SPOILER ALERT: The following story contains spoilers for the final episode of “Survivor 50: In the Hands of the Fans.”
Jeff Probst accidentally revealed the winners and losers of the “Survivor 50” fire-starting contest to determine who would make the final three before his segment aired.
In Wednesday night’s finale, Aubrey Bracco won the final immunity challenge of the season, choosing to send Rizo Velovic and Jonathan Young to a fire-starting competition. However, after CBS aired footage of her announcing her decision, the episode cut to Probst on stage in front of a live studio audience in Los Angeles. There, Probst was apparently encouraged by the production staff to accidentally bring out the loser Velovich, even though fans had yet to see Young defeat him.
Probst noticed confused reactions from people in the audience, including loud gasps, when he announced that Velovich was the final juror for Season 50. Fan-favorite juror Cirie Fields awkwardly told Probst that the fire-starting was not shown on screen before the episode cut to commercials. Later, in the studio, a confused Probst asked the audience what happened.
But he had a sense of humor in everything. Probst briefly left the stage during a commercial break, but when he returned, the audience began chanting, “We love you, Jeff!” When the cameras started rolling again, he laughed and said, “I love live TV.”
Joking about the incident, he said, “We were supposed to show him starting fires and then have Lizzo, the loser of fire starting, come out and tell us how attractive he is and how he could have won if he had practiced starting fires. Instead, we gave him a ‘Survivor’ twist. This is the final twist of the season. Now we’re going to watch Lizzo lose.” When the ruined fire-starting competition finally appeared on screen, the studio audience shouted Verovich’s name.
