<\/p>\n
Imagine this: you think you are registering for a picturesque little CBS brand vacation to Fiji, only to find yourself faced with machetes, torrential storms, and brick-like bamboo beds. This was Phaith Montoya\u2019s reality. The plus-sized influencer and mental health activist, whose Instagram following is 4 million and growing, found herself immersed in Survivor School, a 36-hour crash course featuring starving through hunger, fighting off the chill, and forming alliances through some of the wildest storms ever to rage on the show.<\/p>\n
On September 17, CBS even aired a 45-minute episode chronicling her journey, yet now she is revealing the unfiltered details on The Wayne Ayers Podcast<\/a>. Spoiler alert: it was a blend of a dream come true and a personal hell.<\/p>\n Prior to dodging insects off bamboo, Phaith was working her psychiatrist hustle. She majored in psych and biochem at Florida State, prepared to go to med school, and taught on the weekends. The pandemic swept through, and she shaved her head to make weekly hair growth videos, and kablam, eight months later, she has a million followers. Viral legend unlocked.<\/p>\n I continued to teach until I reached two million followers,\u201d she chuckled. Iconic behavior.<\/p>\n And when CBS contacted her to do Survivor School, her mom knew sooner than she did because the group chat with her family was already freaking out. \u201cIt was like a full circle moment,\u201d she said to Ayers. \u201cSurvivor was my thing and my mom\u2019s thing since I was a little kid.<\/p>\n Get real: this was NOT a vibe. The restroom experience? Ocean dump and wipe with sand. The food? A bite-sized piece of coconut, and it somehow tasted like broccoli. The bed? Bamboo and it hurt her. The accommodation? Effectively built by gays (who she claims \u201cdid their big one\u201d).<\/p>\n At one point, contestants were reduced to burning their socks just to maintain a fire. \u201cI barely ate for 36 hours because I was refraining from being tempted to aqua dump,\u201d said Phaith. So true.<\/p>\n And yet, she continued to appear with a calculated presence. She established a \u201cGirls and Gays Alliance,\u201d engaged everyone in intimate side conversations, and beamed like a child in a candy store when Jeff Probst scrutinized them at Tribal Council. \u201cIt was surreal, like stepping into my TV,\u201d she remarked.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s where it gets real. Phaith shared that Survivor School wasn\u2019t just physically brutal; it triggered mental health battles, too, as someone who\u2019s openly talked about her eating disorder recovery, being starved on an island messed with her head.<\/p>\n \u201cI once felt starving was something to rejoice about,\u201d she admitted. \u201cNow, I have to retrain my brain and remind myself this is never acceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n It was that moment of honesty that endeared her fans to her so fiercely. This was not merely content; it represented survival on an entirely different plane.<\/p>\n Phaith came back home with bug bites, sleep-deprived eyes, and fresh respect. What did she first eat when she got home? Pizza. Lots of it. What she learned most? That young Phaith would be shocked but proud.<\/p>\n \u201cYou were 50 percent sand once, and you still ended up grabbing a 250-pound snake,\u201d she said. \u201cLiterally, you can do anything.\u201d<\/p>\n She refuses to say she wouldn\u2019t do anything different, even though everyone called her \u201clazy\u201d for lying out in the rain. \u201cSeeing it back, I was like. oh my goodness, I am that girl.<\/p>\n Influencers have moved beyond prettier-than-most Instagram feeds.<\/p>\n Survivor School was bigger than a photo opportunity; it was a declaration. Phaith showed that creators can do more than bring PR packages to shows. They can ride out storms, make deals, and maintain confessional-cam integrity. While CBS probably predisposed her to chaos, she made it one of the most viral and press-worthy months for creators yet in 2025. And genuinely, she ate it all up. Bugs, rain, and haters.<\/p>\n The post Phaith Montoya Talks CBS Survivor Influencer Experience on\u00a0The Wayne Ayers Podcast<\/a> appeared first on Where Is The Buzz | Breaking News, Entertainment, Exclusive Interviews & More<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Imagine this: you think you are registering for a picturesque little CBS brand vacation to Fiji, only to find yourself faced with machetes, torrential storms, and brick-like bamboo beds. This was Phaith Montoya\u2019s reality. The plus-sized influencer and mental health activist, whose Instagram following is 4 million and growing, found herself immersed in Survivor School, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2034902,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[375598,22729,308295,375597],"class_list":["post-2034901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-florida-state","tag-mental-health","tag-survivor","tag-wayne-ayers-podcast"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Phaith-Montoya-Talks-CBS-Survivor-Influencer-Experience-on-The-Wayne.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2034901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2034901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2034901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2034902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2034901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2034901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2034901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}From Florida State to Fighting for Fire<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Survivor School Was Adorable until It Wasn\u2019t<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Mental Health in the Middle of the Madness<\/strong><\/h2>\n
The Glow-Up After The Grit<\/strong><\/h2>\n