Sophi Balerdi came so close to winning “Survivor 49.”
At least, that’s what the jury told her after the final tribal council.
The 27-year-old entrepreneur exclusively told The Post that she learned the jury nearly voted for her to win over Savannah Louie — and that she definitely would’ve beaten Rizo Velovic had he made it to the final three instead of Louie.
“I was told by several jury members after the fact that they were 50/50 between me and Savannah, and that if Rizo won fire, I would have won,” Balerdi revealed. “And even before Jeff read the votes, Savannah turned to me and she goes, ‘You just won the game.’ And I was like, ‘What?’ So when I kept seeing my name being read, I was like, ‘Wait, I’m getting votes and l might win this thing. That’s crazy.’”
“And they [the jury] told me that that night. It wasn’t like watching it back they changed their mind or whatever,” Balerdi continued. “I got feedback soon after that. I think I would have stood a chance because I would have had an immunity win over Rizo. We worked together in a lot of the votes. I feel like I could have claimed a lot of the moves that we did.”
Balerdi, Louie and Sage Ahrens-Nichols made it to the final three during Wednesday night’s finale. After the trio pleaded their cases to the jury, Louie won the season with five jury votes to Balerdi’s two and Ahrens-Nichols’ one.
“I was surprised at how well I was doing and how well received my answers were to the jury,” Balerdi told The Post of her final tribal council performance. “I knew I had good relationships with them, and I knew that my game, because of my pre-merge, was respected, but the underdog story was really powerful. I was just looking for that last flashy thing to do, and that’s what my dilemma was with the Knowledge Is Power — taking Stevens’ advantage or taking Rizo’s idol.”
“But ultimately I didn’t feel super confident sitting next to someone who had won four immunities and won fire,” she added, referring to Louie. “I’m a very self-aware person. I’m not going to sit there and be like, ‘I had this in the bag,’ you know? So I went in there thinking it was going to be an uphill battle. And it was.”
Balerdi also revealed that after she won the final immunity challenge, she considered putting herself into the final four firemaking competition to try to eliminate Louie.
“I didn’t tell anybody what I was really thinking. I wanted to really sit and think about it,” Balerdi explained. “And that entire day I sat for hours by myself and I thought about it. It was only two options: Sav and Rizo, or me and Sav. I was strongly considering it because I knew that if the chance was that if Sav won fire, it was probably it for me.”
“But I did ultimately gamble with if Rizo wins it, I’m probably gonna win,” she said. “I think I just convinced myself that I deserved to sit in those final three seats because of everything I had gone through in the game. I feel like if you win final immunity you should sit at the final three. It would have been badass. And had I beat her in fire, I probably would have won too. There was paths there to winning, but again, shoulda, coulda, woulda. I’m proud of myself.”
