Superfan Dee packs her bags and heads for home. Video/TV2
Survivor superfan says she never got a chance to play the game.
She might be a Survivor superfan - but Dee is so bitter about her time on the show she couldn't watch her own debut.
Dee, a self-confessed lover of the long-running American reality show, became the first contestant eliminated from the New Zealand version after losing a last gasp Redemption Island challenge against Hannah.
Earlier, she'd put a target on her back by admitting to host Matt Chisholm she was probably cast as the show's villain.
Dee left Survivor NZ after being eliminated by her tribe - but was soon told she wasn't leaving the show. Instead, she headed to Redemption Island.
In an interview this morning, Dee admitted to the Herald she was still embarrassed about her short-lived experience on the show, so skipped watching last night's first episode.
"It was a bit stressful so I did a puzzle instead," she said.
"It just seemed a bit much really. I don't think anyone would look forward to watching that happen to themselves."
She spent just three days in Nicaragua and less than 24 hours on the show, and Dee said she was still bitter about missing out on the full Survivor experience.
"I was not a Survivor. I did not play the game of Survivor. That's why I sound bitter when I talk about it, because I didn't get that Survivor experience," she says.
"I left and hopped on the plane and spent that whole trip back - which you can imagine is really long - thinking I must be the biggest runt in the whole world to be voted off that quickly," she said.
"Someone's gotta be first and I'm a weirdo, and I'm tiny, I'm petite, I'm not Georgia, I'm not a dancer, I'm not known for being athletic. I can see that would be a reason why I'd be voted off."
Dee appears during tribal council, shortly before her elimination from Survivor NZ.
She said she put her hand up when Chisholm asked if anyone was a villain because it seemed obvious to her that she was.
"It was a joke within us that every time they filmed me I was going, 'Mha haha' ... an evil laugh," she said.
"Any time they tried to do a little promo thing with me was (they asked) me to do something that made me seem like a villain. It was common knowledge between the contestants ... It was, 'This is what these people want from me, because I'm tattooed and pierced'."
Dee has her torched snuffed by host Matt Chisholm on Survivor NZ.
Despite her early exit, she believed her Survivor fandom - including watching some seasons of the US show four times and listening to 40 hours worth of podcasts a week - was good preparation to go on the show.
"For a casual fan who's on it, it would seem different. But as someone who knows more about the background of the game because I've listened to these podcasts, I knew there was a lot of fluffing around."
Dee also hit out at the New Zealand version's format, saying leaving tribal council and then being sent to Redemption Island before facing off against fellow reject Hannah was a waste of her time.
"Why would I care about Redemption Island? Who wants to come back? How far would I have got? Who's going to vote for the first person to get voted off to win?" she said.
"There is no point coming back from Redemption Island if you're the first person voted out. After my torch was snuffed my game was over. I have no connection to my buff being burnt. That doesn't interest me."
When she got home, Dee says she recovered by staying in bed for three days and eating nothing but $60 of American candy and a loaf of bread.
Dee casts her vote during tribal council.
But she says she might work up the courage to watch the rest of the season now her time on the show is over.
"I think I will watch the show now. It will be a whole new experience, because they're people I've met. I don't know them at all, I have no interest in knowing them.
"But they're people I've met, and possibly touched."
