'Survivor 45' Runner-Up Austin Li Coon Gives an Update on His Relationship with Dee

Austin Li Coon

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.

If there's a way to describe Austin Li Coon's game on Survivor, it would be a sandwich. The two pieces of bread represent his exterior, the smiley, fit "surfer bro." They obscure the true meat of Austin, the MBA student who showed off his knack for numbers and initiative to acquire advantages. Unfortunately for Austin the sandwich, Dee Valladares ate him up. After the two developed romantic feelings for each other at the tail end of the game, it complicated his strategy, causing him to not only expose big moves but also get left out of them. Austin and Dee went to the end together, as he got to live out his preseason fantasy of a Boston Rob/Amber All-Stars ending. Unfortunately for Austin, that came with the same outcome, as he lost to Dee in a close 5-3 jury vote.

Austin described himself as a "chameleon" coming into the game who could get along with everyone. And so he and his strength ingratiated himself into Reba early on. He formed a tight twosome with Drew Basile, and they eventually brought in Dee and Julie Alley. The four worked together to help Austin acquire his first idol. And the momentum continued for hjim after the swap. He and Drew got close with Emily Flippen, bringing her in as a vote on their side not only in a tense swap dynamic, but for the rest of the game. Additionally, Austin got sent on a journey, only to be denied food for "Advantage Amulets." Regardless, he chose to make a meal out of the situation. Using a combination of his and Drew's advantages, along with the power the Reba four immediately came to at the merge, he sat at the Final Nine with two idols, and seemed to be the top amongst the top dogs.

Unfortunately, that's where things began to spiral for Austin. Paranoid of a twist, he gave one of his idols to Julie, only for her to make it her permanent property. That was the icing on the cake that was Julie's threat level, and the whole tribe mounted an attack against her. Against Drew's wishes, Austin decided to tell Dee about what was to come, as his kindling feelings for her felt it was right to do. And, while Austin did succeed in flushing his own idol out of the game, it came at the cost of losing a tight ally in Emily. It got even worse for Austin the next round, as Dee did not return the favor, purposely leaving him in the dark on the Drew vote.  Austin confidently played his amulet on himself, only to see his number one get blindsided.

But all this did was draw Austin closer to Dee, to the point where the two sat beside each other at the end. The island lovers did not pull any punches, as they spent final Tribal Council talking up their own games while taking shots at the other. In the end, Austin's initiative, relationships, and success in mitigating his threat level--the only player to never get a vote against him--earned him three jury votes. But, like showdowns in challenges past, Dee emerged victorious once more after revealing to Austin what she was doing behind his back in front of the jury.

The day after the finale, Austin talks with Parade.com about his surprise at jury votes both for and against him, how he reacted to Dee's reveal about telling Julie to play her idol, and the current status of their relationship.

Related: Read our Survivor 45 pre-game interview with Austin Li Coon

Hey, Austin! How are you doing right now? I know you had to watch yourself lose out on a million dollars again. But I also know the entire cast got together in person to watch the finale, so that must have been nice.
Oh my gosh, yeah. We had the most incredible viewing experience. We went to the Cobra Theatre in L.A. They had this massive, massive screen. Everyone is so tuned in. Producers were there, the rest of the cast is there. It was amazing. It was the best way to watch the finale. It was a good time. I mean, we've had seven months to process everything. And, because of that, I was able to just go in and completely enjoy it. And to have such a nice bow to the end of the season, I'm nothing but thankful and grateful for the experience. And it was an epic episode. So no complaints here.

Well, this was obviously not the ideal outcome for you, but maybe the second-most ideal. You end up getting three out of eight jury votes, the closest a runner-up has come to winning since Domenick nearly ten seasons ago. What was your reaction to the final vote? Any jury votes you were surprised you did or didn't get?
Going into final Tribal, I knew is going to be an uphill battle for me. Whenever we went to Tribal, just looking at the jurors, I didn't really have a lot of friends out there. I came in with my immunity necklace, the only person smiling at me is Drew. You see Dee come in, everyone's looking like, "Oh, yeah. Let's go Dee!" So I knew it was an uphill battle. But at the same time, I really felt that if I had an opportunity to tell my story, to explain the moves that I did. I feel like I had a lot of these under the radar moves, a lot of these moves that happened in the middle of the game where people are kinda less tuned in to exactly what's happening. I felt I could beat anybody. So I was able to flip a couple of votes. Kendra, I was a little surprised. And she told me after that she went into final Tribal planning to vote Dee. So being able to flip that that was really awesome. 

Going into that final Tribal Council, to your point, you were able to talk up a lot of your game, which impressed the jury. But, at the same time, Dee lands a couple of punches on you, most notably dropping the bomb that she had told Julie to play the idol. So what was your reaction to how things were playing out at things progressed?
When bombs get dropped the final Tribal, you just gotta roll with it. Obviously that was a blindside, but I'd be like, "Oh, yeah, whatever. Not a big deal." And try roll on with it for the rest of Tribal Council. There was a part of me who thought, "Okay, yeah. There is a chance Dee would tell Julie." During the game, I convinced myself, "No, that can't have happened." For multiple reasons. But I think the big one was the fact that I knew that me telling D was a big risk. And if hse ended up telling Julie, then I kind of get the blame. It's my fault Julie knew. And so I was like, "Okay, it's way better for my game if it wasn't D that told Julie." So I kind of convinced myself that we're gonna go with the story that you didn't tell anybody. So when she told me that, "No, I swear my parents I didn't tell Julie," I'm like, "Okay, fine. I believe you. And even if I didn't believe you, I want people to think that I do."

So it was a gut punch. It's a fantastic move. And that actually happened earlier on in final Tribal. That happened pretty early on. And at that point I'm like, "Okay, I need to go into overdrive to sort of make up for that." And a lot of my big arguments that I was making actually happened afterward. So I kind of felt like the wind was sucked out early on. But I kind of was climbing my way out through the rest of the final Tribal.

Going into the finale, you were just blindsided by Dee, wasted your amulet, and lost your number one ally in Drew. And a lot of us were speculating on if you would keep working with Dee. What made you decide to forgive her and keep working with her? Did you ever debate turning things on her in the finale?
I think I was definitely considering a lot of options at that point. But, when when you get blindsided, the worst thing you can do is go back and get pissed off at everyone. If you're not willing to work with other people, then they'll vote you. I knew I was going to be in an interesting position where I could potentially be in the middle between Julie and Dee, and Jake and Katurah. So I wanted to make sure that I didn't burn the bridge with Julie and Dee. So I went back to both of them and was like, "Listen. I understand as a game move. I'm back with Reba. Reba three, let's go."

And I did have a lot of like genuine honesty when I was saying that. I was planning on voting Katurah at Final Five up until five minutes before we left for Tribal. And at that point, I knew I was playing too much with my heart. I wanted to keep Julie there because, in the previous two votes, I kind of could mentally blame Drew and Emily for my voting for Julie. So it hurt less for me to write down her name, because we got really, really close. I love Mama J. So at Final Five, it was like, "This is my decision voting for her," which made it even tougher. Five minutes before Tribal, I was like, "This is what I have to do. I have to vote for Julie now. It's way better for my game right now." So that's ended up being what happened.

Let's talk about some of these relationships that helped you nearly get the win. I want to start with the unknown. We certainly found out a lot about your workings with Dee and Drew. But what other bonds were you making outside of the Rebas that you felt were the most important to your game?
I mean, I think the biggest, most obvious one is with Emil. Early on, me, Drew, and Emily came up with the Final Three. And that was definitely a path that I was really considering. We had a really good bond, and we would talk all the time and had a really good personal strategic partnership together. Kendra voted for me, which I think a lot of people were kind of shocked [about]. But we had a really good relationship, too. We had this "deep dish alien alliance" that we made at New Belo. We were going to work together towards the end. Obviously, that didn't end up being what happened, but we had a really great relationship. I love Kendra. They didn't show that I also had a good relationship with Jake. Once Bruce was gone, I had a Final Three with everybody left in the game, essentially. And I feel like I was talking strategy with everybody in the game and had a decent relationship with pretty much everyone too. But they mainly focus on the inner Reba dynamics.

Well let's do the same here. I want to start with Drew. Was your dynamic as simple as the JT and Stephen "brains and brawn" dynamic that the show depicted? And, had he not gotten blindsided, did you plan on going to the end with him?
I said it in the finale, I had two number ones: Drew and Dee. And, at the end of the day, I was treating them both at the same level. I was gonna play my idol on Drew and I was gonna bring him to the end, even if it wasn't best for my game. Because we had this Final Two alliance really early on, and we had such a close bond. He was really my best friend out there. 100% I would have played my idol on him if I'd known. If Julie or Dee came up to me at Final Seven being like, "Hey, let's vote out Emily," just like Dee told Julie, I was gonna tell Drew the exact same thing. That's how close our relationship was. I was gonna go to the end with him. We wanted to JT/Stephen, it. It didn't end up happening that way. But it was a really, really close bond and connection. We're still best buddies. 

Now let's get to the heart of the matter with Dee. It really seemed to come out of nowhere for us in the edit, only popping up as a storyline around Day 20. Was that the case on the island as well? Because I know Kendra in the after show was talking about how you would speak about her during the tribe swap.
There were a few moments. One moment--Dee kind of talked about this in the after show--is when we got separated at the tribe swap. There was definitely a shift in energy. I did miss her and being around her. She was really, really good to be around, really funny. We'd laugh together, have really good conversations. And New Belo kind of sucked. It didn't help that those were the toughest days out there. Physically, we were starving. And we had to go to our first Tribal Council, so they were tough. We got rained out an entire night. So I started [thinking], "Oh, I kind of missed this person." But I didn't really think about missing Dee. I missed Julie too. I missed everybody.

I think Day 20 really is true to what happened. Because on Day 20, that night, it rained the entire night. And Dee and I were next to each other on the bamboo. And it got really cold. We're kind of huddled up next to each other, locked arms and stuff. And we're like, "Okay, this is kind of nice." And then we did that the next day. It rained for like four hours. And then the next night, perfectly sunny, nothing was wrong, clear skies. And we're like, "Okay, well, that was kind of nice. So why don't we just do that again?" So I think that's when that really kicked it in. But I guess there are parts throughout the game. And you kind of see it too, if you rewatch it. I knew what was gonna happen, so I was kind of attuned to this throughout the season. There are moments where you can definitely see that there's some feelings there.

You made the Rob and Amber comparison to me in the preseason and on the season proper. But in that case as well, it can draw a lot of attention onto the two of you as a pair, which we saw in this finale. Were you aware how you were coming across to the other players? And how tough was it to negotiate that while also catching feelings for someone?
That was a big reason, I think also, why it came out so late. Both Dee and I were so focused on our game. Showmances are just an instant disaster. If that comes out, you're done. They're gunning for you. I think that really pushed it so far back. And by Day 20, I think we were in such good positions at that point in the game, that we felt really comfortable [being] like, "Okay, what are people going to do at this point?" But at the same time, most of the time during the day, we never really talked or hung out too much. We didn't want to spend too much time alone. So most of our times hanging out was at night when people were asleep. And we do have our two-hour-long conversations together, talking about strategy and life and whatnot.

So we did our best to keep it under wraps. And it's kind of funny, because you see at the after show, Jeff's like, "Oh, who knew that this was happening?" Everyone raised their hands. Come on! Really?! Then we would have been voted out way long ago. But now I think we did a really good job of hiding it. And that's why it worked really, is just because we put our games first before the showmance or anything. And you can see that. She took out my number one; I took out her number one. But, like you said, you can't really stop feelings. You just kind of have to play around them.

Now, from the public eye, things have certainly been hidden. Can you give an update on what's been happening between the two of you in the past seven months?
Things are going great. I mean, honestly, we've seen each other so many times since the end of the season. We've hung out. We've gone to all these different watch events. And I've visited in Miami; she came to Chicago. But, for the most part, I think we kind of want to keep this side private for now. I mean, things are going really, really crazy. And I don't think we're quite ready yet to deal with the ramifications of announcing anything. So we're gonna keep that private.

I'm reading between the lines. You're just gearing up to go on The Amazing Race next season.
[Laughs.] I mean, I'm down.

Finally, you were the only one to never receive a vote against you the whole season. What do you most credit to that success?
I think I did a really good job of making people feel that keeping me in the game would be better for their game. One of my biggest strategies going into the game and focus point in my strategy was threat management. I knew just being a bigger athletic guy, I would immediately have eyes targeting me. So the moves I made had to kind of be under the radar. I had to sort of have relations with everybody and make them think that they needed me in their game, which is why I kind of went up to everyone and made sure they're like, "Listen, we have a Final Three pact with each other to the end. This is why I want it to be you." And I think I was able to convince a lot of people that they were in my long-term plan. And because of that, if any word came out of my name coming--and I think that only really happened once with Julie--people immediately shut it down.

Next, check out our interview with Drew Basile, who was voted out in Survivor 45 Episode 12.