A Sad Farewell Once Again: Survivor Loses an Emmy-Nominated Talent Who Helped Shape the Show

Toward the end of Wednesday’s episode of the long-running reality competition series, after the players conducted their elimination ceremony and departed Tribal Council, a title card appeared paying tribute to the late Sean Foley, a former crew member who died last month.

“In loving memory of Sean Foley, our friend and colleague,” the card read.

Foley served as a supervising editor on the first eight seasons of Survivor, which debuted in 2000. He was also instrumental in the program’s main title design and cut the title sequence up to season 31, even after he stopped working on the show as a full-time editor.

Foley’s contributions to Survivor earned him five Emmy nominations for Outstanding Picture Editing for Non-Fiction Programming, and he garnered a sixth for his work on The Contender.

Over the course of a 25-year career in entertainment, Foley also worked as a visual effects artist, sound mixer, camera operator, producer, and showrunner, on programs for CBS, NBC, the CW, Animal Planet, A&E, Discovery, YouTube, and Amazon.

Foley worked extensively on the Naked and Afraid franchise, serving as an executive producer on the main series and spinoffs like Naked and Afraid XL. His other TV credits included The Apprentice, Undercover Boss, and Shark Tank.

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Foley died from brain cancer in late November, according to his friend and colleague David Story. “We lost one of the good ones,” Story wrote in a Facebook post. “The world is a lesser place today than it was before.”

Foley is survived by his wife, Sondi, and their two sons, Conner and Liam.

Survivor is currently in the midst of its 49th season and airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CBS. The season finale is set for Dec. 17.