TVNZ

JT Muirhead 'loved' his time on Survivor but had to pull out because of a bacterial infection.

As a child JT Muirhead dreamed of competing on Survivor.

That dream came true - but on Sunday night's episode he was forced to leave the competition due to illness.

Muirhead, 32, had been dealing with a bacterial infection for a week before he made the call to leave. The infection was getting worse, and the show's medical team had told him there was no way they could treat it in-game. He could have soldiered on and risked being medically evacuated, like Louisa McClintock was in the first series. But he chose to end his time on the show on his own terms.

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Muirhead formed close bonds with his Chani tribe-mates.

A strategist to the end, Muirhead timed his exit to benefit his in-game ally Eve Clarke. The pair were outnumbered by an alliance in their tribe and if they hadn't won immunity on last night's episode, one of them would have been voted out. Muirhead wanted to make sure it was him and not Clarke.

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In the end his tribe won immunity (despite a plot to deliberately lose it). Muirhead anticipated (correctly, to judge by the promo for next week's episode) that the tribes would merge the next day, reuniting Clarke with her allies from Chani tribe and making her safe.

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Muirhead, far right, in action during an immunity challenge.

"I didn't want to make the merge, take someone else's spot and then be pulled out or medically evacuated," Muirhead says.

Muirhead says leaving the show was "heartbreaking", especially because he thought his strategic skills would really come into their own in the post-merge game. He says he had some "ridiculous plans" he was looking forward to putting into action. But ultimately he doesn't regret the decision.

"I am a super fan, but I also know that this is a reality TV show that's, like, not that important. It's a show that I'm a contestant on, I'm not paid to be there, I should only be there on my terms and it's not worth me taking a risk health-wise. So I don't regret the decision at all. I don't even really consider it a decision, it was a no-brainer," he says.

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Muirhead timed his exit to benefit his in-game ally Eve.

Before the infection he'd been "loving" living the Survivor experience, and had found it easier than some of his fellow castaways. He'd been sleeping well before he got sick and didn't find the lack of food as tough as some others. He'd also found his "irritability", which before the show he'd warned could be his fatal flaw, wasn't an issue.

"Man I was zen out there, I was so zen," he says. "I meditated so much out there because you get so much downtime. ... I was more relaxed than I am day-to-day."

He'd got on well with his fellow castaways, particularly those in the original Chani tribe. Muirhead said the relationships he'd formed there were the highlight of his time on the show.

"I don't know how people felt internally, but we had no issues. There were no raised voices ever, everyone was so nice, we were so respectful, and a few of those people I'm still close with and I just never thought that'd happen. Like, Liam [Hose, fellow contestant] is 23 or 24? So nearly 10 years younger than me, and I love that guy, like I really really enjoyed playing with him and the rest of the Chani people that were left before we swapped. That whole experience."

Losing Hose to a vote at Tribal Council was Muirhead's low point.

Muirhead said he and the other original Chani members planned to use the trust they'd built to go deep into the game.

"I had just drilled in, every night I told them about this concept called a Matsing, which is where you go in [to the merge] as the smaller tribe but you are so well tested with each other and you know that within the bigger tribe there's going to be divisions, and if there's anyone on the bottom they're going to flip straight away because they're just going to be so keen to play," he said.

"If any of us gets to the end we're going to win it  because we're so tight, you're going to get the votes from everyone else. That's what I would say every night."

 - Stuff