RHAP: We Know Survivor - Survivor AU: Australia V World | Winner Interview

Episode Date: September 8, 2025

Survivor AU: Australia V World | Winner Interview We Know Global Survivor host Shannon Guss conducts a finale interview. Never miss a minute of RHAP’s extensive Global Survivor coverage! LISTEN: Subscribe to the Survivor Global podcast feed WATCH:  Watch and subscribe to the podcast on YouTube SUPPORT:  Become a RHAP Patron for bonus content, access to Facebook and Discord […]

When you're with Amex Platinum, you get access to exclusive dining experiences and an annual travel credit. So the best tapas in town might be in a new town altogether. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Terms and conditions apply. Learn more at Amex.ca. this episode is brought to you by Defender with a towing capacity of 3,500 kilograms and a weighting depth of 900 millimeters, the Defender 110 pushes what's possible. Learn more at

land rover.ca. There you are, pushing your newborn baby in a stroller through the park. The first time out of the house in weeks. You have your Starbucks, Venty. because, you know, sleep deprivation. You meet your best friend, she asks you how it's going, you immediately begin to laugh, then cry, then laugh cry, that's totally normal, right? She smiles, you hug, there's no one else you'd rather share this with.

You know, three and a half hour sleep is more than enough. Starbucks, it's never just coffee. Did you lock the front door? Check. Close the garage door? Yep. Installed window sensors, smoke sensors, and agent. camera's with night vision?

No. And you set up credit card transaction alerts, a secure VPN for a private connection, and continuous monitoring for our personal info on the dark web? I'm looking into it. Stress less about security. Choose security solutions from TELUS for peace of mind at home and online. Visit tellus.com slash total security to learn more.

Conditions apply. Bank more on course when you switch to a Scotia Bank banking package. Learn more at Scoti. CoshaBank.com slash banking packages. Conditions apply. Scotia Bank, you're richer than you think. Hello, everyone. This is Shannon Gus, getting you ready for a finale ex-interview for Australian Survivor,

the World, as advertised. This is an interview with Poverty Shallow. I won't talk about it until everyone who's not meant to be here who hasn't seen the finale jumps out. Please leave. This isn't for you. All right, let's talk about it. Poverty, the winner of Australian Survivor versus the world.

the winner of Australian Survivor and U.S. Survivor, a two-time winner. What a, what a wild sentence. I actually haven't said it out loud until now. That is crazy. And I just got to speak to her because I'm so lucky. I'm just like the luckiest person ever. What a fun time with Poverty. I'm hoping to have a longer chat with her soon as well, but this was so much fun to talk to poverty. So I hope that you enjoy that. I'm about to hop on and do the live finale recap with all of the recap bitches, Puyah and Chappelle and Mike. So hope you check that out. That's you. be in your feeds very, very soon. I have an ex-interview with Janine coming as well. I have an ex-interview with Surrey tomorrow. So I'm just going to drop these individually as

they come. I'm supposed to be getting Luke as well, but I'm not sure when, and I am still getting cast. So that's like the rest of the coverage. And I'll have a podcast with Rob coming out soon as well. That's in about 36 hours from now. So you don't know what now is, but basically it's coming out soon. So that's like the next couple of days of coverage. Hopefully the whole final four, Cass, Rob, recap. Hope you check it all out. We know global survivor. com subscribe to all of it so you don't miss anything follow me at shannon gates for all of that hope you enjoyed this ex-interview because i certainly did and i will see you next time bye One million pounds

Poverty poverty, what an absolute honor to talk to you. Teenage Me is dying. Current Me has also died. You played such a phenomenal game. I'm such a huge fan. in all right now to talk to you. Thank you so much for coming on to the podcast. Oh, thanks for having me. Are you sure you're not still a teenager? I think I might be just the way I feel. I'm

like, should I text my high school ex-boyfriend and tell him I'm talking to poverty? Like, that's how I feel. Like, I was going to save this for the end, but I will say when I was in my, what you would say, senior year of high school, you played heroes versus villains. And I love Sandra too, but I did write a letter to Jeff Probst, outrage that you had lost. And I sent him on my space. and I feel like what he should have told me was in the future, we would be having this conversation about you winning in Samoa and that I get to talk to you and honestly, like, nature healed and I feel a lot better right now.

Wow, I love that too. I had this very same moment. Are we recording? Do we want to? Yeah. Okay. I had this very same moment today while I was walking down the street. I was like, I started crying because it was like,

my younger self from Heroes Villains was, is healing from this winter. And I felt like, God, if I could just go back in time and tell her that, hey, 15 years from now, you're going to have this win and it's going to be so sweet because you're going to have gone through all this life experience to get here. And the point in time that you're going to have this win is going to be really meaningful. So just hold on and don't feel so bad about yourself. It would have been incredible. But I do feel like I'm giving myself that gift now.

which is like kind of collapsing timelines. And I feel like other people are experiencing that too, like you said. Completely. I mean, I watched your seasons again. That was all like my whole high school between your first three seasons. And I rewatched yours versus villains a few years ago when we covered it again. And I was like, damn, I'm like older than you now. And I still think of like the coolest person ever.

Like I'm still looking up to you. And now watching you at like our ages now, like I'm still looking up to you at this phase. And I think that that is really cool for every version of myself. And I'm sure I speak for, you know, incalculable, if that's a word fan. So I'm hoping we're going to have a longer conversation. I know we're in talks to do that about your game, which was so good. I mean, I guess I can start there because you said you think this was your best game. I can't disagree, though I think that's a very high bar.

How do you feel like your game has evolved? Obviously playing those first three seasons in your early to mid-20s and coming back for Winners at War. Like, how do you feel to this point, it's a very far? evolved over those decades. I am so centered in my own authority now in a way that I never have in the past been. And part of that process came from writing my book and getting divorced and being a single mom and then putting myself back into this crazy chaotic world of reality television competition and just being really brave. And I'm, yeah, Like, that's, I'm so different.

It's really hard to compare because I think I never had this sense of self-trust in the past that I have now. And that is what has given me the ability to play at the caliber that I played and to make the moves that I made in this game at the time, the right time to make them. Because it was such a different game. It was so fast, 16 days, like, I've never played any game that's that fast before. and yeah, I had to really be very sharp with feeling and connecting to my gut and knowing when to make a move and who to keep and who to cut at the right time. But I think that speed helped you because I think when we see like faster games, you have to keep up or you are out.

And you kept up so quickly. I wanted to ask about the bluff heard around the world on the best moves I've ever seen. Was that premeditated? When you got it, did you think I get you? Or in the moment, like, because that was absolutely incredible. You had people fooled. They were like, she can use the advantage now. And I was like, no, she can't.

Like, I have to clarify afterwards that you couldn't actually use it. You were bluffing the audience. Oh, my God. They were mad. They were like, those advantage is overpowered. I'm like, she can't do that. She knows she's loving. Like, yeah.

But I, so I did not premeditate that. I had that advantage and I was like, how am I going to know who I was an idol? Like, no one's going to just tell me. So I was like, I don't know how I can even use it. I just, I'd had it in my bag. And once I read something, the rules mean nothing to me. I don't remember the rules. I just know I have a steal and idol advantage.

So when Cass is like, I have an idol. And I'm like, oh, mother, we voted for Cass. She's going to play that. And now she's back. Oh my God. Like, what can I do? I'm like, what can I do? What can I do?

What can I do? I had just told Surrey about the advantage. So it was fresh on my mind because we went to the spa. and I just told her it was fresh in my mind so I was like oh I can steal it I pull out the advantage and I read it and I and I start reading it out loud and then I get to the next line and it's like this has to be played before the votes are cast and I was like I just was like stopped reading yeah and then Jonathan looks at me and he goes what does that last line say parf and I was like oh my god I said thanks for asking Jonathan and then I just repeat

repeated the same line that I had just you're not going to get me bro and then I turned to Cass and I gave her this look like mm-hmm, mm-hmm, can we get it? I think I was just like so confident in that moment

that everyone was just like oh, yep, that's what it means. I mean, she could steal. And then it scared Luke enough that he told me about his idol. Yes. Yes. I mean, incredible.

I wanted to ask about this relationship with Luke. He sends you from the auction. It becomes this finale alliance. You guys have a mutual friend in David and the Dondy connection there. Was there any part of that? Or like, how did that relationship with Luke and Janine, which became so important to your end game? How did that form?

Yeah, I started cultivating that relationship with Luke that the day of the merge because I was like, I know I'm going to play with the Aussies at some point. and Luke was so funny and charismatic. He's the kind of person that I enjoy working with. He reminds me of Tyson Apostle from the U.S. And I love Tyson. So Luke gave me Tyson vibes and I was like, I want to play with him.

Even though he'd booted me from the auction, he didn't realize he'd given me a really fun advantage in a bunch of cookies. So I told him before we went to Tribal, I said, look, if we go to Tribal tonight, we come back and you haven't pulled some shenanigans to mess with me, then I have something sweet for you. And I shared my sandy cookies with him.

And they were really sandy by that point. They were covered in glass as well. It were sandy covered in glass and blood, but you eat anything you can on Survivor. That's one way to take out the competition is to kill them with glass cookies. So, I mean, that's so amazing for Luke because Luke had that with Jericho. Jericho had the cookies. So is that like, and how did it get to the point, though, where it was like final four?

Like, you were locked in. And I was shocked. that they were not taking shots at you and you seem to really trust you invested in which I thought was a great move tearing it up with this beautiful pathway for you to get to the end with them. How did it evolve to get to that like the strength of that? I think it was it took the time it took. It was like Janine was working on me to try to get me to turn on Cass. Kirby had also told me that Cass was floating my name. So I'd heard from multiple people that Cass was coming for me and it wasn't just Janine, but I was like also

Janine was really good friends with David. So I used that connection as well to form a friendship with Janine. And Janine was so solid with Luke. And I think that because the two of them had that friendship and the depth of their loyalty, it was mirror images with me and Surrey. So that was really easy to play with. I was like, look, I'm a loyal person because I had Surrey. In a different game, I wouldn't be that loyal. If I didn't have Surrey, I wouldn't have that like Hill to plant my flag on and be like, look how loyal I am. But because I had Surrey, I could use that and say, hey, I'm super loyal. Look what I am doing with Surrey.

I'll do that with you too. I like how loyal you two are with each other. Let's just do this to the end and be each other's mirror images, U.S. versus Australia. And I think Luke is like, he's a performer. He wants a good show. I know that about him. He wants to make the best television show in addition to being. being the best competitor

and winning the game. So for him, the best show is he and I going up against each other at the end. And I knew that. So I was like not worried about Luke trying to take me out. Yeah. And that was, I mean, such an incredible path. So, Surrey, you mentioned Surrey. I mean, talk about high school, me absolutely dying,

seeing you two back together again. I feel like I was raised on the Blackwooder Brigade. Tell me about this relationship and the loyalty and how that evolved through the game as well. Well, I didn't know because Sri and I haven't played a game together in 15 years, 17 years. So I was like, okay, let's find out.

First day on the beach. I was like, where are we at? And it was just instant. Like, we had each other's backs. And I just knew, I know how Ceri plays. And she's just such a social force. People fall in love with her. So I knew she could go off on the beach and have as many conversations as she wanted.

And I wasn't worried about it. In fact, I felt good. about it because I was like, the more in she gets, the better that is for me, because she'll feed me back any information that she's getting from other people. And I would do the same for her. So you don't really get a chance to have that kind of friendship and trust in these games of deception very often. And for me, it feels like the gift of the universe to have had it now more than once. And like actually three times, because I had it was three, and then I had it with David on deal or no deal.

And I'm like, what did I have I done in my previous lifetimes to get these amazing allies? But it's, yeah, it's just the thing that makes these games more, more than just like what you see on television. And I think it's what creates, like that kind of relationship is what allows for miraculous TV moments to occur. Yeah. I mean, you mentioned David. David going out second was really shocking to me. Like what had the plan been with David if he could have made it to that point? I like the fact that you won and you never even got to meet David in the game,

which was such a massive thinking for us in our pregame and I did watch all of Dondy. So I'm very up on everything that happened with that. And I noticed you lied about Dondy as well. You were like, oh, he turned him. I'm like, no, he didn't. But, but yeah, so what was your thought process when he doesn't even make it to you at the merge? Five, four episodes in, you know? I was hoping that he would because I thought it would be fun to play together.

But to be honest, and what I said when I saw that he was voted out, I was like, oh, well, that takes the target off me. I believed that because I think David already was such a massive target and so was I. If people saw us coming together and working together, it would have been disastrous for my game or it would have caused a lot. It would have made it harder for me, I think, to get to the end. so it was kind of a relief when he was out well he has he has enough dondy money like he's the host of survivor now like he's fine fine he doesn't need to win another game show yeah he's okay um so what about some other relationships i mean you had so many we see like shawnee really wanted to work with you and then that kind of fizzled out and i thought you you might connect it with

the fact that you had played shortly after having your daughter and she was playing very shortly after having her son. Kobe is another big one. I thought your answer to a question at Final Travel Council was not perfect. Your whole final tribal council was perfection.

Cass, we see this kind of mirror image. Like that whole kind of girl group. Like, how did you, who did you see is also really pivotal to your game? Every single one of them. Truly. Shawnee, I was nervous about because she had decided to be a lone wolf.

And it was really hard to like lean in and sort of like get any kind of solid connection going with her. And also I think she was just missing her baby. And I related to her so much from that place. Because I think she and I are the only people in the world who have played Survivor so soon after giving birth. Yeah, I can verify, I think. Yeah. Yeah, she was like nine months.

Like that's too soon to play Survivor. Your head is not in the game at that point. But I thought she did so well considering that she had like. this new baby that she loved back at home. And then Kirby, yeah, Kirby cast, like all of them. They were all so pivotal and important to my game in different ways. Yeah, but they weren't Surrey. So I wanted to ask, because obviously if you play the out of a Kirby, like Surrey might go home.

There's a lot. Were you going to maybe play the idol on Surrey? You're obviously threatening it through the merge. Was that ever a real threat? And if so, was it real at that final five when you and Luca like awkwardly playing at at the same time on each other. Were you ever actually going to play it at Surrey? And if so, on her, were you going to play it so late for her at that final five?

If so. If I thought that Surrey was going home, I would have given her the idol, for sure. At that final five, when Luke and I went up and played, I was like, there is a small, tiny percentage of a chance that Luke is going to make something crazy happen and give this idol to Shawnee. He was like ladies first. So I was like, no, let's go together. Because I was like, I need him to be standing up there with me and to kind of play this out at the same time to just flush the idols.

Essentially, that's like what we were doing. Just get rid of them so that the vote would go the way we all had agreed it would go. But yeah, I would have given Sri the idol. And I told Luke that because we had a Zoom call a few days ago. He and I and Janine and Amelia, who's the producer. of Survivor and I was like Luke was like I almost

played it for Shawnee and I was like if you would have done that I would have played it for Surrey and then you and I would have been at risk and then we Shawnee would have been the one determining who went home all the power would have been given to Shawnee at that moment like did you not think that through

because I would have 100% done that. Yeah that would have been a big move I mean that would have been a lot of power to give Shawnee I'm glad that you didn't have to do that. But I love your loyalty to Surrey, because again, 15-year-old me is incredibly appreciative

of how beautiful that sentiment is between the two of you. It's not just like altruistic either. Because in the game of Survivor, your relationships are your currency. So I know that me staying loyal to Surrey and having her back and going to the end, like she had my back,

if anything was going to go down, I knew I could depend on. on her and that's like having double votes it's like i have two votes secured like that's so unheard of in the game of survivor so it's like i'm not going to risk losing that in any by any chance i would rather like put myself at risk knowing that or trusting that the strength of my relationship with shawnee is better than luke's or something than like risk having my number one go home and then also having her on the jury was like I was really sad to not have her with me, but I was like, also, this is good for me too in a way because I know Ceri's not voting for anyone but me.

So it's like, yeah, like Survivor is a game of relationships. It is such a social game and the people who really understand that are the ones who do well. I mean, I agree. I definitely think like the strength of an ally I've always said is more important than a trinket. In saying that, like you can, you don't need to depend on Ceri. like you can depend on yourself you know you win that final challenge you were never going to lose that challenge i don't think like you were picking up allies so quickly like you lost david right who you can't compare to seri maybe the only person you could compare to seri and flourished so i feel like

there's a lot that you can depend on just internally as well and i know that we're hoping to have a longer chat hopefully very soon um final question you said it's the end of your survivor career which is very painful i you know i hope there's like a you know survivor i don't know 50 we've done that 70 or something where it's legends or something and you come back. But what do you feel like? Yeah. Well, that's not 10 years. I don't know.

60. Where are we? No, but what do you kind of feel like is next for you? And obviously it's been like a huge year for you in so many ways. But what do you see next? I'm working on a new book project as we speak. And I am developing a show with Endemol who produced Deal or No Deal Island. We just got it sold to a network over here in the U.S.

so look out for the ultimate social game coming soon so those are kind of the top two biggest things that I have in the fire right now well that's incredible you know I'll watch it I watch you on traders I watch on deal on Odeal Island I watched I watched all with poverty I've been watching for 20 years so to talk to you again I'm glad the game healed you um this is healing me this is like the coolest thing ever I'm dying so what a thrill to chat to you. I hope we get to do it again soon. Thank you so much. And the biggest possible congratulations on an impeccable game that I'm sure we will talk about for decades to come. Thank you so much. You're so sweet. Thanks, poverty. Bye. Hi, Shannon.

Give me a small house. One million pounds. Million of a year. Million of a lifetime. Grab a coffee and discover Vegas level of life now. Try a sweet. The adventure of a lifetime. Adventure of a lifetime.

Grab a coffee and discover Vegas level excitement with BetmGM Casino. Now introducing our hottest exclusive, friends, the one with MaltiDrop. Favorite classic television show is being reimagined into your favorite casino game featuring iconic images from the show. Spin our new exclusive because we're not on a break. Play Friends, the one with Multidrop, exclusively at BetMGM Casino. Want even more options? Pull up a seat and check out a wide variety of table games from Blackjack to poker. Or head over to the arcade for nostalgic casino thrills.

Download the BetMGM Ontario app today. You don't want to miss out. 19 plus to wager, Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2,600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with I Gaming, Ontario.