Survivor: Cagayan and Survivor: Cambodia

Did Kass McQuillen and Spencer Bledsoe ever make up?

Kass McQuillen told SheKnows on 6 November 2015 that she and Spencer Bledsoe had made amends for Cagayan. They spent the 2014 season on opposite sides after she flipped at the merge, then played together on Survivor: Cambodia the next year. Her word for it was a marriage of convenience.

Confirmed The Cagayan conflict and the Cambodia alliance are both on the broadcast record and in contemporaneous reporting. McQuillen's own 2015 account of the reconciliation is quoted from a named interview. The harsher lines attributed to Bledsoe circulate in unsourced summaries and are marked unverified here.

Kassandra McQuillen Kassandra McQuillen Spencer Bledsoe Spencer Bledsoe

What the record shows

  • Confirmed On Survivor: Cagayan in 2014 McQuillen flipped at the merge and became the deciding vote against her own alliance, which put her and Bledsoe on opposite sides for the rest of the season. CBS News recapped the flip the following day.
  • Confirmed Bledsoe finished fourth in Cagayan and McQuillen third. CBS News reported that she won immunity late, set her sights on ousting him, and succeeded, and described the Cagayan jury as sometimes hostile.
  • Confirmed The hostility was still live before Cambodia filmed. In a pre-season interview published 10 September 2015, McQuillen said of Bledsoe: "MALIGN! I'll write your name down any minute." In one published 27 August 2015, Bledsoe said the two were "not super tight" and that being perceived as tight hurt him more than it helped.
  • Confirmed They worked together anyway. McQuillen told SheKnows on 6 November 2015 that the alliance was "a marriage of convenience, but it was a making of amends and moving on," that they "had to both get over the past," and that "I think we've made amends for Cagayan."
  • Confirmed Cambodia ended very differently for each of them. McQuillen was the seventh castaway voted out, on day 19, and sat on the jury. Bledsoe reached the final three and finished runner-up. No juror voted for him: Jeremy Collins won ten votes to zero.
  • Unverified Lines attributed to Bledsoe calling McQuillen a horrible person, or a bitter and awful person, circulate in fan summaries. No interview, transcript, broadcast or archived page carrying either quote could be opened, so the wording, the date and the venue are all missing.
  • Unverified McQuillen is also often described as later calling Bledsoe brilliant and saying she loved him. Targeted searching did not surface an opened primary source for those exact words, so this page quotes only the 2015 interview language it could retrieve.

The Cagayan half is real

The antagonism is not a fan invention. In the merge episode of Survivor: Cagayan, which aired in April 2014, McQuillen left the alliance she was in and became the deciding vote that sent Sarah Lacina home. CBS News recapped it the next day and put the obvious question directly: why leave a position that was secure for one where she would presumably be at the bottom.

That single vote set the shape of the rest of the season. Bledsoe was on the wrong side of it and stayed there. He finished fourth, voted out on day 37. McQuillen finished third, on day 38. CBS News's finale recap notes that she won immunity, set her sights on ousting him, and succeeded, and describes the jury that season as sometimes hostile. A separate finale recap in the Baltimore Sun described Bledsoe as bitter at the final tribal council and noted that he declined to ask the eventual winner a question, making a speech to the jury instead.

It was still live going into Cambodia

Anyone assuming they had quietly patched things up before the second season should read the pre-game interviews. On 10 September 2015, in a word-association segment with Gordon Holmes, McQuillen's response to Bledsoe's name was blunt: "MALIGN! I'll write your name down any minute." She also said that Bledsoe and their Cagayan castmate Tasha Fox had bonded over their view of her.

Bledsoe, interviewed by the same writer on 27 August 2015, went the other way on the question fans were asking. Told that a noticeable minority thought he and McQuillen were secretly close, he said they were "not super tight," and that the perception hurt him more than it helped, because being read as her ally was a liability going into the game.

What McQuillen actually said afterwards

This is the part most retellings drop. Asked whether the bond with Bledsoe in Cambodia was genuine or a play, McQuillen told SheKnows in an interview published 6 November 2015 that it was both. "It was a marriage of convenience, but it was a making of amends and moving on," she said. "It was two people who love the game saying, 'Let's not blow our second chance because of something we did two years ago.'"

She was direct that the Cagayan account was closed. "We knew, that if we wanted to embrace this second chance, we had to both get over the past," she said, adding that they respected each other as players and that "I don't think either of us has an ill thought about each other from this season and I think we've made amends for Cagayan." She was candid about how she got there, too: before the game she had hoped somebody else would vote him out so she would not have to, because she did not want to be the person who got him twice.

How Cambodia ended for each of them

The alliance did not carry them the same distance. McQuillen was the seventh castaway voted out of Survivor: Cambodia, on day 19, at a tribal council that split four ways. She spent the rest of the season on the jury. Bledsoe made the final three and finished runner-up.

One detail is worth stating plainly so it does not get misread as a lingering grudge. Bledsoe received zero jury votes in Cambodia. So did Tasha Fox. Jeremy Collins won the season ten votes to nothing, which means no juror voted for Bledsoe, not that one specific juror withheld a vote from him.

The quotes this page will not repeat

Two of the most-shared lines in this story could not be sourced. Summaries frequently have Bledsoe calling McQuillen a horrible person, or a bitter and awful person. No interview, transcript, broadcast segment or archived page containing either phrase could be opened, so there is no date, no venue and no confirmed wording behind them. They are repeated here only to say that they are unverified, and they are not treated as things he said.

The reverse is also worth flagging. McQuillen is often described as later calling Bledsoe brilliant and saying she loved him. That framing is consistent with what she said in 2015, but targeted searching did not turn up an opened primary source for those specific words, so this page sticks to the interview language it could actually retrieve. Both castaways are living, and neither the affection nor the animosity should be overstated past the record.

People in this story

Questions people ask

Did Kass McQuillen and Spencer Bledsoe make up?
Yes, by 2015. McQuillen told SheKnows that November that they had to get over the past to use their second chance and that "I think we've made amends for Cagayan." They played as allies on Survivor: Cambodia.
What started the Kass and Spencer feud?
Her flip at the Survivor: Cagayan merge in April 2014. She became the deciding vote against her own alliance, which left Bledsoe on the outside for the rest of the season. CBS News recapped the vote the next day.
Were they still hostile before Survivor: Cambodia?
Yes. In a pre-season interview published 10 September 2015 McQuillen said of Bledsoe, "MALIGN! I'll write your name down any minute." Two weeks earlier he had said they were "not super tight."
Did Kass McQuillen vote for Spencer Bledsoe to win Cambodia?
No juror did. Jeremy Collins won Survivor: Cambodia ten votes to zero, and both Bledsoe and Tasha Fox finished with none. That result was unanimous, so it says nothing about any individual juror's view of him.
Did Spencer Bledsoe call Kass McQuillen a horrible person?
Not on any record that could be opened. That line and similar ones circulate in fan summaries with no date, venue or source. No interview, transcript or archived page carrying the quote was found, so it is treated here as unverified.

Sources

Checked on 2026-07-26. If something here is wrong or out of date, we want to know: get in touch.