I’ve played ‘Survivor’ 3 times. Here are the answers to 10 burning questions fans always ask me.

This is definitely the most common question. The short answer is: Yes, “Survivor” is real.

The producers don’t take us to a hotel at night to sleep. No one is getting slipped food when the cameras are pointed in the other direction.

We are legitimately dropped on a remote island with minimal supplies and fend for ourselves. I’ve got the scars — both physical and emotional — to prove it.

This one’s oddly tricky to answer. It’s never a lot, but it tends to vary by season.

My first time out, each tribe started the game with a single bag of rice, plus whatever slim supplies we could salvage from the boat that marooned us on the island. But on my second round, there was no traditional “marooning,” and on my third, the boat we arrived on had significantly more supplies.

On some more reason seasons in Fiji, contestants aren’t given anything to start. 

You’re encouraged to eat whatever you can find on your beach, of course. Fishing rarely produces meaningful results unless you have Ozzy Lusth on your tribe.

You can occasionally win big meals through challenges, but only late in the game. And there’s usually a chance to earn chickens — I’ve never won them, but I did inherit some after a tribe swap and immediately feasted. 

The point is: Yes, you don’t eat much on “Survivor” and it’s common to lose a huge amount of weight.

No, huge pass.

This answer is anecdotal. Ask a dozen former players, and you’ll probably get 12 different responses. Everyone has their own relationship with coconuts if their beach was loaded with them.

Coconut water was also good to have, but it has a dark side. Although it’s packed with electrolytes and the quickest natural way to rehydrate under the tropical sun, it can also cause diarrhea. If you hit the juice too hard, it will run straight through you.

Happened to me one season — wasn’t fun for me or anyone else in sniffing distance.

It’s not the environment, the starving, or the lack of real beds or creature comforts you’re used to at home. The worst part of “Survivor” is the downtime.

You spend so much time sitting around camp doing nothing, especially early on in the game. Challenges come only every few days. You can spend only so much time building shelter or talking strategy with other castaways.

Hell, you’re not even allowed to sing because of copyright laws. After the first week, everyone’s tired, cranky, and bored.

I don’t have a great answer.

On the island, Probst is always “on.” He’s running a staggeringly complex reality competition in the middle of a jungle and managing 16 aspects you can see while juggling a hundred you never will — it’s easy to take for granted how good he is at his job.

But it means contestants get only a handful of candid interactions with him.

I will share this tip: If you’re ever on the show, managing your relationship with Probst is an important part of the game.

Ever wonder why he seems to drag certain players in particular? It’s often because they are too cagey with answers at tribal council, not cooperating with the producers, or just being difficult in general. You need to keep Probst on your side.

Every former castaway is going to have a wildly different answer to this. Some casts remain best friends for years, while others loathe each other and barely interact. 

For context, I am an introvert. I used to chat with almost everyone from my seasons, at least in the months following the game. There’ll be a handful from each season that I hang out with socially in the short term — and then we just drift apart, minus occasional check-ins via text and social-media comments.

We all lead very different lives, often thousands of miles apart. This reminds me that I owe Denise Stapley a call.

Yes, it gets predictably gross out there, but the players don’t suffer too much. You quickly get accustomed to living with your and everyone else’s stank, and the odor becomes white noise.

It’s the crew who suffers. There’s a team of over 200 working behind the cameras to make the show happen, and they are generally clean, well-groomed people — but they’re pinching their noses when dealing with contestants.

If a tribe is becoming too rank for the producers to tolerate, they will politely demand that you clean up — boil your clothes, scrub down with sand in the ocean, etc.

I once heard a former player say: “If you don’t know who the stinkiest person is on your tribe, it’s you.”

This question is always asked in a judgmental tone, usually by a CrossFit junkie or outdoorsy sportsman who wants to know why we’re not head-to-toe in the latest, greatest gear available to face the elements.

Although rules may have changed, when I played, we didn’t get to choose what we wore. Contestants were dropped off in an outfit that they’d realistically be wearing if their plane or boat crashed on a deserted island.

We’d have some back-and-forth with the producers about clothing before the game started, but not much. 

Fun fact: Assigned outfits can cause drama on the island. Jackets are a bonus for those allowed to bring them — even a sport coat is a huge boost on cold nights.

Contestants get salty when someone else is perceived to have a more advantageous wardrobe. I’m still furious about getting only shorts my first season — I was destroyed by bugs from knee to ankle every night for 38 days.

I hear this often because I was lucky enough to find three during my seasons — plus, I stole another from an ally at tribal council, which I think should count toward my total stats. But I digress.

In my case, all those years ago, it took a while to find idols — much longer than “Survivor” can realistically show in an hourlong episode.

On TV, it sometimes looks like contestants wake up on day 10, decide they’re in trouble at the next tribal, and then spontaneously decide to look for an idol and find it moments later. That’s not how it works. Hours and days are spent clandestinely searching in trees, under rocks, and everywhere else a castaway can think of.

At least, that’s how it used to work. I have some opinions on the current state of “Survivor” advantages in terms of quantity and quality.

This is the most popular question on the street after, “Is ‘Survivor’ real?”

Every former contestant has a different answer — though most, in my experience, trend toward yes. When you think about it, CBS basically rings you up and offers you a chance to win $1 million by playing a fun game in one of the most beautiful places on earth.

But the answer is colored by real-life situations. Players’ lives change in the years between their first time out and the invite to return. When I first applied, I was bartending nights at a club in Los Angeles and living with several roommates in a cheap beach house.

Now, I’ve got the dog, partner, and a semblance of a career. So it’s difficult to simply say yes when the call comes, but it’s always hard to say no.

This story was originally published on October 25, 2021, and most recently updated on September 30, 2024.