After months of anticipation and endless online speculation, Survivor — undisputedly the greatest reality show on earth — is back, baby.
A season 25 years in the making, Survivor 50: In the Hands of the Fans features 24 returning contestants (including three previous winners) competing to win USD $1 million. Along with the largest cast in the show’s history, this landmark season has introduced a new twist by allowing fans to decide the game mechanics and production design. Huge.
The chaos kicked off this week with a two-hour premiere on Stan, but the excitement was cut short when fan-favourite Kyle Fraser was medically evacuated on day four. The Survivor 48 winner injured his ankle during the first Immunity Challenge, and the medical team diagnosed him with a likely ruptured Achilles tendon.
His exit was a huge blow to the all-star season, especially given that Kyle was fresh off winning the show last year and was already dominating the social game. In an Australian exclusive, PEDESTRIAN.TV chatted with Kyle about his recovery, what happened after he left the island, and who he predicts will take out the title of Sole Survivor.
It’s been quite a while since you filmed Survivor 50. How are you feeling about your elimination now?
I’m feeling really good, I’m feeling positive. Achilles injuries are terrible. I had to get surgery when I got back immediately — I’m about eight months out. It’s an eight-to-12-month recovery process, but I just started running, and I will probably be fully healed in hopefully a month and a half, two months or so.
I have learned so much from this. I’ve watched the episode now three times, back to back to back, the past three days, and I’ve enjoyed it. I’ve been surrounded by friends and family, both from my first cast and now my second one, and I am just grateful to be a part of this thing, man. And now I get to be a fan and watch the rest of it.
I can’t imagine that would have been easy watching the episode so many times and reliving that moment when you were pulled from the game. How did you feel watching it back?
The first time I watched it, I would hone in on everything I was saying and the challenge and everything that was sort of around it, and it was hard for me to watch everyone else. The second time I watched it, I got to kind of zoom out from myself and enjoy it for what it was with all the other characters and the other people and the castmates that I’m with, who are phenomenal storytellers. And then the third time watching it with my people back home in Brooklyn, I really did just have the most fun.
So I wasn’t, like, triggered. It was crazy to see the injury in real life; it was tough to see the test, but amidst all that is my tribe mates saying nice things about me and caring for me — and not everybody kind of gets that in Survivor.
It was so emotional seeing Jeff Probst say you couldn’t continue in the game, and you said goodbye to everyone. What happened next that we didn’t see on TV?
I had a boat ride back from the island to Ponderosa with Jeff, and that was just awesome. You don’t get that much time one-on-one with Jeff, so hearing his philosophy on life and him encouraging me to be optimistic was awesome. He’s such a cool person.
Then I had to get back to business, and I had to fly back home immediately. I had one night in Ponderosa, I flew back home, and I got back to New York probably within like, 24, 26 hours. I had to go to the doctor that morning, and they confirmed it was a torn Achilles [tendon]. Then I got surgery probably four to five days after, and then you start the [recovery] process. So I couldn’t walk for two months, and then I started walking in my boot. I had crutches, then you get a cane, and then you’re walking in two shoes, but there’s a process that it takes to get there. But yeah, the first order of business was getting home and getting to a doctor.
I saw reports that you had to keep the recovery process a bit of a secret, as it would have spoiled your ending on the season. How did you go about keeping that under wraps?
Yeah, while everyone else was filming, I basically just had to lie low and stay home. I couldn’t text my friends and stuff like that and that was difficult. But it was also a time of reflection and rest — no phone, but I was back home and playing a lot of video games. I hung out with my wife and my dog, and I couldn’t really move that much anyway, so it is what it is.
And then once the other castmates got back, I could go out to the world a little bit, but then I was still injured. I was very clearly in a boot, so I told everybody that I injured myself playing basketball. Some people questioned me a little bit, but ultimately, I think I got away with it.
If we chat about some of the moments of the game that you did get to play, I’d love to know if there was any pre-gaming with you and your Survivor 48 co-stars Kamilla and Joe?
So I had suspected that Joe would probably be somebody who got brought back, but I wouldn’t have talked to him about that. And then Kamilla, I would have never thought in my wildest dreams that three people would go back [from Survivor 48]. Of course, I knew that Kamilla would deserve a second shot at Survivor, but when I got contacted, I thought there’s no way that they would bring back Kamilla. So I was floored, truthfully, when the cast got leaked online.
It was actually right after my win aired on TV, I want to say the next day, that the cast got leaked online. I think people started confirming that stuff, and I was like, ‘Oh my god’. And I was in a house in LA with Kamilla, and Joe had just left LA because we were celebrating the season 48 finale, so we didn’t get to talk about.
But I told Kamilla, ‘Hey, listen, if this is true, you don’t owe me anything. I might owe you a little bit, so if you need stuff, let me know’, but we didn’t have an in-depth conversation. Me and Kamilla, we’re always on the same page, and I don’t really have to talk to her about anything. I think if I stayed in the game and Kamilla had needed to cut me, or I needed to do that to her — which I don’t think I would — but there would never be any bad blood between the two of us, just because she’s such a lover of the game, and that’s why it’s so fun to play with her.
It’s wild that your original season only finished airing two weeks before you started filming Survivor 50. Typically, previous winners would have a huge target on their back when they return, but it seemed like that wasn’t the case for you. In your opinion, how big do you think that target was?
I think the target was big, but I think that people were comfortable with it. I want to say that’s because of my social game and just the actual, genuine relationships that I built. Survivor is such an interesting game because you want to play with people that you like — like, you want to live with people that you like — and our tribe was filled with characters and personalities and legends in history in their own rights, and we all meshed together really well.
I was kind of the bridge between some cool groups of people, and maybe I wasn’t all the way in with every person, but I was good everywhere. I took that as an honour. I was just honoured to be a part of that tribe and for everyone to actually welcome me and care about me. It still feels so cool, and I think I was well-positioned because of that, ultimately.
It really seemed like your tribe bonded almost immediately. What was it that brought you all together so quickly?
I think winning that first challenge matters. It really does set a tone. It lets you know that you can win in this game — especially for me. I know that you can always bounce back and survive, because I just did it. But on my first season, when you lose, you’re really in your head. So you need to be shown that you can get a W, and we showed ourselves that this eclectic group of people could get a win.
We got the fire together really quickly, and then we could build a shelter super quick. And I think having that momentum is huge in the game. It’s just absolutely necessary. And I think that really allowed us to then breathe a little bit and actually get to know one another and care about one another, and then that just perpetuates. That’s the cool thing, the momentum just keeps on going.
Who do you think would’ve been the first to go from your tribe if you went to Tribal Council?
I didn’t really want to cut too many people. I think I would have targeted Aubry, but I was scared of the 49ers. And if anybody was like, ‘Hey, dude, let’s get them out of here’, at least early on in the beginning, before I got to know Rizo, I would have been like, ‘Hell yeah, let’s get them out’.
We saw Savannah tell her tribe a bit about Survivor 49 as it hadn’t aired yet when Survivor 50 started filming, but what information did Rizo share with you?
He told us a variation of what happened. So he told us Savannah won, he told us that he went home in fire, but he said that he was in a lockstep alliance that did not include Savannah, and that they were all fighting to get her out. So if I remember correctly, he basically described the Tres Leches [alliance], but made it seem like Savannah was not a part of that. And honestly, good on him, because it was believable. But as I said, I would have been sceptical of him and Savannah moving forward if they ever had a chance to play together if I was there. But at that moment, his connections to her didn’t matter to me because I didn’t know about him. But he did a very good job of lying.
I honestly don’t know who my pick is to win the season because there are so many iconic players. When you left the game, who did you think had the best chance of winning Survivor 50?
I think Genevieve has a really good chance of winning. I was obviously positioned well with her, but like you mentioned, I have the winner’s target. So I was serving as a shield for Genevieve, and Genevieve’s social game was flourishing very, very well. So I think that cutthroatedness that people had seen in Survivor 47 was diminishing and people were just more seeing Genevieve, the human, which is dangerous, because I think she’s still got it in her. With me gone, I think she’s still going to be all right. I hope she is.
Survivor 50: In the Hands of the Fans airs exclusively on Stan every Thursday.
The post Survivor 50’s Kyle Fraser Reveals What Happened After Medical Evacuation & Who He Thinks Will Win appeared first on PEDESTRIAN.TV .
