Hannah Rose Gives the Breaking Point that Led to Her Quit on 'Survivor 45'

Survivor 45 is here! Every week, Parade.com's Mike Bloom will bring you interviews with the castaway most recently voted off of the island.

"For me, a lot of the prep has been emotional. I purposefully read books that were about resilience, in terms of emotional resilience, physical resilience, mind over body kind of stuff. And then a lot just grounding, mindfulness stuff, because I think that's gonna give me a huge edge. If I'm able to just stay grounded out there, because I think people lose their marbles."

That's what Hannah Rose said to me one day before she entered Survivor 45. Unfortunately, as she said herself in her final words, any edge she thought she had through prep and mindfulness promptly went out the window when she hit the sand in Fiji. At the end of three days, she was left with no supplies, surrounded by some of the biggest characters of the season, and in the wake of several emotional breakdowns. And so, she became one of the aforementioned people to "lose her marbles." Rather than staying grounded, Hannah chose to fly the coop, deciding to quit the game at Tribal Council to prevent a vote from happening.

Hannah came into Survivor with confidence in her interpersonal skills from her work as a therapist. But that promptly slipped away like Brandon Donlon on a ladder once the reality of island living set in with her. Luckily, she was able to find a confidant in the similarly struggling Brandon, as the two ended Day One emotionally overwhelmed about the conditions. The Lulu tribe's struggles continued when they had to face the first vote of the season. Chaos erupted at camp, with Brandon announcing he would be playing his Shot in the Dark, while Emily Flippen took a shot at the strength of the tribe, fearing a power couple emerging. But, in a game full of blindsides, Hannah had the biggest of all. In an afternoon of gaming, she saw that, if she stayed, someone was guaranteed to go who wanted to be there more than her. And so, she ended up dictating the outcome of Tribal Council, telling Lulu that she's leaving the game and making a beeline back to reality.

Now out of the game, Hannah talks with Parade.com about when she decided to quit, who would have left Lulu if a vote was done, and an unseen visit from another tribe before Tribal Council.

Related: Read our Survivor 45 pre-game interview with Hannah Rose

Hi, Hannah! Wow, I didn't even recognize you at first. You changed your hair color so significantly. You're a redhead now!
Yeah, I don't want to be recognized. So I was like, "Let me dye my hair."

[Laughs.] Well, no matter what the color, I'm glad I get to talk with you today, because there's a lot to get into. In your final words, you said you already had fear and anticipation that the world was going to hate you from your decision to quit. Last night, you were able to watch it back and see you make this literal million-dollar decision. How have things been for you the past 12 hours?
Well, I will say watching it was the absolute best experience. I had my favorite people in the world over. And it was surreal. I was crying happy tears. Just being able to watch the duo of Brandon and I being shown on TV. I mean, I said in my OG interview during pregame, "This is a guy that I want to be friends with." And so to watch it play out, I loved it. Um, so the show itself watching it was great.

I'm not on Instagram. I'm not on Twitter. Finding me on the internet is easy, but it's not like the regular channels. And yeah, the amount of vitriol and hate, and then waking up today to specific attacks on my business that have nothing to do with the show. Like, "I wouldn't trust someone like her." And I literally wrote, "Hi, thank you for your feedback. Just to clarify, this doesn't have to do with the business? This is because you watched the founder on a reality competition TV show? Just wondering." So anyway, it's just been like, "Whoa, here's why I don't have social media." I mean I woke up like an hour ago to a lot of this stuff. So it's very fresh, but I regret nothing.

Well let's get more into your decision to quit. Suffice it to say everyone was thrown off at Tribal Council, ourselves and Jeff included. At what point did you officially decide you were going to leave the game? Did you let anyone in on it before Tribal?
Oh, everyone was let in. I mean, from day one, crying. It seems silly when you're in the comfort of your home. But when you are ripped from everything that you know, and you have not slept or eaten zero food. People are like, "Yeah, but what did they give you behind the scenes?" Nothing! And we don't have food. So I was very much struggling with, "Oh, my God, like, what did I do?" Shock. And I've seen that in people in past seasons, Courtney Yates, Aubry Braco, people I relate to, and they've pushed through it. And that's what Brandon kept telling me, "This is normal. You're gonna push through it." And I think I could have, but I didn't want to.

So it's going back and forth. In my head. I talked to Brandon a lot about it. I did talk to Kaleb about it. And I couldn't control my emotions, which was very new for me. I just could not stop crying on that island. So I'd be crying, and then I'd be laughing and having a great time. Whatever the opposite of grounded is, I felt that. And so I was going back and forth. Like I shared in one of the confessionals, one minute, I really want to leave, and one minute, I'm like, "This is wonderful, I'm on Survivor, etc." When we lost the Immunity Challenge, I was waiting to feel fear. knew they weren't going to vote me out. I thought they weren't gonna vote me out, because they said that as much.

So I kept going back and forth. Kendra came to the island, so much happened. And then we were at Tribal, and I was quiet for a long time. There was the whole Emily/Sabiyah back and forth, which was much longer than you saw. And then Jeff turns to me and starts asking me questions. And I had felt a drop of rain on my left arm a moment earlier. And I was like, "No, I would not go back to that camp." Because what you didn't see was it had monsooned for hours, and we had no shelter. And again, when I watch it on TV, I'm like, "It's temporary pain. Just get through it." No, no. I don't want to.

So let's say you had literally weathered the storm and not left the game there. What was the plan going into the vote? We saw Emily, Brandon, and Kaleb's names all get thrown out. Who would have gone on Lulu?
So the whole thing was, "It's going to be Emily, it's going to be Emily." And I felt badly because Emily and I really connected. I love Emily. But this is this is my problem, right? I'm like, "Oh, I like you. I can't vote for you." Not a Survivor player. I didn't know until I got out there. And so it was Emily. And then Brandon, in a state of panic was like, "I'm gonna play my shot in the dark." So Sabiyah was like, "Brandon doesn't trust us. It has to be Brandon." 

And my brain is not working. I don't know how these people were even making articulate sentences and strategizing. I was like, "Can we just open a coconut?" [Laughs.] I could not think of anything else. I don't know how people do it. I  remember we were about to go to Tribal, and I looked at Kaleb and I said, "But what about dinner?" So then it was gonna be Brandon. And then I said to Sabiyah and Kaleb, "I will not write his name." Again, it's day three. And I was like, "I refuse to write Brandon's name down." I wouldn't I love that man. I love him. I mean, you saw him talk me off a cliff. It happened many times. We just connected. I just love him. I would die for him.

And then Kendra came, and Kendra had this secret vote. I really feel awful for being so unfiltered in my judgments of Kendra before the game started. She is amazing. I was in the wrong, I want to own that. And so Kendra came, and I was like, "I can't do this. I cannot meet a new person who is happy and energetic. I am a ball of misery." [Laughs.] And I walk to the jungle and was like, "No, I'm not doing this." And so there was just this whole plan in place.

So I knew for a fact it was either Emily or Brandon. And Emily was looking at me on the way to Tribal being like, "Promise it's not me." And I remember looking at someone else on the tribe, because I knew it was gonna be her. And I knew that if for whatever reason, if it wasn't her and Kendra's vote was actually to Brandon, it was Emily or Brandon. And I saw and knew how much they wanted to be there. And that's why I don't personally understand all of the hate being like, "You took up a spot of someone who could have been there." I left so that the people in my tribe could keep playing, and so that I could sleep and eat.  I don't regret it at all. And they got to keep playing as a result. And I would never forgiven myself if one of them went home and then I just pretended to be into it for the next couple of days to save face on TV. That's not who I am.

At the end of your first day breakdown, we saw you say that it was probably from nicotine withdrawal. I was stunned to say the least, because we didn't talk about that at all in the preseason. How much do you think that factored into your decision to leave?
Whether it was caffeine withdrawal, nicotine withdrawal, sleep withdrawal. I mean, I did not sleep one minute because Kaleb and Sabiyah snore so loudly, so loudly. And it's already hard to sleep. And I sleep with earplugs, a sleep mask, a sound machine, a fan. Why did I think I could go on Survivor. It's delusion. It's "delulu" is what it is. I was on the right tribe.

So, yeah, the days leading up to the game, I was like, "I'm going to I'm going to quit. I'm going to wind down." I just did nicotine patches up until I think two days before the gam. Also, I was drinking coffee up until the game started. Me and caffeine have a love affair. Me and nicotine have a tumultuous relationship. My parents are watching and I'm like, "Oh, it's nicotine withdrawal!" And they're like, "What do you mean?"

But I think there are so many factors, complete deprivation via an island, being on TV. I'm not an "in the spotlight" kind of person, despite my rambunctious personality. I don't even know social media. I'm like, "Don't look at me." And so it was a lot. But I do think that nicotine withdrawal piece added to the emotional ups and downs. I could not stop crying. And I was not expecting that. I mean, you could see on the barge in that very first challenge, Brandon's sobbing, and I've never met him. But I'm sobbing. And everyone's like, "Yeah, let's compete." And I'm like, "Jeff Probst!" Even though I could not anticipate what that experience would have been like, I just couldn't. And so yes, that could have played a role.

You mentioned it before, but Jeff revealed on his podcast that there was a twist that didn't make the edit, where one member of Belo got to visit your camp before Tribal and even cast a vote in private. Talk to me about having Kendra there amidst all the chaos happening that we saw. And did you know that she was casting a vote at the time?
None of us knew that Kendra would have a vote. I mean, we didn't know she was coming. And so when she came, everyone was like, "...Okay." It's exciting. It's a new person. And I was like, "No, I don't want to talk to her." And then we found out we're both Libras. And I was like, "Oh, wait, I actually like you a lot. And I was such an asshole. Oops, sorry." And I said that to her. I was like, "I'm really sorry for talking [expletive] about you." She was like, "It's totally okay." I was like, "Wow, you're so cool."

So I didn't know she had a vote. But then she really connected with Sabiyah and told Sabiyah she wanted to work with her. And so they talked about the vote. And I learned all of this after the fact. But that mood was Scramble City. I just remember, everyone was scrambling to talk to each other. And I was like, "Why don't I care? Where are the [expletive]? I don't have any to give." I didn't make a mistake. And I didn't regret it. But I didn't anticipate that would be my reaction to everything. It's just when I'm hungry, I shut down. And you know what? I didn't know that. Now I know. Sorry.

Next, check out our interview with Jeff Probst following the Survivor 45 premiere.