Sky York Journal
You simply cannot outwit the rules of Survivor.
Just ask Jeff Probst, who recently detailed what really led to the decision to remove two players from season 49 just 12 hours before filming.
“In the days leading up to the beginning of the game, all the players are together,” he explained on the Sept. 24 episode of his On Fire with Jeff Probst podcast. “They’re at a place we call Ponderosa. So you have all of your competitors, but you’re not allowed to talk.”
“That’s why we have so many handlers there to make sure nobody’s talking,” he continued. “You can obviously look at each other, you can try to make eye contact. That might work for you, it might not.”
Jeff noted that while castaways can’t speak to each other, they are allowed to write down “assessments of their players,” like who they may align with when the game begins.
“The only thing is, we have rules,” the 63-year-old explained. “The rules are you cannot talk to each other, for obvious reasons. And in this season, season 49, we had two players who were disrespecting that rule. They just kept talking.”
