Jeff Probst reminds Mike White of Sisyphus, the mythological king cursed to spend eternity trying, and failing, to push an enormous boulder up a steep slope. White means this as a compliment. Every time Probst embarks upon a new season of Survivor, he’s “starting again like, ‘We’re gonna do this!’ There’s something very touching about that,” the White Lotus creator tells me. “He’s on the 50th season of Survivor…. Each time he really goes into it thinking, This is gonna be the best season.”
When Survivor launched in the spring of 2000, it effectively created the reality competition genre. It has aired through six presidential administrations, through 9/11 and the 2008 financial crisis, the legalization of same-sex marriage and the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the global pause initiated by the pandemic and the political unrest that has followed. Things change, but Survivor is still throwing a range of everyday Americans into an exotic location, then watching how they interact as they vote each other out, one by one.
And though other OG reality hosts have been relegated to the ash heap of history—The Bachelor ditched Chris Harrison in 2021; Dancing With the Stars axed Tom Bergeron in 2020; has anyone seen Brian Dunkleman since 2002?—Probst has remained a constant all the way through Survivor’s landmark 50th season, which reunites an all-star group of returning players and begins airing in February.
In fact, these days, it’s harder than ever to see where Survivor ends and Probst begins. For several months each year, the 64-year-old rules Fiji’s 432-acre Mana Island, where Survivor has filmed each season since 2016—though you wouldn’t know it from his sense of direction.
“I get lost on this island that I’ve been on for a decade. I’ve got topographical disorientation—I don’t ever know if I’m north, south, east, or west,” says Probst, making a U-turn in his golf cart. It’s last June, and he’s agreed to drive me around Survivor HQ for the next few days. “Everybody laughs that I still don’t know how to get from my house to tribal [council]—and tribal’s only 100 yards away.”
It’s rare to see such uncertainty coming from Probst. With a bottomless well of ideas, relentless encouragement, and a grin that only seems to widen by the season, the Wichita, Kansas, native runs TV’s most prolific reality competition series as the most benevolent of dictators. On camera, he speaks entirely extemporaneously—there is no script (save the occasional sponsor copy), no earpiece, not even an intern frantically turning cue cards. He’s constantly rushing from rehearsals to shoots to meetings. Everyone wants to show him their work, from the hundreds of local Fijians who’ve taken on managerial roles in recent years to the OG craftspeople who’ve built Survivor sets around the world. Buoyed by Probst’s endless encouragement, they want to show me too.
Probst is very determined to welcome a reporter into the fold. I’m hanging back as he gathers with some executive producers to block out an upcoming challenge—until Probst abruptly raises his voice and looks back in my direction. “We’re a well-oiled machine,” he says with a laugh. As the group goes over logistics, he ensures I’m in the loop: “So David, what we’re talking about here is the twist….”
Cast and Crew behind the scenes with Jeff Probst.Robert Voets/CBS Entertainment.
