Survivor 49 Winner Reacts To Big Win And [Spoiler]'s 'Crazy' Jury Question: 'Girl, What Are You Doing To Me?!'

The following contains spoilers from Wednesday's season finale of "Survivor 49"!

She started from the bottom, now she's here.

In Wednesday's "Survivor" finale, former reporter Savannah Louie outwitted, outplayed, and outlasted her peers to be crowned the Sole Survivor of Season 49. (Read our full recap here.) After tying the record for most individual immunity wins by a female, and defeating her No. 1 ally Rizo at the Final 4 fire-making challenge, Savannah headed into final Tribal Council with the same confident and blunt energy she served up all season long. Sitting side-by-side with Sophi and Sage, Savannah expertly articulated her biggest strategic moves, journey from the bottom to the Final 3, and why she was most deserving of the $1 million prize. She went on to defeat her competition by a vote of 5-2-1, with Sophi taking the runner-up spot.

Below, Savannah talks to TVLine about her big win, relationships with Sage and Jawan, dealing with past trauma on the island, and so much more.

TVLINE | First off, congratulations! What does it feel like to hold a secret for seven-ish months that you just won a million dollars?
SAVANNAH LOUIE | Oh my gosh, dude, it, I'll tell you what it feels like now. It feels like I've finally taken off this super heavy backpack and I can finally run around and jump around and scream and be so free. This is probably the biggest life-changing thing that's ever happened to me and to not be able to talk about it openly and freely, it's hard. It really is hard. You do have a network of people who you played the game with, who you can obviously share this stuff with, but having my family being able to celebrate, and just that freedom of, oh my gosh, I don't have to filter what I say about the season anymore. It's so nice.

TVLINE | Heading into final Tribal Council, did you think you had the win in the bag?
I mean, you've seen me. I feel confident quite a bit. Going into final Tribal Council, I did feel pretty good about my chances, and I didn't think it was going to be a unanimous vote because I knew there were people on the jury who didn't necessarily like me. But I did think I had enough people who were on my side to where I could pull it out.

TVLINE | Did any of the jury votes surprise you?
I would say the most surprising one was probably MC and in hindsight, you watch the season back and you hear her talk about when I tried to steal her advantage, and I totally get where her head is at and why she would not want to vote for me to win the game. But I will say, what I knew about MC at the time, she is such a fierce competitor, not just in her own training, but in life, and I really thought that she would respect my gameplay, which was at times a little intense, but I did think that she would appreciate the immunity wins and the physical part of it all. Obviously a miscalculation on my part, but everything worked out the way that it should.

TVLINE | You were in danger quite a few times this season. Which Tribal did you feel the most uneasy at and why?
Oh, that's such a good question. I honestly will say the Nate vote. I knew something was up and I didn't know where the votes were going to go, and I knew I had just tried to steal MC's idol, so I'm like, "OK, these people probably think I'm insane and they're kind of right." I was worried it was me, but I felt like it wasn't necessarily gonna be me, you know what I mean? I was surprised to see Nate go home. I wasn't expecting Jawan and Sage to flip necessarily, even though there were rumblings of it, but that was probably the one where I felt the most uneasy.

TVLINE | You tied the record for the most female individual immunity wins in a season! How did that feel?
It's so crazy, and I kind of told Jeff this when I was on the island, but dude, I was so laser-focused on winning. I felt like I couldn't necessarily reach that level of excitement. I don't know if it was something within me that kind of repressed any other emotion until I got to the end, but I just wanted to win so badly, and when you're that close — what was that, like Day 24? — you're so close to the end, it's like, I don't even care about these other immunities. Now that I'm very far removed from that moment being out there in Fiji and I can watch it play back, I was able to celebrate last night with my family. It's the best feeling. I feel like a winner. I feel like I accomplished something that I should be so proud of, and I'm so grateful to be part of this incredible group. I really don't have the words for it, but it's incredible.

TVLINE | How much was choosing Sage for the steak reward a bit of potential jury management on your part?
Dude, honestly, no. I know that sounds crazy, but I'm very much a person where what you see is what you get. What you heard in that confessional, that is 100% the truth. I knew maybe it's not the best strategic move to bring her on the steak reward, especially if I did want to take her to the end. Not take her to the end directly, but I wanted Kristina out at five. So then it's like, "OK, should I really be fueling my competition here?" But Sage and I had had a conversation earlier that day. She had gone the longest without food and I had just taken Soph and Rizo on the tacos reward. And I think also too, dude, I felt really bad [about] Sage's perception of me for a lot of the game. When I realized I was doing things that were hurting her feelings, I genuinely felt so bad and I spent a big part of the merge trying to apologize and make those amends. For me, it's beyond the game. Like, I'm sorry I hurt you, but woman to woman, game aside, I'm sorry. Just human to human, you know what I mean? So for the last reward of the season, Sage and I had had so many ups and downs, it just felt like the right thing to do to share that meal with her and to just sit across the table from one another and to see each other as maybe not necessarily friends, but as respected competitors and share that special moment.

TVLINE | Where do you think your up and down relationship with Sage began, and how are you guys today?
Watching the season back, one of the things viewers don't see is that I had an all-girls alliance with Shannon and Sage very early on. And I also had my Core 4 on Uli, but both of these alliances were very real to me. And you'll notice there's never a confessional where I say that the Core 4 is stronger than anything that I have with Sage because that's not the case. So when I learned that Sage was throwing my name out very early on in Uli, I was a little suspicious. I was a little bit hurt, but I still worked with her. To hear so many episodes in that she felt that I was this mean girl and that I was this huge threat and that she was throwing my name out as strongly as she was, it was a surprise in the moment of the game. Honestly, a lot of the things that she said were things that I could honestly say thank you for. She's calling me a fierce competitor, she's calling me strong. That's why I have to go like, "OK, I will take that compliment."

I will say, female friendships can sometimes be weird and difficult to navigate. I think it's a reflection of our society today, not to get too deep into the woods, but they can be a little tricky to navigate sometimes. Add in, you're on an island and you're starving and you're exhausted and everybody's paranoid. Of course, you're gonna have a little drama in there. As for my relationship with Sage today, we're not best friends, but I respect her so much as a competitor. I'm so proud that I was able to sit next to her at Final 3 because she played one incredible game, and I saw her last night. We exchanged a few words, and I wish nothing but the best for her and for her family, too.

TVLINE | Kristina's jury question. She asked you to name one family member or partner of each member of the jury. How did it feel to be in that hot seat, especially as she asked you to at least try to answer the question.
Dude, I was like, are you kidding me, Kristina?

TVLINE | [Laughs] She knew what she was doing.
Oh, she knew 100%! I will say, as a longtime fan of the show, as a viewer, I love that question. That is so fun and funny, and watching someone sweat is what "Survivor" is all about. But in that moment, I was like, "Girl, what are you doing to me?" Crazy question! But at the same time, if she wants to vote for someone to win the million dollars [based on] whether or not they can remember a family member's name, that's totally within her right. And I think that she also wanted to illustrate, or get some clarity maybe, on my social game, and I think that she got the clarity that she needed to ultimately cast her vote for someone else. [Laughs]

TVLINE | I have to ask: What did my boy Jawan do to get so much heat from you?
I know, and I felt so bad watching some of those confessionals back because Jawan is seriously one of the best human beings. He's the sweetest man, and he's just an angel. I will say what you're seeing, the 30 seconds of me complaining about Jawan taking my stuff or annoying me, that's a very small sliver of a 40-minute confessional, including confessionals where I spoke very highly of Jawan. And I will say, the thing that actually put Jawan on my radar very early on in the game was, I think it was Day 1, we were collecting bamboo for the shelter and I saw him looking for idols, and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I can't trust this guy with anything." Just from there, I feel like it's always smart to have someone who at least appears to be a threat. So, for me, unfortunately, that person was Jawan. As a human being, he is such an incredible man. I have nothing but great things to say about him, and I did feel really bad about the way that my confessionals came across because I don't want anyone to ever attack Jawan and to know that I was kind of doing that, I felt so terrible about it. So: Jawan's the best. Anyone who's giving him crap online can stop it and take it up with me. I'll defend him.

TVLINE | We saw a few players this season deal with some resurfacing trauma. You, in particular, spoke about a horrible experience you had at a past job. What is it about the "Survivor" experience that makes that stuff bubble up?
Dude, you know what's so crazy? I never thought I would be that person who's bawling their eyes out on TV and to be that person, it was wild. I went into the game with the mindset, "I'm gonna try to separate my emotions from any decision-making that I have on the island. I really want to be a logical player who's thinking with my head," and so I did really try to repress my emotions for at least the first half of the game. With the Nate blindside, I was feeling on the bottom. Left out. It was also not even that, but people did not want to talk to me. They didn't want to have anything to do with me, and I felt bad even talking to Soph and Rizo, my close allies, because I'm like, I don't want to tank their games too. 

So it was such an isolating moment that really paralleled a similar feeling that I felt in my real life. Obviously what I was experiencing in real life was much more serious and prolonged than what I experienced on the islands, but because those feelings, I think, were so similar and mirrored each other so strongly, it was just this wave of emotion that I had tried to repress before the game even started just totally broke. I was not expecting it, but I think ultimately, I'm really glad I opened up about that because it was hard, and I know a lot of people have reached out to me and said, "Hey, I'm dealing with something similar with my workplace," or "I've experienced this before." The hardest part about that is feeling so lonely and like no one sees you and you're worthless. It's so many bad emotions, and so if I could maybe even just help one person by sharing that, I'm so glad that I was able to do that.