“I Orchestrated It”: Australian Survivor‘s Kirby Bentley On How She Executed The Blindside Of The Season (So Far)

It's only week one of the 11th season of Australian Survivor, and we've already been gifted with perhaps one of the most exciting first weeks of the game we've watched since, well, forever.

To quickly recap, episode one saw Frankie blindsided by the underdogs, episode two saw Jess eliminated as a form of payback, and finally in episode three, we watched as one member of the 'Cuddle Crew' was eliminated, Peta.

Yep, despite intentionally throwing the challenge in an effort to eliminate Kelli, the Cuddle Crew were in the firing line last night after one player decided that Peta needed to go home (and with an idol in her pocket, no less). The player that orchestrated the whole thing? Kirby Bentley.

While we haven't been able to see Noongar woman, Kirby, do her thing until episode three (on account of the Rebels winning streak), her first episode in the limelight proves that she's not one to underestimate. "I just knew that they were stuck together and that they were really tight," she told Refinery29 Australia, speaking of the Cuddle Crew alliance. "For me, that was concerning because I also don't know who they could influence... so in my mind, I'm like, this needs to change."

"I orchestrated Peta, so that was all me," she said of the blindside.

But Kirby didn't just orchestrate the vote — she also knew exactly where all the votes were going. "I think it's really important to know where all the votes are going, which means you need to have the conversations, but you also need the relationships to be able to have the conversation," she says, citing that her history as an AFLW coach allows her to build relationships. "I just understood that Peta was a little too confident to even have any awareness that her name was being thrown out there. The idol and her going home was a nice result."

Kirby explains that due to her observatory nature, she had suspicions that Peta had an idol in her pocket, perhaps adding fuel to the fire as to why she was target number one. "Because I sat back and watched a lot, I used to see her in the bush. She'd sneak away and I was like, she's definitely hunting for one," she explains. "If she has any idea about this game, she's probably got one."

But while the orchestration was near perfection, there was one part of Kirby's plan that made a lot of people at home question her strategy — that she voted with the Cuddle Crew and put Kelli's name down, perhaps in an effort to play both sides. "Maybe it's a rookie error, but I sat on the fence and wrote Kelli's name down, knowing she wasn't going home or was at risk of it," she said. "It's risky because I'm sitting with the majority, but Alex, for some reason, thought I was with him. So I just thought, okay, let's just keep this open and be open-minded about it all. But not everyone thinks like that."

For Kirby, she's acutely aware that her bold move against Peta means that she now needs to manage everyone's perceptions of her. "Because it's so early in the game, there's a lot of paranoia," she says, referencing Eden's freak-out in episode two. But moving forward, Kirby explains that in order to manage her threat level, she's willing to let other people make decisions — at least for now. "I just needed to make sure that if they are upset, then I'll just fall into their hands and be like, tell me what name... It's a really interesting game because it's all about people and connecting."

While Kirby's gameplay might be reminiscent of some absolute powerhouses on Survivor (she's already had plenty of comparisons to Survivor royalty, Sarah Lacina), Kirby admits that she didn't actually watch the show before entering the game. "I didn't know the game before playing it, so I tried to binge-watch it, but I'm a visual and hands-on learner, so I need to be able to do something to actually grasp what it's all about," she explains. While she didn't have much experience watching the show, she does tell us that she's bumped shoulders with a couple of past alumni. "I worked with Luke Toki [who played in Season 2 and 4]," she says. "I also obviously played footy against Mo [Moana Hope, Season 4 and 5]."

While she might still be learning the game of Survivor, it'd be a mistake to underestimate Kirby Bentley — and this episode is proof.