‘Survivor Caramoan: Fans vs. Favorites’: Matt Elrod, ‘Shambo’ Waters said no
We’re going to take a brief break from our castaway spotlights pertaining to “Survivor Caramoan: Fans vs. Favorites,” mostly in order to bring you an answer to another interesting question: just who actually ended up saying “no” to appearing on this season? You can’t imagine that the desired list for the show possibly included everyone who is actually on the island (we’ll let you formulate your own decisions when it comes to this), and lo and behold there were two people who specifically had no interest in being a part of the show again.
Speaking in a new interview with Entertainment Weekly about this very subject, Jeff Probst singled out a pair of specific players, including someone who played with Russell Hantz back when he was somewhat more prolific, who each said no in some shape or form:
“There’s two people we wanted back. Matt from Redemption Island we would have been interested in, but he is just done with it. I think it was enough for him. And Shambo has basically said, ‘I never want to do it again.’ We would have loved her as well. But in both cases I think their story is similar in that they don’t want Survivor to define their life and they feel like once was enough. And that’s it.”
From some of our past conversations with Shambo following the end of “Survivor: Samoa,” we know that she would not do the show again even if she was paid $5 million on the spot to take part. She had a pretty miserable time with all of the rain, and she also was not really happy with how the editors turned her at times into a joke. As for Matt, this one surprises us a little bit more given that he was so strategically inept the first time around that we thought he would love an opportunity to prove that he can actually play this game on a level beyond just winning challenges.
Ultimately, we do think that if Matt was cast, someone else from “Redemption Island” would have been cut out. He and Andrea, after all, would probably have an instant alliance, and that would not be even remotely fair.
What players do you think were overlooked for this season? We’re going to go to bat here for Marty (“Nicaragua”), Kenny (“Gabon”), and Natalie Bolton (“Micronesia”), and we want to read your thoughts below. If you want to check out some more castaway spotlights for the season, all you have to do is visit the link here.
Photo: CBS