After not saying almost anything while the Survivor 49 episodes were airing, losing finalist Sage Ahrens-Nichols has been dropping essays and releasing videos on social media at a regular clip since the final vote was read. Much of her communication has been around explaining her mindset, especially related to key votes where she went against the majority alliance, but more recently, she’s set her sights on exposing all the cheating she says was going on.
More specifically, Ahrens-Nichols is claiming during the pregame, numerous castaways were flagrantly violating the rules. Before each season starts, contestants are flown to Fiji and placed in essentially a holding pattern for a week while they take physicals, complete mental health evaluations, do pregame press and take cast photos, among other things. They’re technically not allowed to speak to each other, but she says that didn’t happen… at all.
Now, we know this did happen because two people, one male and one female, were literally thrown off the season before it started for this exact reason. Both Jason and MC got into the cast as alternates at the last second, and host Jeff Probst later said on his podcast is was because they ignored multiple warnings from producers to stop communicating. He even said it was so flagrant he didn't lose any sleep over the players getting booted.
According to Sage, it was actually her fellow cast member Kristina Mills who informed the producers about how bad it had gotten after she found out her name was being thrown around as a first boot before they even started officially playing.
Kristina ratted out the male that was taken out, which she should have. Like, this is not a dig at Kristina. She should have. All of us should have been pointing out the people who were culprits of the talking… I think she found out the guy was plotting her name, was trying to pregame with the chick to take Kristina out or something like that. I don’t know. I don’t have the full details on that so take that with a grain of salt, but Kristina did reveal to us during drone time when we were allowed to talk about production casting stuff that she was the one who told, and we were like, 'Good. Thank you.'
According to Sage, however, those two people who were taken out were far from the only pregame cheaters. She alleges other people talked extensively before the game started. She says the conversations happened during boat rides to and from the two pregame media days, and she says others secretly met up at night when producers weren’t watching. She’s repeatedly claimed she’s going to name the cast members if they don’t reach out to her to talk about it.
Now, as a huge Survivor fan, I have a lot of thoughts on this. On the one hand, people should not be breaking the hard rules. If someone wants to sabotage their tribe members or hide shoes or conspire to create some evil plan during the actual game itself, that’s at least good television that’s technically within the rules. Not everyone needs to act like a saint on the island, but if there are clearly defined rules you need to follow prior to the game starting, people should be following those rules.
Some former players have come out and said pregaming is a big deal. Others have come out and said it’s not a big deal. I’m sure like everything else, how much it matters varies by season and circumstances, but clearly, if it’s against the rules, people should shut their mouths and keep to themselves. It’s important that everyone at least starts on a level playing field. Given two people got expelled and the fanbase is now so tuned into the pregame because of all these comments, I’m sure production is going to be way way more serious about monitoring people moving forward.
On the other hand, however, I don’t really like how all of this is coming out. 18 people played Survivor 49, and it’s a little disconcerting that we’re just getting these stories from one of the people on the island. Clearly, the gist of what Sage is saying is true. We know that because players got kicked off during the premerge and Probst came out and said it was for rules violations during the pregame. I’m not doubting her story, but she just has one perspective on what happened.
By Sage’s admission, she wasn’t part of a lot of these conversations and felt left out. I get that completely. Most people would be furious about that, but by that logic, it also means that she’s out of the loop on a lot of what happened. If anyone is going to investigate what went on, it should be the actual producers of the show who should be taking accountability or a third party like Rob Has A Podcast or The Survivor Specialists who can talk to a wide variety of players, on or off the record, and get a more well-rounded perspective on what happened.
Regardless, Survivor 49 is in the rearview mirror. We know Savannah and Rizo will be returning for Survivor 50 as part of an all-time fantastic cast, but beyond that, it’ll be interesting to see whether all of these rumblings and all this negative press will sour the producers on bringing anyone else from the cast back for future seasons. In particular I’d love to see Sophi Balerdi, but we’ll just have to wait and see. As for Sage, I can’t imagine this will help her chances to return, as Survivor producers don’t seem to appreciate people speaking ill about the show, but given her exit press, it doesn’t sound like she’s interested in returning anyway.
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