<\/p>\n
After one of the most confusing Tribal Councils in recent Survivor<\/a><\/em> memory, season 49 castaway Alex Moore<\/strong> is left shaking his head. The political communications director, 27, was blindsided after Jawan Pitts <\/strong>and Sage Ahrens-Nichols<\/strong> decided to flip back and work with their original Uli tribe\u2013including Rizo Velovic<\/strong>, who was sitting on a known hidden immunity idol for the second Tribal Council in a row.<\/p>\n No one even attempted to flush Rizo’s idol (again!) and Alex ended up taking the fall when his remaining alliance members, Kristina Mills <\/strong>and Steven Ramm<\/strong>, oddly decided to put their votes on Sophie Balderi <\/strong>instead of someone with an idol in his pocket. In his exit interview with Men\u2019s Journal<\/em>, Alex breaks down his blindside and why he believes some players were simply “playing scared” instead of playing to win.<\/p>\n Scroll down to read the full exit interview with Alex.<\/p>\n Men\u2019s Journal:<\/strong> How are you feeling now that you\u2019ve watched everything back?<\/p>\n Alex Moore:<\/strong> I actually feel really good. I felt confident in my gameplay out there. At the end of the day, Rizo and I were rivals, and he got the last laugh. I would\u2019ve done the same thing. What\u2019s crazy is people were just scared to make a move. The fact that Sophie Segretti and Jawan didn\u2019t even try to split the votes didn\u2019t make sense.<\/p>\n Men\u2019s Journal:<\/strong> Two tribals in a row, he has a known idol and isn’t targeted. Why do you think no one flushed it?!<\/p>\n Alex:<\/strong> I think people just wanted to be liked by Savannah [Louie] and Rizo. They wanted in with that group. But this is a game, not a popularity contest. We had a seven-person alliance after we voted out Nate [Moore], and once MC [Chukwujekwu] didn\u2019t come back, I realized some people weren\u2019t thinking strategically anymore.<\/p>\n Men\u2019s Journal:<\/strong> What was it like watching Rizo admit he was embellishing things about you to get you targeted? I thought that scene was funny, but I’m curious your thoughts.<\/p>\n Alex:<\/strong> We\u2019d literally talked about not trusting him \u2014 and then people bought into everything he said. Jawan didn\u2019t trust him, but still believed him. That\u2019s the wild part. People thought he was rational. He wasn\u2019t. He was playing for survival, like anyone would.<\/p>\n Men\u2019s Journal:<\/strong> Is there anything you wish had been shown more?<\/p>\n Alex:<\/strong> Yeah \u2014 my \u201cmessiness\u201d was really just me being friends with everyone. All day I was telling people, \u201cRizo has an idol, he didn\u2019t play it last time, he\u2019s not playing it again \u2014 why aren\u2019t we splitting this?\u201d I wish that part had made the edit.<\/p>\n Men\u2019s Journal:<\/strong> Do you think people avoided flushing the idol because they were scared it would go back into circulation?<\/p>\n Alex:<\/strong> Some people framed it as the \u201cdevil you know versus the devil you don\u2019t,\u201d but I didn\u2019t buy that. I think they were scared of Savannah\u2019s backlash and what her and Sophie would do if they made the move.<\/p>\n Men\u2019s Journal:<\/strong> Did you ever seriously consider working with the Uli side instead?<\/p>\n Alex:<\/strong> At first, yes. I liked them personally. But once I saw how locked in they were \u2014 especially after Sophi’s tribe swaps \u2014 I knew I\u2019d always be at the bottom. So I focused on relationships with Kristina and Steven instead.<\/p>\n Men\u2019s Journal:<\/strong> Going into Tribal, did you know you were in danger?<\/p>\n Alex:<\/strong> I knew I was getting some votes, but I thought it would be a split vote to flush the idol. I considered playing my Shot in the Dark, but I didn\u2019t think it would help if it was a split. I trusted people to make the right move. Clearly, they didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n Men\u2019s Journal:<\/strong> You\u2019ve said people were \u201cplaying scared.\u201d What do you mean?<\/p>\n Alex:<\/strong> They were more focused on not upsetting people than actually playing to win. They wanted to be liked. Rizo wasn\u2019t playing scared. I respected that \u2014 and that\u2019s why he got me.<\/p>\n Men\u2019s Journal:<\/strong> I thought you had a great exit, admitting you got caught playing both sides.<\/p>\n Alex:<\/strong> I\u2019m a competitor. Me and Rizo went head-to-head a lot. He got me in the end. So yeah, when I joked about playing both sides, I meant it. I respected the move.<\/p>\n Men\u2019s Journal:<\/strong> Was there anything you think you could have done at Tribal to save yourself?<\/p>\n Alex:<\/strong> I could have asked Kristina to play her idol on me. That was the one thing that could\u2019ve flipped everything. But I\u2019m not someone who asks people to give up their power. She found it fair and square. I wasn\u2019t going to put her in that position.<\/p>\n Men\u2019s Journal:<\/strong> Would you ever play again?<\/p>\n Alex:<\/strong> In a heartbeat. Even when you\u2019re sitting at Ponderosa enjoying a glass of red wine, you still want to be in the game. I\u2019d do it again for sure.<\/p>\n Related: ‘Survivor 50’ Premiere Date Announced \u2014 And CBS Is Dropping a Two-Week Marathon of Iconic Episodes<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n This story was originally reported by Men’s Journal<\/a> on Nov 20, 2025, where it first appeared in the Entertainment<\/a> section. Add Men’s Journal as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After one of the most confusing Tribal Councils in recent Survivor memory, season 49 castaway Alex Moore is left shaking his head. The political communications director, 27, was blindsided after Jawan Pitts and Sage Ahrens-Nichols decided to flip back and work with their original Uli tribe\u2013including Rizo Velovic, who was sitting on a known hidden […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2169579,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[379985,352822,397694,416717],"class_list":["post-2169578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-alex-moore","tag-hidden-immunity-idol","tag-mens-journal","tag-rizo-velovic"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Survivor-49s-Alex-Moore-Says-Others-Were-\u2018Playing-Scared-\u2014.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2169578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2169578"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2169578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2169580,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2169578\/revisions\/2169580"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2169579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2169578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2169578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2169578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}