Survivor's Jaime gets the boot

TOO CLOSE: Survivor victim Jaime Dugan says her relationship with fellow competitor Erik Huffman contributed to her elimination.

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Survivor evictee Jaime Dugan believes her growing romance with a team mate contributed to her embarrassing elimination from the reality TV show.

Jaime was left red faced after her post-merge Survivor: China eviction when she produced what she hoped would be a hidden immunity idol during tribal council, only to watch host Jeff Probst toss it into the camp fire.

Speaking exclusively to Stuff.co.nz, Jaime said she knew it was the wrong idol and had tried to swap it for one of tribe mate James Clement's after rifling through his bag.

"At the point where I played it I was almost positive it was wrong," Jaime said. "I wanted to take both of James' (idols) but I was not allowed to. The producers would not let me - it’s against the rules."

Jaime said her growing romance with Zhan Hu tribe mate Erik Huffman - who surprised the 22-year-old student by admitting he was a virgin - contributed to her elimination.

"I think that had something to do with it. He and I were really close friends out there (and) they felt they had to break us apart. He was really sick, so for individual immunity I was the bigger threat."

Jaime wouldn't be drawn on whether she and Erik were still an item, saying they were "keeping in touch as much as possible".

"He’s in a band touring across the country and I’m at university. We really like each other and he’s a great guy so we’ll have to see what happens in the future."

Jaime called the experience "amazing" but said she struggled with the lack of food.

"We were eating mouldy rice and snails most of the time. We found snails and boiled them in mouldy rice and that was our meal. It’s gross, they’re pretty chewy and crunchy when you bite into them. It’s a really horrible texture."

And she said she had to fight against attempts to portray her as a "dumb blonde" stereotype.

"I think it took them a lot to really play that up. I could tell they (the show's producers) were trying to set me up for things. I think they wanted me to play up to the clichéd idea of what a dumb blonde is.

"But when you’re out there sometimes you just don’t care. When you’re in an interview and you're set up for a question you just answer it because you want to get out of the interview. I think I should have been more careful because they can edit things certain ways.

Jaime picked Peih-Gee, Todd or Denise to win.

*Survivor: China screens at 8.30pm on TV3 on Thursday nights. Stuff.co.nz will exclusively interview every contestant as they are eliminated. For more information, visit the Survivor: China website.