YouTube Xander Hastings and Liana Wallace on Day 18 in "Survivor 41."
“Survivor 41” has its fair share of “secret scenes” – clips from the island that are exclusive to the Internet which didn’t make it to the air. Around episode 10, CBS posted one compelling scene featuring Xander Hastings and Liana Wallace, in which one admits that they fancy the other.
In light of Liana’s recent exit, she has given fans some insight as to what really happened in that scene, and whether there indeed might be some reciprocal infatuation between the two young players.
Here’s what you need to know:
The Secret Scene Sparked Hopes Of a Possible Romance
The secret scene featuring the two 20-year-olds was released by CBS shortly after the airing of episode 10 on November 24, and has been making its rounds online. Many fans were enticed by the chemistry between the two 20-year-olds, who were the two youngest on the island (contestant JD Robinson was also 20, but was eliminated in episode 4).
In the scene, which takes place on night 18 – the day after Naseer Muttalif’s blindside and the day before Shan Smith’s blindside (both with idols in their pockets), Xander goes searching for the idol that would have been re-hidden after Naseer’s unplayed idol went to the jury with him. Xander, however, who at this point is in the minority, is followed by Liana, who gets right up close and starts bothering him.
“Every time I go to reach for something,” Xander said in the scene, “Liana’s shoving me around, she’s pushing me all over the place. It’s little sister, you know, older brother tustling!” For those interested, Liana is about two months younger than Xander.
Xander, wanting to mess with Liana and knowing her insecurities lay in the knowledge that Shan was the true leader of their alliance, went to ask Shan to tell Liana to leave him alone, comparing Shan to the “mom” of the equation.
However, this situation led Shan to believe that there might be more to what was going on than met the eye. “I think they might be in love,” she said. “I’m a young adult pastor, this is kind of like what I do, and I honestly feel like they got the hots for one another.”
After Liana left, Xander admitted to Shan that he thought Liana was quite attractive. “I’ve said multiple times that I think she’s so attractive,” he told Shan. “If she knew how I actually felt about her, then she’d be like– it’s literally just like it’s all the strategy that makes her think that I hate her, but it’d be like, ‘no I just want to look for the idol in peace’.”
Shan then told Liana what Xander said, leaving Liana in shock and disbelief. Liana then admitted in a confessional that while it was “flattering,” she also shook it off as “complicated” and “ridiculous.” You can watch the full scene above.
Liana Addressed the Secret Scene in Post-Exit Interviews
YouTubeLiana reacts when she discovers Xander may have a crush on her in a “Survivor 41” secret scene.
The entire secret scene took place after a challenge in which Liana made some comments which went viral among the “Survivor” community. Staring angrily at Xander from the bench after dropping out of the immunity challenge in episode 9, she whispered to Evvie Jagoda, “I hate his– look at his face. I hate his face. I could die.” This led some fans to wonder what was really going on between the two.
Liana explained in a post-exit interview with EW that their relationship became strained over their many days on the island, because Xander never wanted to work with her and Liana could never find the right time to take him out. “It’s just time after time I couldn’t find a way to convince people that Xander was dangerous,” she explained. “And so that just followed me throughout the game. And so when I’m looking at him, he’s super excited about this challenge, and he’s like, ‘This is my challenge!’ I’m like, ‘Come on!’ All of this just led up to this moment. And so I was irritated in that moment for sure.”
She added that she was nevertheless close to Xander in real life, and had no hard feelings toward him. “First and foremost, in real life and outside of the game,” she said, “Xander is an amazing person. Super genuine, super kind, a complete sweetheart. And so to see how that was misconstrued in the game was kind of hard to see.”
She later added:
I think Xander played an amazing game, and what’s awesome about our relationship is that we both saw exactly what the other one was, and we saw how much each of us was a threat. So I respect the hell out of him. It does suck to be on the jury, but I played my hardest, he played his hardest, and he got farther than me in the end.
When asked about the secret “love scene” specifically, Liana said she laughed at it, and was amused at the revelation that the entire time he had a crush on her. “But at that point, I’m so fed up with him,” she went on. “I’m like, ‘I don’t care how big of a crush you have on me, I just want you out’ … So that was a funny dynamic. I think it’s a fun thing for people to watch and see, because it makes our season interesting, but that really like just made me laugh.”
She added in an interview with Parade that she was in a “really happy relationship with someone else” at the moment, so fans are unlikely to see a blossoming romance between the two anytime soon.
Be sure to catch the final two episodes of “Survivor 41” Wednesdays at 8 p.m. Eastern on CBS.