australian survivor david villain

We Chatted To ‘Survivor’ Supermodel David On His Gameplan To Be A “Loveable Villain”

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Just gonna say it. This year’s Australian Survivor is the greatest season in our nation’s history and it’s all thanks to one man: supermodel villain David Genat.

At this stage, it’s really just David’s game and we’re all trying to keep up. It’s hard to describe what makes the model such a unique player. To me, he is the perfect mix of two previous powerhouses, Henry Nicholson and Benji Wilson: he has the boyish charms of Henry with the strategic mind of Benji, making him almost unstoppable.

His latest hilarious hijinks saw him picked first for a reward, where he searched for an idol while ignoring his family’s heartfelt video before diving headfirst into a pile of popcorn.

The entire scene on Australian Survivor was actual art:

Whether you love to hate him or just straight-up love him, there is something strangely alluring about a man so unashamedly manipulative. I am obsessed and I am not alone.

Viewers can’t get enough of David:

We chatted with the enigmatic player and picked his brain about his Australian Survivor gameplan:

On wanting to play the villain:

“I had a pretty distinct plan on what I wanted to do. I had a few specific strategies, but I was definitely planning on hamming up the villain role as much as possible.

“I’ve watched a fair bit of US Survivor because I live in New York and had watched previous seasons of Aussie Survivor and I kind of wanted to fill that loveable villain role because you don’t want to be the hated villain all the way.”

On his wholesome bromance with Luke:

“I felt like my biggest competition was Luke to be honest, but I was of the belief that I would play a bigger game than Luke and win it on the back of that. I wasn’t scared to play alongside Luke, we had this good synergy going where we weren’t scared of each other.

“I’m a firm believer in wanting big game players to go to the end and it was always my intention from the start to sit with Luke in the end,” he said, also adding, “We’re really good friends still.”

It’s the Australian Survivor double act we never knew we needed.

On giving Shaun the fake idol:

“I had seen it done in the US seasons. I think there was a guy David, ahaha David good name, well he had done a really good job of making a fake idol and actually planted it inside a coconut shell and left it for someone to find. They found it and played it at tribal council, so I had this fantasy of Shaun actually playing the idol at tribal council. I couldn’t think of a bigger television moment,” he told us.

“While it wasn’t the smartest move for my game longterm, it was just too delicious to pass up.”

David went on to say that he actually worked out the jig was up with Shaun during a convo with the ex-footballer that was edited out.

“They showed that long conversation I had with Shaun walking on the beach and the edit showed that I had said “He totally thinks it’s real!” but actually towards the end of it [the convo] he started telling me about Harry’s plan to make a fake idol using the tree mailbox skull and as soon as he mentioned that, I knew that he knew it was fake, so I did know then and there.”

On that hilarious popcorn scene:

We asked David if he even watched the message from his loved ones and it turns out he is a softie at heart. “I did get to watch it one time through. I had a legit cry that didn’t make the edit but then I got straight to business so it was quite a jarring experience.”

Many fans noted that David diving into the popcorn was reminiscent of last year’s Benji, who practically inhaled a plate of nachos. David said he wouldn’t take a thing back.

“No regrets at all. I know people are like “Gah, that’s so disgusting,” but one thing they don’t realise is that we haven’t been eating at all. I would have done way worse things or way more disgusting stuff if I needed to.

“It was a little homage to Benji. I always thought that was so funny just getting stuck into the nachos. You really are starving and I’m a pretty big dude, man. I need a lot of calories,” he told us.

“I probably would have picked nachos out of Benji’s teeth if given the chance.”

OK. Pls don’t.

On the bonkers response from fans:

“I’ve received a lot of messages. Some good, a lot of bad ones. I think people have been on a rollercoaster with love/hate with me. When the show first started rolling I was getting a lot of hate mail. Then they came around.

“I’m hoping it doesn’t go back to all hate mail but anytime you’re going to be that villain character, you’re going to be polarising. I think a lot of people were like ‘Ugh this guy is such a douche.’

It hasn’t all been negative though, with plenty of Australian Survivor fans thirsty for the supermodel. Shocker.

“I’ve gotten some very interesting proposals. A couple of marriage proposals. A couple of popcorn-related proposals. I’ve always tried to be good about responding to messages people send me on Instagram but it’s kind of gotten away from me, especially the DMs, I can’t even dig into it because there are just so many coming through.”

I can’t blame people. His charms are irresistible. We can’t wait to see what he does next!

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Australian Survivor kicks off Sunday night at 7:30pm on Network Ten.