The strictest rules on Survivor come before the game is played. Production has stringent expectations from potential contestants in the casting process, especially when casting reaches the final in-person interviews stage. Once they’re on the island in the days before filming, the No. 1 rule is not to talk to any other player. The same applies when the casting finalists are in the same hotel and about to do their last interviews. Jeff Probst detailed the show’s expectations for would-be castaways on an On Fire podcast episode, reacting to Survivor 49 Episode 8. He said he’s sure that people must have broken these no-talking rules on the final interview day and “gotten away with it,” but when they’re caught, production takes it very seriously.
The topic came up through a fan question submitted to the Survivor aftershow podcast. The fan wondered if players quit their jobs before filming begins and who they’re allowed to tell about being cast. Probst told co-hosts Jeremy Collins (Survivor: Cambodia winner) and Jay Wolff that there’s “no hard, fast rule.”
“We keep a very tight lid on who knows who’s going to be on Survivor,” Probst said. “Very few people at CBS know. Very few people on our crew know. We use initials and internal code names, and we’re changing it all the time. In terms of who the player can tell, there’s not a hard, fast rule, but it’s very specific. It’s typically your primary person. It could be your partner or it could be your parents. Occasionally, we’ve let people tell their boss, and they tell us, ‘Look, my boss won’t say anything. They’re a Survivor fan as well.’ It’s basically, we’re just trying to keep the integrity of the game. In this sense, what we say to the players is everything we’re going to go through together now starts with trust.”
He then explained the rules for casting finals.
“During the finals for casting, when we do the in-person interviews, we usually gather at one of several different hotels,” Probst said. “And so a person who has made it to this point might see another person that they suspect might be at the hotel for the same reason. And we’re very clear with everybody that if you decide to try to play detective and figure out who somebody is or contact them before the game, and we find out, you’re off the show. You’re never invited back. And as we all know, we have rules. That’s why MC [Chukwujekwu] got on this season. But really, we don’t want that to happen. So I’ll just say to future players, Survivor is really fun. So if you’re in the running or if you get put on the show, just play by the rules, and that includes who you tell that you’re on the show in the first place.”
“Jeff, how often does that happen?” Collins asked. “Do you find people try to reach out to other people? Does that happen a lot?”
“Very rare,” Probst replied. “I’m sure people have done it and gotten away with it. I’m sure it has to have happened. I’m just issuing this warning: If we find out — and sometimes the way we find out is the player you reached out to lets us know — just remember you are playing the game the minute you apply, and your best advice is to play by the rules. Because what’s so fun about Survivor is, there are virtually no rules once you get in the game.”
In Survivor 49, for the first time in Survivor history, two players were cut from the game less than 12 hours before filming began due to violating these no-talking rules. That’s how this season’s alternates, Chukwujekwu and Jason Treul, ended up in the game. Probst previously told TV Insider that the two players were cut because they repeatedly tried to talk to each other during the pre-game sequester in Fiji. They were warned multiple times, but the “blatant disrespect,” as Probst described it, continued, prompting Probst to make the call to remove them from the cast.
Survivor, Wednesdays, 8/7c, CBS
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