Survivor’s Caroline Explains Why Sue Smey’s Face Was Always so Dirty: ‘I Tried so Hard’ to Tell Her

Caroline Vidmaris setting the record straight about Sue Smey's dirty face on season 47 of Survivor . In addition to insisting that she "tried" to tell her No. 1 ally about the dirt, she also explained the reasoning behind how Sue's face got that way.

"[I tried to tell her] every single day," Caroline, 28, told Parade on Thursday, December 5. "I tried so hard. Rachel [LaMont]did too. Other tribemates did too. And OK, I would love to clarify this as well. It's not dirt on her face. It's mostly soot."

Caroline said that Sue, 59, was "incredible" around camp and was often tending to the fire. "The way she would attend to the fire is moving things around in a way where her hands were very sooty," she continued. "And she would touch her face quite a bit. So we would spend a lot of time trying to scrub it off her face, but it was really caked in there. And there were times, too, when she's like, 'It's OK, it's fine. We'll leave it.' I think she wouldn't have said that if maybe she knew how much was on there. But we tried!"

Sue's dirty face has gone viral this season and it's gotten to the point where she's started joking about it herself on social media. "I know my face is dirty. Thanks for the reminders," she wrote ahead of the Wednesday, December 4, episode . She also previously joked that she was "learning how to contour with the dirt."

After Caroline's Parade interview came out, Sue directed her social media followers to the explanation. "In case anyone's wondering .. Caroline explained the REAL reason my face is always dirty in her interview," she wrote on X.

Sadly, Caroline's journey on Survivor came to an end when her torch was snuffed during this week's episode. She was the victim of an epic blindside, which was orchestrated by Andy Rueda, who she thought was in her alliance.

Caroline and Sue had been working together since day one when they were both on the successful Tuku tribe. After the merge, Caroline turned on Sue and their fellow Tuku tribe member Gabe Ortisby voting Gabe, 26, out on day 18 to better her own game. However, she was able to get Sue to forgive her for the betrayal and they joined forces with Rachel, 34, Andy, 31, and Teeny Chirichilloto form an "underdog" alliance.

The fivesome found themselves in the majority against Genevieve Mushaluk and Sam Phalen, but Andy flipped the script when he went on a reward with the two players on the outs. He had Genevieve, 33, come back and pretend to have found a hidden immunity idol, then urged his allies that they needed to split the vote between Genevieve and Sam, 24, at the next tribal council to flush the idol and still get one of the "big threats" out.

However, Andy was really going to vote for Rachel with Genevieve and Sam, which would result in a 3-2-2 split and send Rachel home. When she won the immunity challenge, they switched the target to be Caroline. Even though Sue offered to play her idol for Caroline at one point, the majority alliance felt they were safe enough to not use any advantages and Caroline's fate was sealed.

Survivor continues with part one of the finale, which airs December 11 at 8 p.m. on CBS.