Hayley’s at pains to rewrite Survivor history

Adelaide’s Hayley Leake knows history is against her as she heads into her second Australian Survivor as the only former winner this season.

Adelaide’s Hayley Leake knows history is against her as she heads into her second Australian Survivor as the only former winner this season.

“I have a huge target on my back,” she says.

“There are a few winners who have gone back for a second shot at the title and I’m pretty sure both of them went at the first Tribal council.

“The good thing is I know that is my weakness. So I can use it to my advantage.”

Leake is joining the side of good in this Heroes v Villains series. The 10th season, with former Adelaide boy Jonathan LaPaglia at the helm, has headed back to the tropical climes of Samoa, after two years in the searing heat of the Australian Outback.

“It was a big deal for me that it was being filmed in Samoa – I grew up watching (the US) Survivor for the last 20 years on an island.

Hayley Leake. Picture: Nigel Wright

“And that’s how I always imagined it. Australia was great, but I want to, you know, wave a palm frond and crack a coconut.”

She’s also hoping to crack George Mladenov – aka King George of Bankstown – again. They’ve become quite good friends since she outplayed, outwitted and outlasted him in their season, winning the votes in the final tribal council, but Leake knows Mladenov thinks he was robbed and will be gunning hard for her.

“It’s easy to blindside someone you don’t know,” she says.

“I’m going in with people who I do know – and I know their partners, families, their hopes and dreams. It’s hard then, to be ruthless in a way that Survivor requires,” Leake says.

It’s been a massive couple of years for Leake since being crowned sole survivor for the reality show’s Brains v Brawn season. She moved back home to Adelaide, bought a house, got engaged to partner Jimmy Meegan, started renovations. Oh and she’s a doctor of pain after completing her PHD in pain research.

She’s confident that research will help her game plan.

“I think research helps me be quite objective and to strip everything else away,” Leake says.

“It’s hard when you’re starving and it’s raining and you’re just questioning your existence.

“But I always try to entertain the mindset before the game and if you’re going to win it, you have to vote everyone out at one point.

“It’s just the order that they go home in. and they have to go home in the order that best suits your game to win.”

Australian Survivor, Monday, 7.30pm, Ten