Sanjaya Malakar & Patti Blagojevich Voted Off 'I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here'

Last night on 'I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here,' fan favorites Sanjaya Malakar and Patti Blagojevich were voted off. Their departure leaves Lou Diamond Phillips, Torrie Wilson and John Salley to face-off on the finale.

As an 'American Idol' castoff, Sanjaya went into the Costa Rican jungle knowing what it takes to hang on and prove naysayers wrong. On the flipside, Patti entered the competition as a virtual unknown who's claim to fame was being the wife of floundering politician Rod Blagojevich who is facing a mountain of legal woes. Both Sanjaya and Patti proved they had what it takes to beat the odds, hanging on almost until the bitter end.

Sanjaya and Patti talked to AOL TV via conference call about what they hoped to prove, the friendships they made and whether they ever wanted to throw in the towel. -- Katy Kroll

Sanjaya, you won nine out of 12 challenges on the show. Were you shocked that you were voted off?
Sanjaya: I hadn't been keeping track, the last I counted I had gotten six, but I guess I hadn't really paid that much attention. I wasn't really shocked that I got cut. I am eternally grateful that I was able to stay as long as I did. I mean, I stayed until the second to last day, and I think that's enough to be proud of. And, I mean, nine of out 12 trials ain't bad, and I'm totally happy with that. The whole experience was incredibly life-changing and I learned so much. I'm just grateful for being able to stay as long as I did and I'm grateful being able to be clean now and take a warm shower. You don't quite understand how wonderful that is until you've spent a month bathing in a river. [Laughs]

Which was more of a learning experience for you: 'American Idol' or this?
Sanjaya: Well, they were both learning experiences in very different ways. 'American Idol' trained me how to be the kind of the musician I want to be and how the whole music business works. This was really like, you have a lot of time to kind of get introspective and really think about your life -- what you're doing wrong, what you're doing right. You can kind of analyze everything to the point where when you come out of the jungle you're able to be a different person. For me, I was really analyzing what I needed to do because I came in here at the beginning of my career. A lot of the other people have had successful careers for a really long time and so they were kind of like, "OK, I've been successful; I know what I'm doing." I came in like, "OK, I had a successful round on a very powerful show and I've been working hard, but I still have a long way to go." So this was more like analyzing what I need to do for the future, so I got a little bit more out of this one, I think.




Your attitude seemed to change as soon as Holly got there. Was that because she's around your age? And what's the future of your friendship?
Sanjaya: I definitely think that Holly being close to my age made it a lot easier for me to be comfortable and value being a teenager. I was using this as a way to mature and come into my manhood, and at certain points I forgot that I am still a teenager and that I need to be able to get out the youthful energy I still have before I try to mature too fast. And so, Holly definitely helped me capture that and stay true to that. Our friendship is incredibly strong and I look forward to continuing to get to know her outside of the camp. We're actually planning on going on vacation to Hawaii or something. It would be fun to go back into a jungle and have the luxury of a hotel and have all the things that we wanted and couldn't have in the jungle here.

Patti, how exactly did you come to the decision to join the show?
Patti: They initially wanted him on the show but he wasn't able to do it because of forces beyond our control. So NBC came to me with the opportunity, and it took me a lot of introspection and talking with family and friends and analyzing it from a lot of different angles, but it seemed like the right thing at the right time. I mean, it was a tremendous opportunity that came our way and at some point I realized I would be crazy to turn it down. And when all is said and done, I made the right decision and I'm very happy that I did.

Did you accomplish what you set out to do on the show?
Patti: I talked to my husband and, you know, he said the response has been really great. He says he can't travel in a car without people waving and saying nice things about me. So that is certainly a welcome side effect, but I came onto the show for a lot of reasons: to raise money for charity and help earn money for my family. If it's done anything to help our family situation and dispel perceptions out there that are untrue, that's a fantastic side effect.

You were the dark horse that won a lot of people over, raising your national profile. Might there be an acting or a political career in your future?
Patti: My husband was able to accomplish so many good things for the people of Illinois, so much landmark legislation that we worked so hard for and so many things to improve the lives of the people of Illinois. For that I am grateful in politics, but I hope we're done with politics for now. I think if you saw that home movie we made in the jungle, I'm not much of an actress so I don't know about an acting career.

Are you surprised you became BFFs with John Salley?
Patti Yeah, it's kind of an odd couple. [Laughs] But, you know, we came from such different worlds that when we found out we had a lot in common, we were surprised. He's got three girls and his two youngest daughters are the exact same age as my daughters -- as a matter of fact, all four of them were born the same months. His 6-year-old was born in April; my 6-year-old was born in April. His 12-year-old was born in August; my 12-year-old was born in August. He's been married a long time; I've been married a long time. He played basketball in Chicago so, you know, it was really kind of nice for me to have somebody that was familiar with my hometown. So many of my campmates were from L.A., they'd be talking about places, people and restaurants and I'd have no idea what they were talking about. Then I found out that John was a really smart person and really optimistic and had a great outlook on life, and I drew on that for a lot of strength throughout our time here.

At any point did you guys consider quitting?
Patti: Part of what I wanted to accomplish aside from surviving, I wanted to be a good role model for my daughters. As tough as it would get, I never even entertained the thought because that's not something I ever want my daughters to see me do. I don't want them to be quitters no matter how hard it gets. That's what kept me going. With children, it's not just do as I say, it should be do as I do.
Sanjaya: I had one moment when I thought I wanted to quit. It was the moment that I had to potentially eat a bull ball. That really threw me off mentally. The whole thing with that is there's so much imagery on television that I think a lot of people are getting desensitized by it. I think so many people see things like people eating bull balls or doing all these crazy things that it becomes almost normal. I didn't want to be part of that -- to promote that imagery and promote that desensitization. But then Daniel Baldwin talked to me and said it was all up to me how people perceive me. That really inspired me to move forward because beyond that I had control over how I promote myself.