'Survivor' Winner Parvati Shallow Responds to Jeff Probst Shade

I genuinely think Parvati Shallow is the greatest Survivor player of all time. She won Micronesia: Fan vs. Favorites, she should have won Heroes vs. Villains, and she won a global all-star season of the Australian franchise, Australia v. The World. I’ll never get over Heroes vs. Villains, where Sandra won by coasting on others’ coattails and benefited from a Heroes-heavy jury that disliked the Villains for personal reasons. But whatever.

The point is: On the On Fire with Jeff Probst podcast this week, Probst decided to stir up some drama — something this season is sorely lacking. He asked Survivor: Cambodia winner Jeremy Collins if Parvati’s Australia v. The World win counted. And Probst — who almost never mentions Australian Survivor — let Collins do his dirty work.

“Jeremy, I’m gonna put you on the spot,” Probst said. “And I mean this as a legit question. In the Survivor world, does Parvati winning Survivor Australia count in the same way that winning this Survivor does? Is she now a two-time Survivor winner?”

“Listen, I don’t think so,” Collins said. “In my Survivor world, I say she has one and a half wins. It’s a good win. Survivor Australia is a good one. But it’s not the same as Survivor US. It’s not the same.”

I’ve watched several seasons of Survivor: Australia. It’s longer, more demanding, and far more physical, with tougher strategies — but Australians don’t immediately vote out the strongest players like American Survivor contestants do. They want to compete against the best and win against the best.

Granted, the All-Star season was abbreviated, but that only meant contestants had to play harder and more aggressively since nearly everyone was a legend. Parvati came out on top. She deserves at least one and a half wins for that — or, honestly, just retroactively give her the Heroes vs. Villains win she earned.

Not that Shallow seems too bothered by Jeff Probst and Jeremy Collins’ opinions. “A couple of straight men trying to discredit a woman … get a new move, boys,” she wrote on Instagram. Several former female players also came to her defense:

And that about sums it up. This post was brought to you by: “There’s Nothing Else Worth Talking About at the Moment Because Survivor Has Been an Absolute Bore This Season.”