Q Burdette

While on Yanu, Q appeared to be a dependable ally who helped to hold his chaotic tribe together. However, his intense and domineering personality reared itself after the merge, and his hunger for power led to him infamously asking his tribemates to vote him out at the final ten after his strategic plan fell through. From then on, Q was put into social exile, but his apparent status as a public enemy provided utility as a smokescreen that facilitated three blindsides, each causing the victim to leave with a Hidden Immunity Idol. Ultimately, Q's increasingly tight bond with Maria Shrime Gonzalez became a cause for concern and he was blindsided in similar fashion at the final six, leaving with his idol unused.

Profile[]

Retrieved from Parade.com

Age: 29
Hometown: Senatobia, MS
Current Residence: Memphis, TN
Occupation: Real Estate Agent

Name three of your favorite hobbies: Fishing, riding four-wheelers/jet skis, building houses
List three adjectives that best describe yourself: Brave, polite, proud
How would your friends describe you? I think my friends would describe me as the crazy, risk-taking friend. They would probably add that I am the luckiest person they know. Most importantly, they would describe me as someone they can count on.
What risks have you taken in your life to make a change for the better, even if the outcome wasn't planned? I started taking risks early in life. Being 1 of 17 kids you have to take risks. Biggest risk that changed my life for better would have to be quitting my job to start my career in real estate.
What is the accomplishment you are most proud of? Being the first person in my entire family to graduate college.
What is something we would never know from looking at you? 1) I can eat 2 boxes of pizza in one sitting by myself. 2) That I can swim. 3) I am a joy to be around (what people tell me).
What past Survivor would you play the game most like? Bits and pieces from a lot of players.^[1]

Survivor[]

Q started the game on the Yanu tribe, which lost the opening Reward Challenge. Forced to earn their supplies by completing the "Sweat" challenge, the tribe nominated Q and David Jelinsky to perform the physically strenuous task, during which the two men formed an alliance. However, Q's trust in Jelinsky quickly dissolved once Jelinsky expressed that they should quit the task due to its apparent impossibility. After quitting the challenge, Q struck up an alliance with Tiffany Nicole Ervin and Kenzie Petty; despite Q's reservations, the trio pulled in Jelinsky to gain the majority on the tribe. However, Jelinsky's habitual non-commitment caused his alliance to lose faith in him, and ultimately Q joined the tribe in voting him out at Yanu's first Tribal Council. Yanu then went on an extensive losing streak, during which Q contemplated blindsiding Kenzie for being too much of a social butterfly, with Tiffany eventually coming to share similar sentiments. Ultimately, this plan never came to fruition, and Q joined his allies in voting out Jess Chong and Bhanu Gopal in turn.

On Day 11, Yanu finally won their only Immunity Challenge, after which Q was sent on a journey with Nami's Hunter McKnight and Siga's Tim Spicer. On the journey, the three men decided to align and each bring in one trusted tribemate to form a six-person alliance heading into the merge. Q opted to bring in his closest ally Tiffany, and the alliance came into operation during the Earn the Merge cycle. Although Hunter and his ally Tevin Davis were ready to share information about Nami's tribe dynamics with the Yanu trio of Q, Kenzie, and Tiffany, Tim was much more reluctant to do so, thus raising alarm bells with Q. Regardless, with the Yanus in the swing position, the alliance agreed to vote out a former Siga member, as their tribe appeared to be a more unified group than Nami, and settled on Moriah Gaynor as their first victim due to her lack of connections. However, Q's unease with Tim intensified during the Double Elimination, when Tim adamantly insisted on keeping his former tribemate Ben Katzman over Hunter. Perceiving this to be a betrayal of the "Journey Six", Q rallied the Yanus to vote out Tim, but not without going through multiple rounds of back-and-forth discussion with Kenzie and Tiffany.

Entering the final ten, Q had grown to be a commanding voice on the Nuinui tribe given his position as the pilot of the tenuous Journey Six alliance. To better size up his tribemates, Q invited them to play a game of "hide and seek", which led him to the conclusion that Ben and Hunter were possible threats moving forward. During the next Immunity Challenge, Jeff Probst offered the castaways a supply of rice if four people sat out; much to Q's frustration, the tribe refused the offer. After the challenge, Q remained restless as he campaigned for Venus Vafa to be voted out; however, when Tiffany asked for Maria Shrime Gonzalez to be voted out instead, an incensed Q attempted to turn the tides against her instead for breaking the alliance. Despite telling his tribemates about Tiffany's Hidden Immunity Idol to incentivize them to blindside her, Q was unable to gain traction for his plan as the tribe had settled on blindsiding Tevin on Liz Wilcox's persuasion. Overcome by guilt, Q declared impulsively at Tribal Council that his tribe should vote him out, setting off a chaotic scramble that caused Tiffany to find out that Q leaked the information about her idol. Despite the commotion, the vote ended with Tevin's blindside as planned.

When he returned to camp, Q was immediately cast aside by his tribemates, who felt a mix of disappointment and anger towards his conduct. Left firmly on the bottom, Q scrambled to try and get Hunter voted out; although Q's tribemates turned him away and refused to work with him, they agreed with the idea of blindsiding Hunter for being a physical threat, especially after he revealed that he had an idol. Using Q as a smokescreen, the tribe blindsided Hunter and, at the next two votes, similarly voted out Tiffany and Venus, all with idols in their possession. Notably, during this time, Q's relationship with Liz soured after he infamously opted not to bring her on the Applebee's reward at the final eight, prompting a memorable meltdown from the starving Liz.

After the series of dramatic blindsides, Q's standing in the game gradually recovered as he gained a new ally in Maria, the only person who had tried to maintain a connection with him, and also found a Hidden Immunity Idol. However, as Maria's primary ally Charlie began to notice her bond with Q, he started to poison the well against Maria and Q, rallying Ben, Kenzie, and Liz onto his side in the hopes of ousting them. This came to a head at the final six, when both Charlie and Maria intended to blindside each other without the other's knowledge. When Maria won immunity, Charlie set his sights on voting out Q instead. Although Charlie told Maria about this plan in the hopes of keeping her confidence, she believed that she had the numbers to blindside him and told Q not to worry about the vote. Placated, Q opted not to play his idol at Tribal Council and was subsequently blindsided, becoming the fifth person of the season to be voted out with an idol.

At Final Tribal Council, Q demanded an honest appraisal of each of the finalists' games, and pushed back on Kenzie's recount of events at the Double Elimination where she asserted that he had flip-flopped between multiple voting options. Despite his disagreements, he was swayed by Kenzie's explanation for what she wanted to do with the million-dollar prize and ultimately cast his vote for her, helping her to win against Charlie and Ben in a 5-3-0 jury vote.

Post-Survivor[]

• In May 2024, Q announced that he and his wife Emily were expecting their first child Ace.^[2]
  • Q's wife gave birth to their son on July 7, 2024.^[3]

Trivia[]

• Q is the first contestant in Survivor whose name starts with a Q.
  • Q also has the record for shortest name at 1 character.
• Q received the most votes of any contestant in Survivor 46, with 13.

References[]

Survivor 46 Castaways
Ben Siga	Bhanu Yanu	Charlie Siga	Hunter Nami	Jelinsky Yanu	Jem Siga	Jess Yanu	Kenzie Yanu	Liz Nami
Maria Siga	Moriah Siga	Q Yanu	Randen Nami	Soda Nami	Tevin Nami	Tiffany Yanu	Tim Siga	Venus Nami