Geo Bustamante Reveals Why He Told Karla Cruz Godoy About His Advantage

YouTube Geo Bustamante talks "Survivor 43" blindside

On the Wednesday, October 19 episode of “Survivor,” Geo Bustamante became the second castaway voted out of the Coco tribe with a three-to-two vote.

The elimination came as a shock to Geo and his ally Ryan Medrano who thought Cassidy Clark, the Texas-based designer, would be the one getting her torch snuffed.

Moments before Tribal Council, Geo told cameras, “Tonight, it’s gonna be pretty easy.” But little did he know he would be the one going home.

Geo’s “Survivor” downfall can be traced to one moment. The moment he decided to tell Karla Cruz Godoy about The Knowledge is Power advantage. The advantage granted Geo the ability to steal an idol or an advantage from another player simply by asking them if they had one.

Karla started to worry that Geo would use the advantage to steal her idol, so she convinced James Jones and Cassidy to vote out Geo this week instead of Ryan.

In his exit interview with Entertainment Weekly, Geo spoke about his decision to tell Karla about the advantage, revealing that viewers didn’t see the full story.

Here’s what you need to know:

Geo Wanted to Work With Karla

Geo told Entertainment Weekly that he wanted to work with Karla and thought he could use the advantage to earn her trust.

“Even after I found out that I couldn’t trust Karla, I really wanted to work with Karla,” he said. “So with me coming back from the journey, I wanted to share that with Karla, just to show her like, ‘Hey, trust me, I trust you. I have the Knowledge Is Power. Maybe we can work together. We can protect each other. And when the merge comes, we can fight the other people that are working against us.’ I mean, it obviously didn’t work out, but I was trying everything in my power to just stay there for another day if possible.”

Geo added that viewers didn’t see the full story. The editing made it look like Geo and Ryan foolishly believed that Karla and James were on their side but Geo told EW he knew Karla wasn’t on their side.

“I really wanted to work with Karla and I had even called her out. They didn’t show this either, where actually I went up to her and said, ‘Hey, I know you’re working with them and you’re not working with us, but I really wanna work with you. I think it could be you, me, and Ryan all the way to the end. We can protect each other,'” he told the publication.

Did Geo Know Ryan Was Going to Throw the Challenge?

Ryan caught heat from fans during Wednesday’s episode after he foolishly decided to throw the Immunity Challenge so the tribe could vote out Cassidy.

The move almost cost him the game and fans couldn’t help but call out the reckless decision.

“Ryan deserves to be voted out for trying to throw that. What a f***ing schmuck. #Survivor43,” one fan tweeted. 

“Ryan’s confidence on that episode was so hard to watch,” another user tweeted.

In an October exit interview with Parade, Geo addressed Ryan’s decision to throw the challenge. He told the outlet that Ryan had mentioned the idea to him but he didn’t think Ryan would go through with it.

“Ryan had mentioned, ‘Hey, what if I throw the challenge to just get Cassidy out?’ And I knew I could be going home because I’m still in the bottom,” he said. “I was like, ‘Can we just make it through merge before you start doing all this stuff?’ But I didn’t know he was throwing the challenge. He had mentioned it, but I didn’t know that he did.”

Geo added that if he’d known Ryan was going to throw the challenge, he would’ve intervened and told him not to throw it.

“Survivor 43” airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. Eastern Time on CBS and Paramount Plus.

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