'The Circle' Season 7 Spoilers! Runner-Up Kevin Fernandez Breaks Down His Most Controversial Decisions

Warning! The interview below contains spoilers for all of Netflix's The Circle Season 7, which aired in September and October. Please do not continue if you do not wish to be spoiled on who was blocked in those episodes.

Like any good alcohol, Kevin Fernandez knows the power in a name. And it's safe to say his brand on The Circle Season 7 was the most talked-about in the game. Kevin rose to power early as an influencer alongside "Gianna" (AKA Jojo and Nicky Scarlotta). He got to the top of the ratings because of his relationships, both with his bros "Andy" (AKA Heather Richardson) and Darian Holt, as well as his flirtmance with Savannah Miller. But if Kevin proved anything this season, it's that those bonds tended to break in the pressure cooker of the influencer room.

His first time as influencer, Kevin bent to Gianna's hard sell, shockingly blocking Savannah (and ending his job as future dog stepdad). Curly-haired Kevin was now in a hairy situation, with Gianna calling him out on his betrayal, and "Rachel" (AKA Deb Levy) coming for him in abstentia. But Kevin never gave up the fight, making unlikely bonds to proceed in the game. Not only did he avoid blocking, but he actually found power twice more as influencer. Most notably, Darian picked him to sit alongside Gianna with his "Disruptor" power, only for Kevin to strike up an alliance with his former enemy and block Darian. Despite being acknowledged as power players, Kevin and Gianna once again made it to the top two positions in the finale. However, Kevin was a non-permed hair short of the prize, getting the silver medal. And, as he tells me, the loss may be his own doing.

Read on to hear Kevin's thoughts on his time in the game. And check out Parade.com throughout The Circle Season 7 with the various players and catfishes alike.

Related: The Circle Season 7: Everything You Need to Know

What's your history with The Circle? How did you end up getting on the show?
So my history was watching The Circle really was COVID. My brother, my brother's best friend and I, we work out together; we played basketball together. But we got to the point where we were staying near sick of each other, and were like, "Okay, what else like can we do around the house? We've already played enough basketball. We've worked out today. Let's see what's on Netflix." And we see this new show called The Circle. And we're not huge reality TV guys, but we thought, "Let's check it out." And it kind of turned in one of those shows where we watched the first episode and we're like, "That wasn't too bad. Let's check out the second one." And then next thing you know, we're going back and forth, texting each other, "Bro, are we getting back to the crib so we can watch? Let's go, let's go, let's go." 

Truthfully, I was really into the first season, and then watched some of the second season. But then, I was a busy guy in college. I was running a little track, still had that "school stuff." So those were the main seasons I watched. But I'm a competitor, and I always talked with my brother, "If one of us was on that show, I think we do pretty good." And so basically, one day I was working my beautiful 4:00 a.m. shift, and it creeped over to a 4:00 p.m. And I I knew that I wanted to do something different in my life. I always said since I was a kid, my parents worked way too hard for me to, in a sense, not do something great. And so I saw an Instagram post about The Circle, and I got flashbacks to COVID. And I was like, "This is so random, but I'm going to submit an application." So, sleep-deprived, caffeine high complete luggage of bags underneath my eyes, I submitted this 30-second video. I might have been delusional in it, to be honest. But I guess the curls were popping enough and the smile was smiling enough, and I just sent in a clip to Netflix, got a text one day. And then next thing you know, I was sitting in the apartment!

Well, you get off to a hot start when you become influencer for the first of three times. And, after a tense talk with Gianna, you end up making a controversial decision in eliminating your "flirtmance" in Savannah. Talk to me about how that decision came to be.
I knew you were gonna come in hot with this question! You and everybody in my comments. That's a great, great question. So going into The Circle, my loose plan was first and foremost to make an alliance with the bros. I have a brother in real life; all my friends are like my brothers. I know how strong that connection can be and how well I personally can work in that setting. So that was my first and foremost plan. So I had that at the number one. And second I was like, "Okay, we might be getting a little flirty in The Circle over here. So I want to have an alliance with a girl as well, so I can know what's going on on the girl side of stuff." So that was number one.

And then number two, once I got into that influencer room, every plan that you kind of have in place or in mind, for me, my mind went blank. I'm sitting in there. I see the gold cup and everything. I'm like, "Oh, mama, we made it to the influencer room!" And I really had like that bros number one. And then Savannah going in, as you guys know, was my non-negotiable. But the conversation starts moving really, really fast. And then for me, I thought to myself, "Okay, I have this bro alliance with Andy and Darian. If I block one of them, the other bro is no longer going to trust me. If I block Andy, Darian won't trust me anymore, then leading to Jadejha not trusting me. And then there goes the majority of The Circle. If I block Darian, then Andy won't trust me whatsoever, and everyone's going to know that I broke this code with the bros in my head."

I didn't think that many people knew about me and Savannah. I knew that Darian and Andy did because we were talking wedding plans over here, for crying out loud. So I was like, "If I block Savannah, how am I going to still have that connection with the girls?" And I figured, "I'm in the influencer chat with room with Gianna. I can go ahead and make a connection with Gianna, and that will be my end with the girls from there on." But little did I know that Gianna is a little backstabber, and called me out in the morning chat and said, "Well, one of us blocked our alliance" and then left it at that. And as we all know, all hell broke loose from there.

To your point, you got called out in a big way after Savannah's blocking. And you didn't even know that, while you were in the influencer chat, Rachel was coming at you hard in the at risk chat. What do you credit to being able to recover and make it to the end of the game?
Truthfully, one word: Hustle. I knew that I had to make up so much ground from there on out. Every single morning, when I woke up, I stretched, gave my "good morning, Circle, prepared myself for morning warfare, and said, "I'm public enemy number one. I have to outwork every single person in this game, or else I'm on the chopping block next." So going in, I'm going to be super honest. I was so excited to not have work at the time. I was so excited for the experience. I said, "I don't have to wake up at 4:00 anymore. This is great." And I wasn't truthfully taking notes, really thinking every single little decision through. I was really just going with the vibe. And then when that happened, I was like, "Holy smokes. I gotta get on this or else I'm gonna be the next one out of this game." So that's when I really started to hone in on straight up survival mode. How am I gonna survive in this game? How do I avoid going on the chopping block next?

The next time you're an influencer, once again alongside Gianna, is when Darian handpicks you to protect him. Unfortunately, he didn't know that Madelyn had told you that Darian had thrown you under the bus to him, which you use as rationale to block him. Talk me through your logic there.
[Facepalms.] Brother, my my face is in my palms for a reason. Oh my gosh, that's a great question. And that's a question a lot of people have been asking me. So obviously I had the bro alliance with Darian and Andy, right? But Madelyn and I had a conversation later where we just got done with the morning chat. Warfare was over and your boy was down bad. I was like, "Man, that was brutal." Madelyn came to me to check in and really wanted to see how I was feeling. She noticed that it was kind of a rough chat, and from there, we ended up having an actually genuine conversation. Ask anybody in my life, I am not an emotions dude whatsoever. I couldn't even think the last time that I shed a tear; maybe if I saw a beautiful spicy chicken sandwich. But I'm not a very emotional guy. I don't really like talking about things personal to my life.

But when Madelyn started talking about her family, it really reminded me, first and foremost, why I was there. It locked me back into the game, why I'm there, competing to change their lives. And on top of that, it just made me so grateful that my family would allow me to do this opportunity. My parents come from an immigrant background. My dad's side of family is Mexican/Portuguese. My mom's side of family is Dutch. Very strict parents on both of those sides where it's very much like, "School, you get your career going. You work that career all the way through, and that's that." They would have never gotten an opportunity like this. So once we started having that conversation, I'm not even gonna lie, I don't know if it showed it--if it did, it was CGI or editing--but there was a couple of drops coming from my eye. And to me, I thought Madelyn and I had solidified a bond deeper than the bros/"Circle wifey" type of thing. I actually felt like a genuine connection with her. And for once in the game, I was like, "Wow, I can actually trust this person in the game," because I shared this emotion that I don't share with a lot of people.

So then what was your reaction when she told you that lie about Darian?
I was sick when Madelyn told me. Because when you're the influencer, you obviously don't know what's going on once you're away from everybody else and you're in those influencer chats. And so when Madelyn told me that Darian, having going behind my back, backstabbed me, and had this whole plan to get me out, I did have that initial thought of like, "Why would Darian do this? What would provoke him to do it? We have this bro alliance. I am in a position of power, so maybe he wants to knock the power out of the game". But I really trusted my emotional connection with Madelyn that we bonded over. I really went with my heart on that one. And I was like, "You know what? This is someone that I think I can trust. I'm going to believe you and roll with this." Hindsight is 20/20, of course. But that's what led to the decision of me trusting Madelyn wholeheartedly. 

Your relationship with Gianna was complicated, to say the least. Throughout your three times as influencers, you started as contentious rivals, but eventually built an alliance that took you through the end of the game. What was your reaction to your seasonlong dynamic?
Oh my gosh. If you look up the word "frenemy" in the dictionary, it's going to say "K. Fern and Gianna," I'm telling you right now. Honestly, I had no hard feelings towards Gianna at the very start of the game. I didn't think that Gianna was really providing a whole lot. Before she was about to get blocked and then ultimately got saved with the Disruptor, I didn't think she was providing a ton with the game. Didn't have a whole lot of feelings towards her. Where things started to escalate was when she decided to throw me under the freaking bus after the first morning chat. She's over here talking about, "Well, one of us had an alliance with Savannah, and it wasn't me." Hey, Gianna, that really narrows it down, huh?

So right then I knew, "Oh my gosh, Gianna is a snake and is trying to get me out of this game." I'm a competitor. In my mind, after that, I'm like, "Gianna is my enemy. I'm going to do whatever it takes to get her out of this game." But it's hard to get someone out of the game when you meet with them in the influencer room every freaking time. So obviously, first, second, third time, you go from, "Wow, this person pisses me off. I want to get them out of this game" to "I hate to admit it, but a respect for their game." Because I'm in that influencer room for a reason; I'm that guy. But Gianna's that girl, too, and there's a reason she's there too. So at the end of the day, game recognizes game, and I recognize that with Gianna. And I kind of figured, "Okay, if we're both this powerful time and time again as enemies, think about how powerful we could be if we actually started to work together." That when I switched my mind frame from complete competition and a little bit of hatred to "how can we utilize this to benefit both of us?" Because we're obviously both in a position of power. That's when I was like, "Holy smokes. I can't believe I'm doing this, but I think we have to work together."

We got a glimpse at your final ratings, where you put Madelyn second and Tierra fourth. Do you remember where you rated Gianna and Rachel?
Ah, man, I can't believe it. But I had a moment where we did our final ratings, and at that point in time, I had like a reflection of how far I had come since the first day, and how far all of us, the last competitors, have come since the first day. And I thought, "Okay, should I vote with my heart and gut, or should I vote with strategy?" And I don't know what provoked me. But I had a kumbaya moment, and I said, "Once again, game recognizes game." I put Gianna first in my final ratings. I am such a dumbass.  

Oh man. That could have given her the win!
Yes, brother. Every day when I go to put wine on a shelf at 4:00 a.m., I think about that same thing as well. I think about, "What if I didn't put Gianna first?" But this is the one thing that I kept on thinking about with that ratings. My fear was, you don't know other people's strategies with the ratings. Other people could have been putting Tierra at number one. And so part of my mind was thinking, "If everybody else puts Tierra at number one with the strategy aspect of she can't win, if I did the same, next thing you know, Tierra is winning the game." And Tierra, Antonio, I love you. But you were not in that apartment nearly as long as me or Gianna or Rachel/Deb. So I had that in the back of my mind as well. And I thought to myself, "Okay, if somebody were to win, I would want it to be someone who's been in this as long as I have." So I put Gianna first, out of just respect for the game, and we had been there since day one.

I put Madelyn second, because at that point of the game, throughout the whole thing, she was one of my stronger alliances–or so I thought. Some alliances like to lie to each other. And then Deb/Rachel, we made a connection simply because I got caught lying, and that was kind of it. And I also had believed we had a good conversation, which I later found out while watching was freaking Madelyn when they did the one-two-switcheroo! But I put those factors into consideration. I was like, "We have had a couple chats here and there. I feel comfortable putting her in that third position, because we've had some chats." But yeah, I really, really do think about that Gianna choice a lot.

Finally, what was your reaction to finishing second? Were you expecting it, given how many times you had been influencer this season?
Okay, my reaction to when it was people were slowly getting out, and I'm coming down to the top two: "Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit. How is this happening?" That's what I thought. I literally was like, "How the heck have I made it this far in the game?" But then I also gave myself a little bit of credit, too. I was like, "No, dude, you got yourself this far into the game." I was literally getting goosebumps when I stood up there with Gianna, and we kind of looked at each other when it was the final two, and we're just like, "We freaking knew it was gonna be this. It had to be this." I would say I was very proud of myself for getting that far. 

And then, of course, when you see two faces for the final two and then the champion, and it's not your face, devastating. I'm a competitor. I don't love winning; I freaking hate losing. And so immediately the competitor in me was freaking pissed. Well, first and foremost, the number one thing that I was thinking I had to go to the restroom so bad the whole finale. So when the confetti went off, I was like, "Thank You, Lord, I can go to the bathroom finally.

Well at least you got a number one finish in a different way!
[Laughs.] Shout out Mike for that one. That's a good one. But initially I was kind of pissed. Because you have that thought of like, "Damn, I came this far just to get second." Of course, rating Gianna number one, all the things that you could have done differently. "How could I have gotten higher in somebody else's ratings? Blah, blah." But then you put everything into perspective. You say, "I got freaking second place. I'm on freaking Netflix. I'm on The Circle. I'm some random kid from San Diego who sells wine for a living. How am I even here?"

I'm just blessed to even be in this position. I met so many great people through this experience. I learned so much about myself. You learn a lot about yourself when you're trapped in a room and can't talk to anybody. You're you're stuck in there with just your thoughts. And so when I put into that perspective and thought about all the things that I gained and learned from it, I was at peace. I truthfully was. Don't get me wrong, I wanted 100 freaking grand. But it wasn't like the at the top of my mind. I really was just proud of myself and just so happy that I took the risk to do this whole experience. Because it was not an easy road to get to The Circle. Like my dad was not really down with me doing it. He's very career oriented. He honestly thought that I was crazy, risking my job to do this whole experience. But it was something in my gut I knew I was going to regret if I didn't do it. So even though my name wasn't number one when the confetti was fired off at the end. I truly was a winner because of all the things that I gained throughout the experience.

Next, check out our interview with The Circle Season 7 winners Jojo and Nicky Scarlotta (AKA "Gianna").