you think he was close with Mike?

Lindsey Cascaddan: At that point, Rodney seemed like such an outsider to me only because in a team that's based widely on being the heart of America and hardworking, and you know, you have this lazy kid that has no morals and was brought up in some crazy household that just has no manners. And I don't know. He just seemed like the outsider to me.

Everybody else was really hardworking and seemed like what you would think of when you thought "Blue Collar." So I didn't really see Rodney working with anyone in particular. I knew that he had tried to get to Sierra early on. He tried to get to me early on. I know he tried to work with Mike early on.

So he was kind of just this guy that wanted to work with anyone and everyone because he didn't -- you never want it to be you.

I think that had Mike not been so threatened by Sierra and I -- the bottom line is, Mike didn't really want to work with Rodney but he also knew that I had to go. He knew that having two alpha personalities like him and I on one tribe is really, really hard unless you're working together, and we weren't.

Reality TV World: So it was like the lesser of two evils basically.

Lindsey Cascaddan: Right, yeah. Of course.

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Check back with Reality TV World soon for the concluding portion of Lindsey's exclusive interview.


About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski
Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade.