“Deal or No Deal Island ”star Sydnee Peck is engaged (not to David)

Sydnee Peck showed up on the Banker’s Island hoping to win millions of dollars. But she thought she may have forged a potential Deal or No Deal Island romantic alliance as well when she first met David Genat, famously describing him as “so hot, it’s stupid.”

But Sydnee did not know two important things at that time. One, David is an expert reality competition deceiver; he won Australian Survivor in one of the greatest all-around games ever played. And two, he's married. As soon as Sydnee found that second piece of information out, she reversed course, telling Entertainment Weekly that she “backed off” on the Golden God.

But it was too late to save her in the game, as Sydnee reveals she endured health issues on the island, as well as a brutal broken promise by Courtney “C.K.” Kim, who pledged to not eliminate her if she and La Shell Wooten beat the Banker. But C.K. and La Shell did beat the Banker and then did choose to send Sydnee home.

We caught up with the Banker's second victim, who spoke openly about her time in the game, her difficulty watching the show back on TV, and a recent medical diagnosis that “brings a lot of things into focus.” Plus, it turns out Sydnee found her perfect love connection after all… it just wasn’t on the island.

Related: Deal or No Deal Island host Joe Manganiello reveals unaired rules violation (exclusive)

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: So you were obviously pretty fond of David at the outset. You are certainly not the first person I have asked this question to over the years: Did the prospect of a possible showmance cloud your vision as a gamer?

SYDNEE PECK: That's a great question. I think in the very beginning, that very first day, absolutely. And that's my downfall, I guess. But that interview that everyone is talking about, my little confessional about David, that was when I very first met him on that very first day. I didn't know anything about him. I had no idea that he was married.

What you see right there with me saying, “He's so hot, it's stupid” — that's Sydnee. That's my personality. That's just how I'm going to react if I like somebody or think someone's cute. But I do want to go on record and say that as soon as I found out David was married, I completely backed off. I didn't want to talk about him in confessionals anymore. I openly said, “Hey, I respect your marriage.” He told me all about his wife, we talked about his family, but that's something that isn't shown. But I definitely want to go on record and say that as soon as I found out he was married, I backed off.

When did you start to realize that maybe he didn’t want to work with you as much as you wanted to work with him?

Can I be honest with you? There wasn’t actually a point that I even realized that. I think I only realized that watching last week's episode. It was really upsetting for me to watch because David was the first person I met on the island. I sat next to him on the boat, he was the first person I met, and we hit it off. We became friends pretty quickly and we pretty much immediately agreed that we were going to be allies. And he said, “I want to work in challenges with you.” So when I said “He's going to be my challenge partner,” that's something that we had agreed to. And so I was really kind of trusting him and going off of what he said, which I guess is my fault.

But we built a really good friendship. I have lupus and it was making me really, really sick while I was there, and David's wife has lupus, and so he was the only contestant I trusted telling that information to. I didn't want anybody else to know. He helped me through that a lot and we had a close friendship, so to watch him kind of bonking me behind my back was really… I get it's a show, but I thought we were at least friends. So that was pretty difficult for me to watch.

Related: Deal or No Deal Island first victim Luke Olejniczak reacts to playing 'worst game ever'

What was your experience overall watching the first episode back?

I didn't even want to watch the episode. I was on FaceTime with my mom, and my mom made me watch it on FaceTime on her TV. I didn't even watch it on TV. I was so anxious, I just pretended it wasn't even happening. I didn't tell my friends. I didn't post about it because I was just so nervous. So I watched it on FaceTime with my mom. That's it.

And it wasn't as bad as I was expecting, but that David thing was kind of hard for me. It’s just when you think somebody's your friend and you think you share a lot of personal information and then hear them making fun of you, I felt like I was in high school.

Would you want to connect with him to talk that out at all?

He followed me on Instagram the other day, so I don't know, maybe we'll chat. I have no bad feelings towards him. I get it. I get how the show goes. I think I may have underestimated it. I now know the Golden God, apparently he's really good at this. So I definitely underestimated people and that's just not the kind of game I think I was playing. So yeah, I wish David nothing but the best.

Related: Deal or No Deal Island star Parvati Shallow calls Dr. Will Kirby 'completely insane'

What was your reaction when David paired up with Dickson at the second challenge, and left you to team up with Rock? Did that strike you as odd?

Oh yeah, because in that last episode when I said, “You better not abandon me” — that was because we were going to be going into that challenge and he had told me, “Let's work together on the next challenge. I want to be your partner.“ And I said, “Okay, you better not abandon me.” And you don't see me saying I was joking. I'm not like some psycho, but whatever.

We had agreed to work together, so when he ended up pairing up with Dickson, I looked at him and he was like, “He just grabbed me!” I didn't fully believe him, but it didn't even hit me yet that that was something he had calculated ahead of time. I genuinely thought it was something that just kind of happened. I didn't even think that it was malicious or pre-planned. I really thought that that's just what happened and Dickson kind of jumped at him.

Why did you not want to face the Banker after having the lowest value case?

I got pretty sick while I was there and I was in the midst of a very, very horrible lupus flareup, and it causes me the worst brain fog. I can't think. As you can see, I said 33 percent — my sentences don't come out properly. I knew that I was not in the right headspace to play the Banker. I was like: If I get up there and play the Banker right now, I'm going to look like an absolute idiot. I just knew that I wasn't going to actually be able to perform. And given that the rest of the cast didn't know about that, I didn't want to share that information as to why I didn't want to play for that reason.

Related: Dr. Will Kirby is ready to be your Deal or No Deal Island villain

You and C.K. seemed to make a deal where you would not send each other home. Why do you think she did not honor that deal?

Yeah, we made an agreement. We shook hands and I don't remember verbatim what she said to me, but I apologized to her for a few things and then we were like, “You know what? We could actually work together.” We talked about sending guys home on the island and working together and kind of having a girl crew. And so we made that agreement that we were going to send home Rock and we shook hands.

Am I surprised that she did it? No, I never trusted her. She didn't warm up to me from the very beginning. So I walked into that Temple incredibly anxious because I didn't really put a lot of faith in her. But I'll be completely honest with you; If the rules were reversed and I gave her that handshake, I wouldn't have sent her home. And maybe that's my mistake. Maybe that's why I went home so early, because I wouldn't have done that.

Joe Manganiello told me C.K. and La Shell tried to flip a coin to decide whom to send home, but he put a stop to that. What did you make of that coin flip situation?

I feel like they already knew they were going to send me home. This is just my conjecture obviously, but I personally thought that they already knew they wanted to send me home and C.K. just didn't want to look like the bad guy. So they brought up the idea of flipping a coin just to be like, “Oh, it wasn't my fault, Sydnee.” And that's just kind of what I assumed, but who knows? Want to hear something interesting about C.K.?

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I always want to hear something interesting.

When I got eliminated by C.K., she gave me a hug and whispered in my ear, “I'll find you after the show. I'll take care of you.” I have no idea what that was about. I have no idea. She's never spoken to me since. But I was like, was that a guilt thing? What are you talking about? I thought it was weird. Haven't heard from her since. I don't know if it was a guilt thing. I have no idea what was going on with that, but I think about it all the time. It lives rent free in my head.

You gave a speech at the Temple apologizing for the way you were talking to people at the previous night’s Temple. Was that a game move, strictly personal, or a bit of both?

Yeah, that was not a game move at all. Zero. Being sick is a big part of my life and it's a big hindrance in my life.  As soon as I was halfway through that first challenge, I pretty much already knew there's no way in hell I'm going to win the show — just physically with my physical capabilities. I just knew that I wouldn't make it to the end. And so when I stood up to give this speech, I was like: All I have now is my reputation and my character. I'm not going to win this show, but what I can at least walk away with is not having everybody think I'm this horrible, terrible person. That's not an accurate representation of me.

So it was more important for me to try to at least walk away with that intact than anything else. So that's genuinely all it was. That was from my heart. I genuinely felt all of that. I felt horrible when I found out because I'm just kind of unaware sometimes and that's a fault of mine. But I'm working on it and I genuinely meant everything that I said from my heart. I was gutted.

Related: Joe Manganiello reacts to 'the worst game of Deal or No Deal Island ever played' (exclusive)

And we saw in your final words you talking about needing to be more self-aware. What happened after the cameras turned off and how have the past few months been?

Well, it turns out I'm slightly on the autism spectrum, and that really brings a lot of things into focus — the self-aware thing, kind of how I latch onto people. I've always had kind of a harder time making friends, so it makes sense to me that I saw David, and he is my friend, and I was like, “Okay, this is my one friend.” But other than finding that out, I actually moved back home to my hometown and I'm engaged now.

Congratulations! That’s amazing!

Thank you! And everything has been better than it's been in years. I am really, really happy. My health is better than it's been. Other than that, everything's been great. Which is why I've been able to kind of take all of the comments that I'm seeing online and I literally read them all out loud to my family and we just laugh about it. It’s just funny because I'm looking at it from a different lens now.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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