On the beach for Survivor 50: An exclusive, all-access first look at the biggest season ever

Jeff Probst can’t see anything. The host and showrunner of the most influential reality competition show in television history is moments away from kicking off the once-unthinkable anniversary season of Survivor 50, yet he can’t even lift his head up to welcome the returning all-stars.

A nasty rain and heavy wind combo platter on this June morning is smacking him right in the face as he assumes his starting position next to a tray of buffs on the sandy Fijian shores of Monuriki island, the same location where Tom Hanks once became BFFs with a volleyball in Cast Away. And the weather is not just an issue for the master of ceremonies. Even as the contestants arrive to begin the season, an important rowing portion of today’s marooning challenge remains up in the air due to tumultuous swells.

“Holy s—!” Probst exclaims as he literally weathers the storm and tries to shelter his face with the trademark Survivor baseball cap seemingly permanently affixed to his head. “Wow!”

The host removes the hat to adjust the tightness in the back before returning it atop his well-coiffed dome. Nope, not good enough. Desperate times call for desperate measures. He adjusts the lid again and prays for the best. Cameras begin rolling and Probst officially kicks off Survivor 50: “Bring in the barge!”

Off in the distance, a massive silver ship — with two Survivor 50 flags flapping in the ample breeze and a giant 50 logo square in the middle — slowly makes its way to shore, exit ramp already descended. The wind slightly abating, Probst stands on his mark and admires the approaching vessel and its 24 well-known passengers.

“Awesome,” he says to himself while clapping four times. “A beautiful sight.”

One by one, legends of the game step off the ramp, onto the beach, and up towards the man that has greeted them once, twice, three, and sometimes even four times before. Charlie walks up first, followed by Stephenie, then Jenna, Dee, and Savannah. A mix of Old Era icons and New Era upstarts ready to do battle on the ultimate stage. Colby stands next to Coach — the two combatants from a furious Day 1 challenge exactly 30 seasons ago. Angelina rubs elbows with Q, a commotion corner if ever there was one. “Black Widow” Cirie is stationed next to “Honor and Integrity” Joe — a symbolic yin and yang to the entire franchise ethos.

As all 24 all-stars line up single file, their host bellows out those magical words: “Welcome… to Survivor 50!”

Cheers explode alongside arms raised in air, fist pumps, rabid applause, and cries of “Wooooooooo!” (They’re either giving a coordinated shout-out to the Survivor: Cagayan runner-up or are super excited to be there. Possibly both.)

And so begins the battle for ultimate Survivor bragging rights on the franchise’s biggest season yet (which will premiere Feb. 25 on CBS). And what was going through Jeff Probst’s mind as all the history and pageantry of 50 seasons culminated in this epic moment that nobody could have predicted 25 years ago?

“Honestly? I hope my hat doesn’t fly off,” the host recalls two days later back at a production base camp reception area that also doubles as space for everything from crew yoga to CPR training.

But, while Probst was locked in on his hosting duties as the contestants reached the shore, he did allow himself one brief moment of reflection.

“Watching that barge come in…. It took a while, so I was looking at it, and I was looking at the logo, and I was thinking, Man, we did it. We got to 50. We built a show that’s lasted so long, we are on our 50th iteration of it. And that was cool.”

Probst is one of only four people who have been working day-to-day on Survivor for all 50 seasons, dating back to the year 2000. Challenge producer John Kirhoffer is another.

“Of course, when you’re celebrating a milestone like 50, you think back to season 1,” says the man who has put every single Survivor challenge on the screen. “And I remember so clearly being on the boat, leaving Pulau Tiga [after season 1] thinking, Oh, please God, just one more. Let me do one more of these. This is such a cool group and this is such a cool show. I just want to do one more. I’d never been on a show that went multiple seasons. I kept getting on things that get canceled or just end. So this has been the craziest.”

If Probst and Kirhoffer are thankful to still be around for season 50, it’s nothing compared to the 24 players selected to return for the landmark season — and that was very much by design.

“In our casting, we wanted people who were joyful,” explains executive producer Matt Van Wagenen, who started on the show back on season 14. “We’ve had some seasons in the past where some players play some pretty dark, brooding games. This time, we wanted a joyful celebration and wanted joyful people to celebrate with us.”

One of the easiest ways to find people who truly wanted to play was to go against the reality TV grain and limit the exorbitant appearance fees that have become commonplace on shows like The Traitors, Deal or No Deal Island, and House of Villains.

While even Survivor offered some premium guarantees for certain players to return for season 40’s Winners at War, this time, the show went back to its original All-Stars payment model from season 8, with the first person voted out receiving $25,000, plus a $10,000 reunion show fee. (The reunion payment has continued even in the reunion-less New Era. although the live event could very well return for season 50, if fans voted the show back onto — or, in this case, off — the island as one of the 11 categories viewers could weigh in on as part of the “In the Hands of the Fans” campaign.)

“With this season, there was not going to be any big appearance fees,” Probst says. “The prize money is slightly higher than normal, and that’s it. We were very clear when we called each player: ‘These are non-negotiable terms. You’re going to be out here for 26 days and here’s the money. This isn’t a leverage situation. If the prize money is what you’re here for, then maybe 50 is not for you. We want people who want to be here to be a part of 50.'”

Of course, fans — and naturally, many disappointed former players — immediately found nits to pick with the final list.

“I know we took some flack on some of our choices,” Van Wagenen acknowledges. “We were never going make all the fans happy.”

While some high-profile absentee fan favorites like Jerri Manthey and Carolyn Wiger publicly expressed their dismay over being passed over, there were others who simply couldn’t or wouldn’t make the trip.

“The group we put together for 50 will please some people and upset other people,” Probst concedes. “There’s no way to satisfy everyone. I do remind the fans: You do have to trust us a little bit that we know who wanted to play and who didn’t want to play. We know who wished they could play, but the scheduling didn’t work out. There were a lot of things going on behind the scenes.”

“There were people who I would love to have seen play who said no,” adds Van Wagenen. “I probably asked John Cochran to play about 15 times, and he turned me down every time. So we couldn’t get everyone we wanted, and we couldn’t fit in everyone who wanted to be in there. So that’s a tough position to be in.”

As for complaints that the list of players contains too many contestants from recent seasons, with 11 of the 24 returnees being from the five most recent installments, that actually closely mirrors what the franchise has done in the past with all-star seasons like Heroes vs Villains, Cambodia, and Game Changers, which were heavily loaded with recent competitors.

Van Wagenen also notes another reason for the recency bias: “I think part of it is there’s an age thing. It’s got to be the oldest cast we’ve ever had. So we wanted some younger players as well.”

The game before the game

Just because the players picked to represent season 50 are joyful and seem almost programmed to work in the word “fun” while talking to Entertainment Weekly out in Fiji just days before the marooning, that does not mean there is an absence of game face. In fact, some folks began playing their season 50 game well before they got the official invite to return.

“The day after I lost South Pacific, I started playing this game,” says Benjamin Wade (a.k.a. Coach, a.k.a. the Dragonslayer). “In the chance that I was going to come back here, every single interview I’ve ever given, I’ve sandbagged it, saying ‘I can’t win this game’ while at the same time thinking about the mistakes that I made and how I could play this game differently. I’ve never stopped playing.”

That has included venturing out of his zen den to make the social rounds.

“I don’t like most people. I don’t like Boston Rob and any of these people where this has become their identity. Their whole identity is caught up in this bulls—. So I don’t like most people, but I talk to all of them because I know that it’s going to give me a foothold.”

Coach is not the only one who played the long con.

Kamilla Karthigesu discloses that she and Joe Hunter actually worked very closely together during Survivor 48 but, “I intentionally didn’t talk about it in my exit press because I had a feeling Joe would be here, and I wanted to see if we could play that up that Joe hates me.”

But leave it to the mad professor to pull off the biggest ruse of them all.

“Six weeks ago, we had a baby,” David vs. Goliath fan favorite Christian Hubicki reveals. “His name is Michael.”

Even more amazing than the new bundle of joy is the fact that the robotics educator — who is otherwise very active on social media — has kept the child’s existence completely classified, not posting or telling anyone about the pregnancy or birth.

“He’s my secret weapon,” says Christian, who was debating whether to reveal the baby’s existence should he make it all the way to final Tribal Council. “These people don’t know I have a child. Everyone knows that Angelina has these two beautiful children she loves dearly and will do anything for. People think I’m a goofy robotics professor who can’t open up bottles in front of Colby.”

If you really want to see Survivor 50 contestants fumble around awkwardly, watch them try to squirm out of answering the uncomfortable question of how much pregaming they did with other competitors. Players making off-island alliances with other potential returnees before leaving for Fiji is strictly forbidden. It’s also highly unenforceable. Producers and players both know it happens, but most don’t like to actually admit to doing it.

“I don’t talk about that,” four-timer Aubry Bracco says while avoiding eye contact. “We’re not supposed to do that.”

What about you, Genevieve Mushaluk? “I can honestly tell you on my life I have not reached out to a single player that is here,” says season 47’s wily lawyer. And did anybody reach out to you? “I am not saying people have not spoken to me.”

How about Chrissy Hofbeck? “Oh, I did not pregame at all,” the Heroes v. Healers v. Hustlers runner-up says in mock exaggerated tones while staring at the ground.

Cut to David vs. Goliath‘s Angelina Keeley: “I talked to Chrissy a lot! I’ll be honest about that. We met six years ago, totally hit it off. It was right after Thanksgiving and she was like, ‘I wanted to wait till the new year, but I didn’t want to miss my opportunity. I really want to play with you and go deep and have a secret alliance that no one knows about.’ And I said, ‘I love it!'”

Pinpointing who has actually made alliances with whom can often feel like connecting threads on a giant FBI bulletin board, as several contestants — like season 45 winner Dee Valladares, who cops to speaking with Emily Flippen, Charlie Davis, and Kyle Fraser — admit to chatting with a small, select group of individuals.

But there can be downsides to working the proverbial room as well. The most popular Survivor player to never win, Cirie Fields, claims she does not do as much pregaming as others because “I got ears to the ground, even though I don’t go out. So I don’t have to be out there. I have soldiers, and they bring a lot of information, even information about some of my so-called allies.”

One alleged ally in particular is Cirie’s former Heroes vs. Villains, Snake in the Grass, and Traitors castmate, Stephenie LaGrossa Kendrick.

“Word on the street is that Stephenie’s a little worried about me,” Cirie explains. “She was saying verbatim that ‘Cirie is my kryptonite in these games.’ And I’m like, ‘What the f—? I’m actually your closest ally. I don’t know why you don’t see it that way.’ I heard it from several different people that ‘Stephenie’s out to get you.’ I’m like, ‘Why, my dog? Damn, what happened?’ We fell out. I thought we was cool.'”

“Cirie’s f—ing deadly,” Stephenie tells EW on the same day. “My goal is to use her as long as I can, but I’ve got to get rid of her before she has a chance to get rid of me.”

That’s not the only drama.

“I heard Colby told someone ‘That Angelina girl seems chaotic,'” says, yes, Angelina. “First of all, we don’t refer to women in 2025 as that. Second of all, okay, yeah, my edit was a bit chaotic, so… fair. But in real life, I’m a lot more reasonable. He’ll find out soon enough.”

But does any of the off-island pregaming actually work on the island? Players who have been through it before have their doubts.

“There was so much of that happening for Australian Survivor,” says Cirie, who ended up in fourth place on the recently aired international edition. “Not one ounce of it worked out. The people that were supposed to be aligned to doing this and that were voted out so far before they even got to the merge that there was nothing to be done.”

“I was there for the very first iteration of bringing people back,” says Jenna Lewis-Dougherty, from season 1 and Survivor: All-Stars. She notes that making pregame alliances can backfire, in that people — and potential future jury members — take things way more personally when pre-existing promises are made among friends… and then broken. “When you took someone down, it wasn’t like, ‘Oh dude, you got me.’ It was a murder. It was a murder and there was blood on your hands and people hated you. There are relationships that have never been healed from All-Stars.”

First (and worst) impressions

If the game of Survivor 50 began back in the United States (and Winnipeg. We see you, Genevieve), it truly kicked into high gear once the contestants arrived in Fiji for an almost weeklong pregame filled with interviews; photo shoots; marketing and social media tasks; and, well… a lot of sitting around. But even that can be strategic, as in-person impressions that can completely alter the game are made. Rick Devens assumed an entirely new identity for his stay at Ponderosa, where contestants live both before the game and after they are voted off. Instead of “Devens,” as he was known on Edge of Extinction, the former newscaster transformed into zany Uncle Rick, courtesy of a carefully choreographed wardrobe.

“Every shirt I have is strategic to play into the fact that I’m just a goofball out here and not much of a threat,” Rick says while wearing a “Superdad” T-shirt. “I showed up with a Lion King shirt, and I have a Dead Coconut Club shirt from Halloween Horror Nights, and a Hawaiian vacation shirt. I also have these bright-pink gecko shorts that I wear around. I go out of my way to be fascinated with the birds and geckos, with this dumb look on my face. Anything I can do to put that in their head that, ‘Oh my God, this is like my Uncle Rick, I’m into it!'”

BREAKING NEWS ALERT: Not everyone is into it.

“Rick is rubbing me the wrong way,” says Dee. “He’s smirking at everybody, and it’s just like, ‘Dude, it’s too much.’ He’s trying too hard, and he can’t contain his emotions. I think he’s going to go out swinging too hard too soon and he’s going to be out.”

Proving herself the ultimate Goldilocks contestant, Dee also worries in the opposite direction. “I’m wary of Aubry. I can’t read her. You know how Rick is too excited? Aubry is the opposite. She’s walking around with her head down and just not making eye contact with anyone. So Rick is making too much eye contact and Aubry’s not making enough.”

Christian believes one of his former David vs. Goliath tribemates has been coming on too strong. “Angelina is making goo-goo eyes at every person she passes by around here. I don’t think the charm is working on people, and I think the way that she is acquitting herself around Ponderosa, it could put her to be an easy pickoff.” (He also notes that “I’m in adjoining rooms with Angelina, which is hilarious. She asked the hotel staff to murder all the hornets in her room.”)

Angelina has already made Survivor 49 champ Savannah Louie’s hit list. “She laughs a lot and then will make eye contact with different people,” the Survivor 49 winner notes. “She made eye contact with Q, and I saw them laughing about something on the boat yesterday. I don’t even know what it was, but I’m like, ‘If you’re laughing and you’re not looking at me, you got to go.'”

Ponderosa pregame also turned a potential Savannah ally into an adversary. “Initially, when I heard Jonathan [Young] was on this cast, I’m like, ‘I need to be on the same tribe as Jonathan. He’s so strong. He’s literally going to carry me to merge,” she reveals of the season 42 challenge beast. “But the more I spend time with this guy, the more I’m like: We cannot be on the same tribe. He is just someone who’s very loud. He likes to hear himself talk. We’re in the car on the way to the boat dock today — it’s like 4:30 in the morning — and there’s the radio playing and Jonathan starts singing along, and I’m like, ‘Why are you singing at 4:30 in the morning? This is unnecessary. You don’t need to be doing that.’ So that annoyed me.”

At least she knew who Jonathan was. “I didn’t even know which one was Jenna Lewis,” Coach admits. “I thought that she was Genevieve! I never watched Genevieve play and I don’t know Jenna Lewis, so I saw her and I was just like, ‘Oh, so that’s what Genevieve looks like.’ And then one day I saw her bag and it said Jenna. I’m just like, you moron!’

Perhaps not surprisingly, the player making the biggest pregame impression has been the Dragonslayer himself. It seems everybody has a story regarding Coach, and they are universally hilarious.

“Before we come out to Fiji, we get sequestered at a hotel in Los Angeles,” explains (the real) Genevieve. “There’s a producer meeting where no one can speak, but this is the first time you lay eyes on who is in the zoo. And Coach was one of the last people to come in. He comes in this fully lit conference room with his ponytail, sunglasses on, chest puffed out, walking up the aisle from the back of the room to take a seat at the front. Picture the most Top Gun diva-ish bride walking down the aisle. That was the vibe, and I was just like, ‘Wow, how is there not a TV screen between me and this man? This is cool as hell!'”

Uncle Rick recounts the same story. “Coach comes walking in with sunglasses on looking like the Terminator. Just walks straight by all of us to the front row and sits down and I’m just like, This is the dude! This is the guy I dreamed of!“

Season 49 fourth place finisher Rizo Velovic remembers the moment he was first slayed. “I’m going through LAX and Coach is just randomly doing Tai Chi and I’m like, Dude, he’s actually like this! I thought it was a joke. RizGod is a joke. He’s actually… I don’t know what the word is. He’s insane. He’s crazy. What you see is actually what you get with him. It’s f—ing unreal!”

And then there is the tent story. During the pregame portion of the game, contestants will often be held in tents with no talking for hours on end as they get taken out one at a time for an interview or photo shoot. It can get hot. And it can definitely get tedious.

“I remember this really scared me a little bit,” says Christian. “I wanted to get out of the tent, but Coach had his feet up right in front of the entire entrance. I go up to get out, and he doesn’t budge a millimeter. I’m like, Oh my God. But then, five minutes later, he started to go, ‘I can’t take it anymore! If I had anxiety, I would run out of this tent right now! I’d run off into the forest right now!'”

“Coach was losing his mind the first day,” Kamilla concurs. “He was asking one of the handlers, ‘Has anyone ever ran out of the tents because they lost their mind?’ And she’s like, ‘No.’ And he turned to me and is like, ‘I’m about to do it.’ I’m like, What the f— is going on, Coach?“

Coach brings up Tentgate himself to EW. “This sh— here wouldn’t have flown with some of the old schoolers. They would’ve been like, ‘F— this. We’re talking.’ I said out loud to the handler, ‘Has anybody ever just gone f—ing crazy and just run out of the tent?’ We were there for 11 or 12 hours. There were times when we were on seasons and me and Boston Rob and Tyson, we’d be like, ‘F— that. Open the door. We got to go pee. This is bulls—!'”

As unpredictable and volatile as Coach can be, he’s easily the name that comes up the most when contestants are asked who they wanted to play Survivor 50 with. Call it the Cult of Coach.

“What if I can be the mini-Dragonslayer next to the big Dragonslayer and we can go and slay all the dragons together?” asks Kamilla.

Even the usually mild-mannered Geneveive wants to buy whatever Coach is selling. “It is enthralling to see someone who appears to just be so comfortable in their own skin doing and saying whatever the hell they want at any given moment, social norms be damned.”

Plus, the ponytailed wonder has a tender side.

“The longer I’ve seen him around at Ponderosa and pregame, the more I realized Coach seems like he has a really big heart,” says Savannah. “He let me go ahead of him and get the very last chicken curry last night, and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, you didn’t have to do that.’ He had no chicken curry when I got up there.”

Slaying dragons and hearts simultaneously.

Getting the bands back together

Jeff Probst is snapping his fingers. It’s Day 3 of Survivor 50 and the host is in position waiting for the all-clear signal to bring the players in for their first immunity challenge — a classic Survivor obstacle course concluding with a 50-piece puzzle — that will send one team to Tribal Council later that evening.

It’s a beautiful sunny morning, with no sign of the rain and wind from 48 hours prior.

“Rolling, quiet please!” barks out senior producer Riley Ranftle to the crew.

A few moments of silence and then director David Dryden (with the show since season 2) says calmly, “Over to Jeff.”

This leads to the host’s familiar “Come on in!” that cues the players to begin their entrance. They walk in, one tribe at a time, finding their proper positions and filling the camera-line gaps between each other, as these reality TV veterans are so well trained to do. Once they are all situated, Probst immediately goes to his oldest foil.

“Colby, out of the gate, I see intensity on your face. Everybody else is smiling and you are in the locker room, ready to go.”

The response from the Survivor: The Australian Outback fan favorite is curt and to the point. “I’m having fun. We’re good.”

Probst can’t help but laugh at the intense feeling of déjà vu washing over him.

“Oh my God! We’re back to 15 years ago. I asked Colby a simple question and the response I get is, ‘We’re good. Carry on, Probst.'”

“Sorry. No, I should smile,” responds Colby. “I’m having fun. That’s an honest answer.”

“There’s no sorrys,” Probst counters. “This is the banter of 50. When you’ve known each other this long, this is what makes it so fun.”

That back-and-forth is a callback to the pair mixing it up on Heroes vs. Villains 30 seasons ago, when Colby refused a free piece of pre-challenge chocolate saying “Don’t need it, let’s go” — leading the host to respond, “I got the message, brother. We’ll go when I’m ready.”

But the history between Probst and Colby is nothing compared to the connections between some of the players on the cast — connections that could make or break games. With apologies to both Schoolhouse Rock and De Le Soul, three is definitely the magic number when it comes to Survivor 50.