Parvati Shallow, UGA grad and former Atlantan, can’t believe she lost ‘Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains’

Parvati Shallow, the UGA grad and former Atlanta resident, came into the New York studios last night hopeful she had picked up the five votes necessary to win "Survivor" a second time.

It didn't happen. Parvati only grabbed three from Jerri Manthey, Benjamin "Coach" Wade and Danielle DiLorenzo from the Villains team. With the other six votes (including five from the Heroes tribe), fellow prior winner Sandra Diaz-Twine took home her second $1 million instead.

“I thought at least a couple of the Heroes would have respected my gameplay,” Parvati said in a brief phone interview Monday afternoon. “But it was all about ego and feeling wronged. They were babies about it. They made their decisions based on pure emotion.”

Indeed, all five Heroes (plus Sandra's close buddy Courtney Yates) voted for Sandra. Her credentials? Not winning a single individual challenge. Failing to convince any of her Heroes to get rid of the hated Russell Hantz, who received exactly zero votes, one less than he did on Samoa. She found an immunity idol she ultimately didn't need to use.

Paradoxically, staying under the radar was a brilliant strategy. Sandra was never a factor in challenges, so people didn’t perceive her as a threat. She was never on the “inside” of any major Villain alliance, so for the five Heroes on the Jury, she ultimately became the least painful person to pick.

Although Sandra had won the game before, many of the Heroes had it in for Parvati from the start. “I’m a much louder contestant,” Parvati said. And a much better looking one, too, which made it even more infuriating for the male Heroes, who she said did not want to get “played.” J.T. even tried to get rid of Parvati through Russell just before the merge to break up an imaginary all-girls alliance he thought was going on over in the Villain camp.

During the final Tribal Council, Parvati provided a cogent, logical argument why she deserved to win (she played all facets of the game well) but failed to sway any of the Heroes.

Parvati was also hurt by her game-long alliance with Russell. In a sense, she was infected by that “Russell stink.” What’s worse, she said, is she had a hard time shaking the impression she was riding Russell’s evil coattails. She could not find a way to charm the Heroes. They were immune.

She argued on the show and with me that she chose Russell out of necessity, not because she thought he was a saint. In fact, he was one of the few people willing to ally with her from the get go (including Danielle and Jerri). She needed some sort of alliance to survive.

Despite her problems, Parvati thought she had a legitimate shot to win. So did Russell. He lied and broke pacts with virtually everybody on the jury, often in threatening and bullying ways — unlike Parvati. Yet he believed the players could separate pure game play from personality. They could not.

Parvati said Russell was the most "deluded" of them all and during breakfast Sunday was talking about how he probably got the votes of Coach, Rupert Boneham and Colby Donaldson. Heck, he even thought he had even gotten the vote of Sandra's ally Courtney. He told Parvati her only sure vote was Danielle. He didn't even think Sandra had picked up any votes.

That’s why Russell brought Sandra along to the final three in the first place after he had won the final immunity challenge. He had no respect for her style of “Survivor” and didn’t think anybody else did either.

How powerful was Sandra’s appeal to the jilted Heroes? Parvati thinks even if he had kept chosen Jerri over her, Sandra would have won although Jerri played an arguably better game. She operated in a low-key manner but made smart, strategic swing votes to keep her alliance alive.

If he had brought in Jerri and Parvati, Parvati might have had a better shot at winning but the Heroes might have favored Jerri because she was the least active of those three in terms of actively “gaming” them.

To add insult to injury for Parvati, Russell did get some satisfaction and $100,000 by winning fan votes as best game player. By all measures, he was the most aggressive game player, for sure, but “best” is arguable. (Parvati did take home the second-place prize of $100,000.)

After 114 days spanning three “Survivor” episodes, Parvati said she is truly hanging up the boxing gloves for good. Instead, she is focusing a new wellness center she’s building in Santa Monica, set to open later this summer.

Want Sandra's perspective. An acquaintance of mine, Cynthia Wang of People magazine, interviewed her here.

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