And wait until you hear the truly ridiculous things he did in preparation to make sure it comes true.

Q Burdette says ‘everything in my path will be destroyed’ on Survivor 50

And wait until you hear the truly ridiculous things he did in preparation to make sure it comes true.

By Dalton Ross

Dalton Ross is a writer and editor with over 25 years experience covering TV and the entertainment industry. *Survivor* is kind of his thing.

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February 12, 2026 9:15 a.m. ET

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There’s no need to play a game of hide and seek if you’re trying to find the most chaotic player returning for *Survivor 50*, because that would be Quintavius “Q” Burdette. Whether he was engaging in schoolyard games on the island, sporting the latest in island fashion with his Q Skirt, threatening to quit the game after losing power in the tribe, or sending a contestant packing for her choice in favorite former player, Q set a franchise land speed record on *Survivor 46* for wildly entertaining lunacy.

And now he’s back to break that record. Or… maybe not. When * *spoke with Q in Fiji just days before filming began on *Survivor 50* (premiering Feb. 25 on CBS), the wild child seemed up to his old tricks, including a list of new childhood games he may import to the island (Freeze Tag, anyone?). But he was also self-aware, and talked about the need to sit back and blend in. (Good luck with that!)

Will other players take the 31-year-old Q out of the game to garner more screen time for themselves, as he predicts may happen? Why is Genevieve serving him poison? And why does anyone who has made it the end of the game before need to worry? We broke it all down with *Survivor*’s true Chaos Agent, and got an exclusive update on the next generation of the Q Skirt while we were at it.

*(This is one of 24 deep-dive, on-location interviews with the *Survivor 50 *cast. Links to the other interviews in the series will be posted at the bottom of this article as they become available.)*

Quintavius 'Q' Burdette of 'Survivor 50'.

Robert Voets/CBS

**: Tell me why you're going to win *Survivor 50,* Q. **

**Q BURDETTE:** Because I'm going to be the most adaptable player out here. The first time I played, I wanted to be in control from day 1 all the way till the end, and that got me voted out. And I understand that you can't win the game in 17 days, but you can damn sure lose it. And I did in season 46.

So my strategy this time is to just to be different. I want to relinquish the control to others to make their target bigger and then those last eight or nine days is when I want to come in and do my thing. So I think I'm going to win just from the standpoint of I'm going to be the most adaptable player. My game is going to change the most. They're not going to know which version of Q they're going to get until the game starts.

Q Burdette on 'Survivor 50'.

Robert Voets/CBS

**Give everyone the big life update since you last played *Survivor*.**

I got my first baby boy, my son Ace. He's 10 months old now and I haven't really left him. This is my first time leaving him for more than 24 hours at a time. So this is big for me to be able to step out here and do this. Still involved in selling real estate, but just not as heavily involved as I was the last time that you guys had seen me on TV. But other than that, still the same old Q.

**Why come back and do this again? And was it hard leaving your kid?**

I left 46 with an idol in my pocket with a whole bunch of what ifs. What if I would've played it? What if I would've used my idol more publicly to scare 'em off a little bit? Well, I can find that when I come back, and I'm back because I want that victory.

I want Jeff to read my name at the end of this game, and I want that opportunity for my son to be able to see it. So that's why I came back. It's very difficult to leave him because my son, he's a daddy's boy and I'm a baby's daddy. And it's one of those things where he sleeps with me every single night. We let my wife sleep downstairs peacefully while me and Ace rumble upstairs. His smile just lights up when I walk in. And I'm missing that over the course of these next five to six weeks and you don't get that time back. I'm going to miss it, truly.

**You know this all too well when you get out on the island and then you're not eating and you're not sleeping and it's an emotional roller-coaster and your emotions are amplified. Are you worried that you're going to be thinking about your kid at home while playing the game?**

I'm not, because I've mentally prepared myself ever since the day I got the call to be mentally strong. But I really made it a point to practice pain tolerance and just being mentally engaged in there. I sat in cold water every single day, 35 degrees, eight minutes, up to my neck. And I go in the sauna and I sit in there at 180 degrees for 25 minutes. And standing on a bed of nails just to endure pain.

I'm here because of him. My son being born has really allowed me to say, *You know what? Everything that I do now, I want to do it for him*. So I'm not going to get to day 11 and miss him. Which I've told myself in my letter: It's okay to miss home. It's *not* okay to *go* home. I've told myself it's okay to lose the game. It's *not* okay not to have fun. So it's all these things that I've told myself it's okay and not okay. And I just have to remind myself of that every day that I'm out there.

It's okay to win, it’s *not* okay to lose yourself trying. So it's just all these things that I've been telling myself for months I get to now put on display out there on the island. I think the relationships that I build day 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, up until whatever day it hits me, it's what's really going to push me over the edge and get me through.

But it's one of those things that I know it's coming. Some of these folks think it's not going to come. I mean, the people from 49, I'm not sure what they went through, but they haven't gone through people who are really going to come after 'em the way we are. Can they deal with it? The group from 48? I mean, what are you going to do, Kyle and Kamilla? You can't hide that story here again. So there's so many things that these folks aren't ready for, where I've mentally prepared myself for just about everything.

Q Burdette on 'Survivor 50'.

Robert Voets/CBS

**Let's talk about that in terms of the 46 people. There are three of you, and you all have a complicated relationship. So does it help you that those other two are here or does it hurt you?**

It's one of those things where you don't know until you get there, because on one point you can look at it and say: *Well, there's two other trios here. So this makes up nine of the 24. What are you going to do? Just vote all nine of us out just because of that? Then what are you left with?*

So then it's a side of saying, *Okay, how we left the game, maybe they think we're not on a level to where we can play together.* Which I don't know if we are or not. I have to figure that out as well. But when I figure that out, how can I conceal that if we are playing together or exploit it if we're not? I want to work with Tiff.

**Do you think she wants to work with you?**

I would hope that she would want to work with me because listen, this is an opportunity for us to do something special in front of the whole world. We work together, we have a big fallout, we don't speak much after, then we can come back together and still be one and make it right. That's what I want me and Tiff's story to be about. When we're out here, we're going to make it right. That's going to be my pitch to her. Whether she buys it or not, I don't know, but Tiff should have nothing to worry about for me.

Because my strategy going into the game is real simple. If you've ever sat at the end in any capacity and given your speech to the jury as to why you should win, whether you won, lost, whatever — I'm coming after you, You're not getting a second chance at it. This is not your redemption story. This is not your road to legendary status. If you've won once, I'm going to put an end to it, but I also have to use some of those players to get some of those numbers down to what is in my favor and the other folks who haven't had that chance. So Tiffany don't have anything to worry about.

Hopefully I can sell that idea to enough folks to where that makes sense for them in their game and we can run the game and play together. And if that happens, you're looking at the winner right here, baby, because it's my plan.

Q Burdette on 'Survivor 50'.

**So you want to take out anyone that's been to the end. Who are some of the other people besides Tiff that you might want to work with?**

Kamilla made it to fourth. I think she's an easy sell. Do you want to do this thing for yourself this time, or do you want to kind of go to the end for you? I really like Genevieve. Genevieve's the type of person that'll put poison in your coffee and bring it to you and convince you to drink it in front of her. I don't want her bringing me poison. I want her to take the poison out. So I want to work with them.

If we go over to the old school folks like Ozzy who's played for the fifth time, but never been able to reach that. I want to bring Ozzy to that position. I know it's going to take more than winning a challenge to beat me at the end. I promise you, I'm a hell of a talker. I can tell a story and especially if my plan actually works, how can they defend that? I don't mind working with Cirie, but I know I can't take Cirie all the way till the end. I'm sorry, Cirie. You're somebody that I think they would just give it to, and I can't allow that. But she's someone that they would look at before they look at me, hopefully.

So some of these players that most folks want to target early on, I want to protect and bring under my wing, and I want to get rid of them on my time and my dime. But the first 17 days of the game, I want your plan to be the plan that we go with. I want to kind of sit on my hands a little bit. Like I said, you can't win it in 17 days, but you can lose it. I want to elevate their plan in their game to where by day 17, everybody's looking at them and now we're picking 'em off one by one. The last nine days of the game, it's all mine.

Q Burdette on 'Survivor 50'.

**How do you think the other players see you? What do you think they're telling me about you today?**

I think they're saying Q is very unpredictable. He's chaotic. Because that's what they hear. That's the last words that Jeff said to him. But I also think they think, *Oh, he's a big personality.* And for some of these folks who haven't been on TV in a while, maybe in their mind they're thinking about TV time. *If we get rid of Q, we get more TV time.* Hopefully that's not how it works. But I think that's what they're thinking.

But some of them may be thinking: *Well, if he's so unpredictable and he's so chaotic and he's so crazy, how can I use that to my advantage? How can I use him as a shield that everybody else can look at and say, look at him, not me*? And that's what I'm hoping happens when we go into the game. But see, here's the thing. It doesn't matter what they think above me before the game starts. So it doesn't matter what I think of any of these players because here's the saying: Everybody has a game plan until the ball is kicked off and somebody's getting hit the mouth.

**Mike Tyson style.**

We're going to drop our feet in the sand, the tribes are going to separate, the people you thought that you wanted to work with are going to go one way. And now how do you make your bed? Do you have to work with Q now? So whatever game plan we think we have, it really doesn't matter. It's going to start day 1.

And I guarantee you this: I'm not going to make it easy to get rid of me. Ask the 46ers. It's not that easy. And I'm not going to give 'em a reason to. I'm going to be the most polite, I'm going to be the most helpful, the most encouraging, the most team-like player that they've ever seen on this island. And they're going to look around and say “What chaos, what unpredictability? This guy's here. He's doing what he says he's going to do. He's helping around camp, he's showing and he's encouraging everybody.”

But they don't know that I'm just sitting on my hands a little bit because it's going to come a day where I'm going to wake up and everything in my path will be destroyed.

7:23 The Cast of ‘Survivor 50’ Reveals Who They Want to Vote Out First

**Everyone has an Achilles heel though. What's your biggest weakness in this game?**

**That's a great answer. Explain that.**

When I get bored, I do stupid s---. When I get bored, you see the A, B, C game. You see hide and seek. When I get bored, you see the Q skirt, and I don't need to get bored to where one of those moments happen and it reminds everybody *That's the Q we thought we would get. That's the Entertainment Q. That's the Chaotic Q. That's the one we can't predict.* I have to stay in a state of being okay being bored, because when I get bored, stupid s--- happens.

**It's a great answer though, Q, because so much of *Survivor* is just sitting there and it's boring. They edit it down to make it look exciting and there's something always happening, but there’s so much downtime. So does that mean no hide and seek this season?**

It doesn't mean no hide and seek. I just have to try it in a different manner. Have to maybe say, “How about this? I'll go hide and all y'all come and try to find *me*.” So I have to try to disguise it. It might not be hide and seek. It might be freeze tag. You know what I mean? You never know. It might be red light, green light. So it's just one of those things where it's going to come a time where I know I'm going to have some fun, but I have to make sure it's at the right time where I know for a fact I have enough ammunition to make it through the day.

Q Burdette of 'Survivor 50'.

**Did you pack a Q Skirt?**

I packed a Q Skirt. But picture this: The real Q skirts is going to have one of these bad boys in it. [Points to fan around neck] It ventilates! It blows air. It's going to be in the hood part of it, and it's going to have little window and it's going to blow on you. I brought this just for you and I only brought it for you. The others haven't seen this yet. You get the exclusive of what's going to be inside the real Q skirt!

**Sounds like the perfect Christmas gift. Speaking of which, did you celebrate Christmas this past year?**

Oh, *I* did, but I don't know if everybody else did. This season here is going to be more than Christmas canceled. If you got a wedding that's on the back of this season, you can cancel it if you think you're going to win. If you got a date you're planning when you get back home because you think you're going to have a good time and you're going to win this one, you can cancel your date. Ladies, you got a hair appointment? Cancel it. It's not going to happen. I will literally target people for anything — literally *anything*.

I saw Dee. Dee is nice. I want to work with Dee up until the point to where I don't want to work with Dee. But I saw Dee's big toe. Dee's big toe is bigger than all her other toes. And I'm thinking, like, *I'm a feet guy. I can't play Little Bitty Piggy with those!* You know what I mean?

Colby Donaldson, Genevieve Mushaluk, Rizo Velovic, Angelina Keeley, Quintavius "Q" Burdette, Stephenie LaGrossa Kendrick, Kyle Fraser, Aubry Bracco of the Vatu tribe on 'Survivor 50'.

Robert Voets/CBS

**Any personal regrets from the last time you played?**

I took a day off the day I went home. I regret that because normally I'm alert. I'm watching everything. That day, I was cool, collected, calm, had an idol in my pocket. I just was trying to be as small as I could be. *Maybe they'll forget about me.* I should have been Q. I should have pulled my idol out then and said, “You know what? If you got any ideas of voting for me tonight, you can cancel Christmas. I'm playing it. I'm making it to the finale.” And I would've spooked Charlie for sure, and I would've spooked Liz and Kenzie in my mind. Ben probably still would've voted for me.

But those three right there, they were terrified of going home. So I can't take the day off. I regret that. I don't regret not playing my idol because I told myself before I went to Tribal I wasn't playing it. But I do regret taking that day off. I should have listened more. I should have watched more. I should have listened more at Tribal. So I'm not going to take any days off this season.

**And you're not going to volunteer to go home this time, are you?**

Absolutely not. And I wrote that in my letter: It's okay to care for people. It's not okay to care more about them than you care for your game. So I'm not offering myself for the benefit of someone else. Can't do it, won't do it.

'Survivor 50' Cast.

**How much pregaming did you do before you came out here with the other players?**

It was one of those things where I didn't do a bunch of pregaming, but I had DMs and I had likes on my pictures and I was liking pictures and commenting and checking in over here. And we're looking at the rumor cast list. So pregaming naturally happens that way. But a lot of folks reached out to me, people who aren't even on the cast. It was like, “Hey, I got this person who's on the cast and they really like you.” I'm just like, “Well, tell 'em I really like them too.” Simple, easy.

But again, it doesn't matter if you pregame if [you] don't know how the tribe breakup is. Then you get out here and emotions run high. This person does something stupid. Although you came in there saying, “I want to work with you,” now everybody else is against them. What are you going to do? Stick your neck out for them because you got a pregame alliance? You're not going to do it. So it don't matter.

Q Burdette of 'Survivor 50'.

Scott Duncan/CBS

**How do you handle these two 49 players you know nothing about other than what you saw in the trailer?**

Here's my theory about the 49 people. One of them had to win because there's two other winners on this season and if it's going to be three tribes, I would think they would bring back three winners and have a winner on each tribe. So now I'm thinking they was on the same tribe. So either they were enemies or they worked together. But what's going to tell me a lot is if Kyle is on one tribe and Dee is on the other tribe and one of the 49ers are on the third tribe, that's my winner.

Working with the 49ers is almost like somebody saying, “Hey, you're interviewing for a job. There’s a company here to see you.” You don't know what company it is. You don't know what they do or why they came, but they know everything about you. That's not an interview. That's not a meeting. That's a plot. They gonna take you somewhere overseas, and you're never coming back again. That's how I feel about the 49ers.

I don't know anything about them. They know everything about me. It's not good for my game, it's not good for my circle. Let's get 'em out of here unless this winner comes clean and says, “I was the winner and that person right there, we worked together.” And they're willing to do that, then maybe I can see myself trying to work with them.

**Finally, as a fan, who are you excited to see out here?**

I'm excited to see Cirie work. I'm excited to see kind of how she cook up her potato salad. She be cooking out here. I don't understand how they let her cook like that, but she does it over and over and over again. I'm excited to see Colby. The last time I saw him, Coach was kicking his ass all around this island. Now they're both here. Who's going to win this time?

Not excited to see Aubry because Moriah from my season went home for liking Aubry. It was her favorite player. Now Aubry's here with me. So if Moriah can go home for liking Aubry, should Aubry go home for being Aubry? That's kind of the thing that I ask myself. But it might be a thing where Aubry and I can hash it out and work together and it can be in my benefit.

I'm excited to see Jonathan and Ozzy have a swim-off. My ideal start would be us on a boat and the one where you gather all your things and you jump off and out into the water. There's something I want to see — Ozzy and Jonathan jumping off that boat and swim at it against each other. That'd be awesome. That'd be dope. Because I'm not jumping off that boat and swimming out there. You can have it. No, not happening.** **I'd be on this boat trying to find that advantage, because I know one is hiding somewhere.

*This interview has been edited for length and clarity. *

***Want to be kept up with all things Survivor? Dig deep and sign up for 's free Survivor Weekly newsletter to have all the latest news, interviews, and commentary sent right to your inbox. ***

**Other *Survivor 50 *deep dive player interviews:*****• Survivor 50* star Ozzy Lusth opens up about hitting 'rock bottom of my life'**• *Survivor 50* star Aubry Bracco opens up about the 'freedom when you fall from grace' **• Colby Donaldson reacts to playing *Survivor* for the first time without Jerri**• Angelina Keeley refused to do *Survivor 50* unless they gave her a jacket**• *Survivor 50*'s Coach goes deep on evolving from an 'arrogant ass' into the… Tide Walker?** • *Survivor 50* star Jenna Leiws-Dougherty is 'here to f--- you over in every way, shape, or form'** • Cirie Fields says winning *The Traitors *does not take sting out of *Survivor* loses** • Mike White on how he is handling *Survivor 50 *castmastes angling for *White Lotus* cameos** • Chrissy Hofbeck opens up about controversial season 35 finish and being bashed by previous cast** • Rick Devens explains why he is a lunatic that wants to play with other lunatics** • Stephenie LaGrossa Kendrick wants to prove that 'mom really is a badass'** • Christian Hubicki wanted to tell Survivor 50 pre-gamers to 'f--- off'** • Genevieve Mushaluk on why watching *Survivor 50* will be more terrifying than playing it** • Dee Valladares welcomes being one of *Survivor 50*'s biggest threats: 'I want them to come for me'**

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