‘Deal or No Deal Island’: David Genat Reacts to Getting His ‘Survivor’ History Clocked by Dr. Will

The latest episode of Deal or No Deal Island ended on a major cliffhanger — and we don’t just mean the decision Courtney Kim a.k.a. CK has to make in the temple. Dr. Will Kirby finally started to lift the veil on David Genat‘s identity as a winner of Survivor Australia, which sent the contestant into a bit of a temporary tailspin.

Throughout the season, David has managed to keep his identity a secret from everyone except his biggest ally, Parvati Shallow, who has kept that information completely to herself. So how did David feel about being clocked by Dr. Will in that moment? And what’s next for him and the rest of the players when DONDI returns next week?

TV Insider caught up with David Genat to find out that and a few other behind-the-scenes details about Season 2 so far — and he teases a very epic rant ahead.

What went into your decision to team up with Parvati, and were you in full trust mode, or did you have reservations about her? 

David Genat: It was a tricky one because I’m a fan of Parvati. I’ve watched a lot of her gameplay. I’ve based a lot of my gameplay in Australian Survivor on what Parvati does. So the initial conversations, I was kind of like, “Hm. Are we doing this?” But as our relationship unfolded, it just became total trust. And that was really, really great because I’ve never had that experience at a game before. But it was one of these things where we both kind of really needed each other to move through the game. She’s overtly Survivor, and I was covertly Survivor, and she knew the secret. So we kind of both had this great Mexican standoff going on. But what a dream to get to play with your Survivor idol.

Speaking of your Survivor background, obviously, in this last episode, you had a little bit of an existential crisis. Can you talk about what was going on with that? And did you consider telling people? 

Yeah, I definitely did in that moment where I was feeling really frustrated, I felt like Will might have cheated. Like Will had found — it just seemed too out of left field for me that he knew, and so spot on with what he said. And I was like, “Something has happened. Will has cheated in some way.” And I had a pretty big meltdown — a little bit off-camera because I don’t like to do those on camera. But I had pulled Parvati aside and I was like, “Listen, something has happened. He has done something.” It was too perfect, too out of the blue, and Will is very smart, to his credit. But I definitely thought something had happened. It just seemed not kosher.

And so I’m going back into that temple, and that was more — of course, I was a bit upset about [Maria-Grace Cook] leaving, but I was more like, “This guy’s done something to blow my spot.” And at that point in the game now, I’ve been lying to people for almost 10 days. So that’s gonna be huge if they find out that I’ve actually been misrepresenting myself. It blew my whole spot, so I was kind of just triaging, like, “Do I tell them? Like, I think it might be better to just like get it off my chest now. Honesty is the best policy.” So I was kind of going through that thing, and fortunately, with Parvati, we have that close kind of relationship and she chilled me right out. She was like, “No, don’t do that.” And so I didn’t. But a lot of that frustration you’re seeing with me was from being like, “Oh, Will has somehow cheated and found out.” Unfortunately, he’s just whip-smart.

So there won’t be a revelatory moment with a Will call-out like with Parvati for you? 

Oh, I can’t do the spoilers, but… Yeah, it’s I mean it’s not, it’s not good. It’s not good what happens.

With Parvati, were you ever worried her friendship with Phillip Solomon would interfere with your alliance, or was he kind of like an unofficial member?

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I had a really great relationship with Phillip. You’re not really seeing that too much, but Phillip and I were actually pretty close. So Phillip’s relationship with Parvati wasn’t — I wasn’t worried about that. I liked that relationship because I also had a good symbiotic relationship with Philip. I was more worried about Pavity’s relationship with CK because CK was quite contentious for me and we were butting heads a lot. And multiple times I was saying to Parv, like, “We gotta cut CK.” She was like, “No, no, I need CK. She has to stay.” And so we were kind of like, “Oh, right, Well, if you have your person, I have my person, that’s the person I want to look after.” But unfortunately, my people have started to get chopped already. MG was gone. So then I moved on to La Shell and was like, “All right, well, now La Shell’s my untouchable number one.” But the relationship with Phillip was really good for me, and we had a bunch of stuff in common and had good chats, and so I wasn’t really worried about Phillip’s relationship with Parvati… Although at this point it was starting to fracture, which is what I think started to drive Parv more towards CK. So in that regard, I was like, “Well, I guess Phillip will be more in my corner from now on. That’s good.”

Going back a bit, I wanted to ask about Sydnee Peck. How did you thread that needle of like dealing with this kind of fan girl? And what happened to her? 

Sydnee, she’s a really nice person, she just came in so hot, and my gameplay is to work with girls that are interested in me. This is kind of what I’ve done is what I’ve done in my fashion career. I’ve had to have so many fake relationships and play that… 20 years in the fashion business, we were selling, “Oh, you know, I’m always around women making it look like this is real,” so I’m quite good at doing that and I’ve leveraged that in most of the games I’ve played. And so with Sydnee, it was just really easy to ramp that up. And then when I watch it back, I’m like, “Oh, I do feel a little bit guilty ’cause I was really playing into it with her.” I was really laying it on thick. I know you saw me breaking the fourth wall a few times, but I was laying it on pretty thick with Syd. And I just think as a first-timer, it’s hard to sometimes distinguish the game from what’s actually happening. Whereas for me, it’s all game.  Anything we do when we’re filming is just the game. But yeah, Syd kind of bought into it.

I’ve messaged her since and just been like, “Hey, you wanna get it out of your system? You can say whatever you want to the press and da da da da.” And I think she seems to be in a pretty, pretty good spot.

As his “dad,” were you disappointed by Dickson Wong’s decision to go after Storm Wilson?

No, that was the plan… I knew what was gonna happen. We had kind of worked on that, and to Dickon’s credit, he was like, “This is what I’m thinking of doing,” and I was like, “Yeah, buddy, that’s how we should do it.” And I know there’s been a bit of confusion about that, but it stemmed from Storm becoming an ally of Dr. Will’s. So I knew Will was my enemy, and we had to try and take him apart as best we could, and you see this thing where people are frustrated with Will.  They’re getting really frustrated, I’m weaponizing them against that, trying to make it a bigger deal than it actually is. But there was one person that really was bought right into Will’s schtick, and that was Storm.  Storm was laughing along with him, joking with him, really liked Dr. Will, thought he was cool, was like, “No, actually this is kind of funny that he’s doing that.” I’m like, “No one’s allowed to say that out loud, Storm, this kid’s gotta go.” So it was really Storm’s tight relationship with Dr. Will that made him a big target, and yeah, Dickon delivered.

I mean, I thought it was amazing. It was a genuine blindside. And I know they made it seem a bit sad and stuff when Storm left, especially for MG, but it was so good. I think after that temple I ran out was like away from the crew and was like gave like a huge [shout]. I had so much adrenaline because there’s been all these little parts to the plan that had to fall into place. And it was way more satisfying than a Survivor blindside, ’cause it’s so much harder to pull off in Deal or No Deal Island. ‘Cause not only do you have to have all the parts and players in place and things are going and the alliance, he also has to win the case game, which he won in huge fashion and then totally blindsided Storm. So it was just incredible, and I love it when a plan comes together, and that’s kind of what happened. But Parvati and I were in on that whole thing, so that was the plan.

Monty Brinton / NBC

Did you have any expectation that it would blow back on MG though with Dr. Will? 

Yeah, I think so. But the thing with MG is that we were having our little jokes about her being in the family. She was probably my number one ally. So Parv had Phillip, and I had MG. We were in the same dome together, got along great. She is so, so awesome and a great person to play with because, again, she had that kind of frantic energy. But the thing that MG wasn’t probably doing as well was having big conversations with me on camera. I think she was a little bit scared of the gameplay or being seen playing game with me. So in the domes, we were really, really tight, but kind of on the beach and da da da, she maybe kept a little bit of her distance, so I thought, “I wonder if Will realizes we’re as tight as we were.” And then I found out later on that Will and Phillip had been having a conversation with MG where they were like, “Would you ever consider getting rid of David?” And she was like, “No, absolutely not, I’ll never get rid of David, he’s my number one.” And so then I was like, “Oh, why MG?”

Were you surprised that Alexis Lete went along with your plan to jump for Phillip and for her to jump for you? 

No. Lete’s an amazing archetype where she really has this thing of like, “I’m an honest game player,” even though you can’t be honest in these games. At some point, you’re gonna have to tell someone a lie somewhere along the line, but she really is conflicted about wanting to be honest and do the right thing. And I think you even hear her say something in the game when she was like, “This is a game of integrity,” and I was like, “Wait, is it? It is? Damn, that’s not how I play.” Oh boy. So I just knew like if we cut a deal, she was always a woman of her word to a T. And it’s kind of a strength for her, I guess, in real life, but in the show, I thought it was a huge weakness. So it was a really easy play to leverage her on that thing. I didn’t for a second think she wouldn’t jump for me.

So the initial consequence of that was CK’s reaction and like outing kind of that plan with Phillip and Seychelle. Were you actually surprised by that, or did you kind of know that that was going on? 

I knew some stuff was going on. We knew what was happening, and then she’s got the greatest game player of all time in her ear, being like, “Yeah, you should totally blow that up at the temple.” There was definitely stuff happening in that dome. They had more beds than the other domes. That’s why you see that’s a slightly bigger alliance, but it’s just how it goes. People are gonna be tight with the people you wake up with in the morning. Sometimes there’ll be some fractures and whatever else, but CK was in a completely different dome to these guys, she’s sleeping with Parv — those guys are sleeping with Will, so we knew those divisions were happening. And I just think that CK kind of feeling like an outsider from that main alliance and then it being so in her face, and then having Parvait be like, “Yeah, but I thought we were playing together,” yeah, it was just perfect. Perfect storm, perfect storm.

Speaking of that, this episode left on a cliffhanger. What can you tease about like the resolution of that? 

Oh boy. I will tell you this, the single greatest — and look, we saw Phillip go Harriet Tubman just before the end drop — an even greater rant happens before the next temple exit. One of the greatest reality show rants I have ever seen in my life… I’ve actually never seen anything close. To be there in person was quite the experience, so I think it’s gonna translate to the episode.

As of this season, we’ve now seen a Big Brother player and then a lot more Survivor players. Who has the advantage when it comes to this game among the alums and why? 

Oh definitely Survivor. Big Brother is not on the same level as Survivor, it’s just not. And I say that as someone who’s being bombarded by Big Brother fans right now because they love Will. But it’s just not… Big Brother‘s just — the strategy is not the same, it’s just not as good.

Deal or No Deal Island, Tuesdays, 9/8c, NBC

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