Sash Lenahan

Sash Lenahan
Contestant Profile
Born	November 22, 1979 (1979-11-22)
Hometown	New York City, New York
Occupation	Real Estate Broker
Survivor Career
Version	United States
Tribe(s)	La Flor Libertad
Finish	Second Runner-Up (3/20)
Alliance(s)	La Flor Alliance Final Four Alliance
Challenge Wins	8
Votes Against	2
Days Lasted	39/39

Matthew "Sash" Lenahan is a contestant from Survivor: Nicaragua.

A key member of the La Flor Alliance, Sash is known for his highly deceptive behavior on his season, which cost him any chance at winning the million dollars at the Final Tribal Council.

Profile

Retrieved from CBS.com

Name: Matthew "Sash" Lenahan (30)
Tribe: La Flor
Current Residence: New York, N.Y.
Occupation: Real Estate Broker
Personal Claim to Fame: Being one of the fastest distance runners in the country and one of the youngest brokers ever on Wall Street.
Inspiration in Life: My Mom.
Hobbies: Extreme Adventures, Running, Dating Beautiful Women.
Survivor Contestant you are Most Like: Tyson, because I have some great one-liners and because I'm awesome.
Reason for being on Survivor: For the adventure and for the glory of winning the greatest game in the World.
Why you think you will be the Sole Survivor: This game is something people have in their blood. Either you've got it or you don't. Count me in!

Survivor

Sash was put on the "younger" La Flor tribe, comprised by contestants aged 30 and below. Sash immediately began playing the game, and made an alliance, starting with feisty and outspoken NaOnka Mixon, telling her that he is half black and that the two of them and Brenda Lowe should make an alliance. Brenda and Sash would then recruit Kelly Shinn to their fold. On the other hand, Brenda's closest friend Chase Rice was also invited to join them, but he was torn between her and Shannon Elkins, who also befriended him, but wanted to get rid of Brenda. When La Flor lost the Day 6 challenge, the two alliances brought their conflict to Tribal Council, where Shannon blurted somewhat derogatory remarks against the LGBT community, even asking Sash outright if he was gay. This gesture made Chase and some of Shannon's own alliance members to turn on him, sending him home. After Shannon's departure, the remnants of his alliance found themselves at the mercy of Sash's, where his ally, NaOnka, found a Hidden Immunity Idol at their camp, thus fortifying a strong foothold within the tribe, though any eliminations were put on hold, as La Flor went on winning two successive Immunity Challenges.

After the Day 12 tribe shuffle, Sash, Brenda, Purple Kelly, Kelly B, and Fabio remained on La Flor, with new members Jill Behm, Marty Piombo, and Jane Bright. Bright, who easily bonded with their new tribemates, warned the majority alliance that Jill and Marty could not be trusted, while also spoiling that the latter owned the other tribe's Hidden Immunity Idol. Learning this information, Sash regrouped his remaining alliance partners to plot against Marty and Jill and prepared to vote them off. They would get their chance during the Day 15 double elimination, where Sash made a plan to split the vote 3 to 3 against Marty and Jill, since Marty has an idol. But Jill won individual immunity, so the plan shifted to Kelly Bruno instead, who was a member of Shannon's dismantled alliance, in addition to her prosthetic leg making people think she'd have a strong case if she made the Final Tribal Council. Marty decided not to use his idol, with the vote resulted in a tie between Marty and Kelly B., so Sash and the other younger players decided that they could handle Marty later so Kelly B. was voted off 5-1.

Following Kelly B.'s elimination, Sash cornered Marty by telling that, if he gave him the idol, he would be safe for the upcoming Tribal Council and if La Flor lost again, Sash would give the idol back to Marty. Marty gave him the idol, so Sash switched his vote from Marty to Jill and voted Jill off 3-2-2. He did kept his promise of keeping Marty, he reneged at the deal of returning the idol.

Sash's alliance continued to expand post-merge, involving Jane and Holly Hoffman, although Jane and Holly seemed to only have joined because they had a connection with Chase, for all three of them are from the South.

The alliance's prime targets were Alina Wilson (one of the three remaining members of Shannon's allinace, the other two being Benry Henry and Fabio) and Marty (who made an all-male alliance). Sash decided to keep his word to keep Marty, with the two alliances joining forces by sending Wilson to the jury.

Later, Marty made a plan with Benry, Dan, Fabio, and Sash while on reward to feign a vote towards NaOnka but instead blindside Jane and flush out NaOnka's idol. Sash thought about it and getting Chase involved, but Chase had his doubts, so Sash went against Marty and he was voted off 7-4. The following cycle, Brenda made a swerve by ousting his Sash, informing NaOnka first. NaOnka was displeased with the plan, and along with Holly, she informed Sash about Brenda's rebellion, causing paranoia within the alliance. Brenda decided not to forgo with her plan and asked Sash if she could be forgiven. At the next Tribal Council, Brenda had already assumed that she was forgiven and Sash would give her his idol to save her, but for naught, as Sash had turned the alliance on her, sending her home.

Brenda's elimination, along with NaOnka and Purple Kelly's sudden voluntary exits proved fatal to Sash, as the alliance crumbled, with Chase, Holly, and Jane built their own smaller alliance. But when Sash won the subsequent Immunity Challenge, he regained control by now being the swing vote between Chase's alliance and the remaining members of Marty's all-male alliance (Dan Lembo, Benry, and Fabio). Sash decided to reunite with his old alliance, and selected to vote out Benry, who was seen as a physical threat.

Fabio was the next intended target, but won immunity, so Sash, Chase, and Holly figured that they should vote off Jane (a popular candidate among the current jury members) while they still could. This greatly upset Jane, an she flipped off Sash and even voted against him at Tribal Council, although Sash used his idol and Jane was voted off unanimously anyway.

Fabio won immunity yet again on Day 37. To save his last ally, Dan, Fabio tried to convince Sash to vote Holly off, saying she would get more jury votes than Dan. But Sash did not wilt, and Dan was voted off. On Day 38, it was a close finish between Fabio and Sash in the Final Immunity Challenge, in which Fabio ultimately won, shattering Sash, Chase, and Holly's final three plans. Although Chase and Holly were nice enough to tell Fabio the truth that he was next to go, Sash was Sash and told Fabio he would be safe either way. Despite Sash's exposure as a liar at Tribal Council, Fabio found Holly a bigger jury threat and Chase stuck with the agreement he made with Sash, and Holly was voted off.

Although Sash made the final three, the jury made it obvious that his chances of winning were non existent because of his numerous deceptions. During Brenda's speech, Sash tried to throw Chase under the bus by stating that Chase did not do enough to save her, but Brenda rebutted that he could have given his idol. Jane made a tirade against Sash after her elimination. In the end, Sash received no votes, losing to Fabio's unconventional strategy of not joining any effective alliances and just building relationships with people without hurting them, earning him the title of Sole Survivor in a 5-4-0 vote.

• Challenge History
• Voting History

Episode	Tribe Affiliation	Challenge	Challenge Type	Sit-Out?	Result
1	La Flor	Race to Shore	Reward	No	Won
		Getting Tanked	Immunity	No	Won
2		Hay Mate	Reward/Immunity	No	Lost
3		Get Barreled	Reward/Immunity	No	Won
4		Seers and Doers	Reward/Immunity	No	Won
5		Don't Let Your Balls Drop	Reward	No	Lost
		Spit It Out	Immunity	No	Won
6		Kitty Litter1	Immunity	No	Lost
			Reward	Yes	Won
7		Jump Shot	Reward	No	Lost
		Cannon Ski-Ball	Immunity	Yes	Lost
Tribes Merged, Day 19
8	Libertad	Push Me, Pull You	Immunity		Lost
9		TLP O-Course	Reward	No	Won
		Flashback	Immunity		Lost
10		Barrel Bridge	Reward		Lost
		Splash Back	Immunity		Lost
12		Gulliver's Travels	Reward	No	Lost
13		Second Chance	Reward		Lost
		Money Box	Immunity		Won
14		Poolin' Around	Reward		Invited
		Coat of Arms	Immunity		Lost
15		Donkey Dig	Immunity		Lost
		Balancing Point	Immunity		Lost
Second Runner-Up, Day 39
Notes: ^1 The tribes competed in separate individual Immunity Challenges where the winners from both tribes competed against each other for tribal reward.

Episode	Sash's Votes	Voted Against Sash
1	La Flor Tribe Immune
2	Shannon	-
3	La Flor Tribe Immune
4	La Flor Tribe Immune
5	La Flor Tribe Immune
6	Marty; Kelly B.1	-
7	Jill	-
8	Alina	-
9	Marty	-
10	Brenda	-
12	No Vote
13	Benry	Individual Immunity
14	Jane	Jane2
15	Dan	-
	Holly	Holly
Jury Votes For Sash	-
Second Runner-Up, Day 39

^1 In "Worst Case Scenario", the vote ended with a 3-3 tie between Kelly B. and Marty, forcing a revote. Sash changed his vote to Kelly B. on the revote.
^2 In "This Is Going to Hurt", Sash used a Hidden Immunity Idol, negating 1 vote against him.

Post-Survivor

• In February 2013, Sash married his girlfriend Stephanie.

Controversy

• During Jane Bright's final Tribal Council, something happened that caused Jane to inexplicably change her vote from Holly Hoffman to Sash. Speculation states that, earlier in the game, Sash had secretly offered to pay-off Jane's mortgage if she helped him win. According to Survivor rules, conspiring to share prize money is absolutely prohibited and the incident could have been a ground for disqualification from the competition. When Jane revealed this at Tribal Council, Sash adamantly denied, with host Jeff Probst having no way of knowing who was lying. Rumors circulated about CBS editing the scene out under the premise that Jane's abrupt elimination was caused by an off-screen, last-minute strategy change, telling the contestants not to discuss it. Nothing else was done, however, it is also assumed that they did not want two more people being ejected after NaOnka Mixon and Kelly Shinn had both quit simultaneously, which already caused an uproar from the Survivor fan community.

Trivia

• Sash was the oldest member of the original La Flor tribe.
• Sash is half-Caucasian, half-Jamaican.
• Sash revealed in a pre-show interview, that his nickname came from his inability to pronounce his real name, Matthew, when he was 3 and he always had said "Sashew".
• During the pre-show interviews, host Jeff Probst predicted that Sash would be eliminated early in the game, but his perseverance earned Probst's respect.

References

Survivor: Nicaragua Castaways
Alina La Flor	Benry La Flor	Brenda La Flor	Chase La Flor	Dan Espada	Fabio La Flor	Holly Espada	Jane Espada	Jill Espada	Jimmy J. Espada
Jimmy T. Espada	Kelly B. La Flor	Kelly S. La Flor	Marty Espada	NaOnka La Flor	Sash La Flor	Shannon La Flor	Tyrone Espada	Wendy Espada	Yve Espada