Survivor 50: Jeff Probst on Amanda Kimmel cast omission

With almost every returning-player season of Survivor, there are going to be people who you wish were a part of the cast. This time around, Amanda Kimmel was near the top of everyone’s wishlist and for good reason.

After all, consider her super-unique history with the show for a moment. She appeared in seasons 15, 16, and the 20, meaning that she played the game 50% of the time within a six-season run. She was also extremely successful, making it either to the final Tribal Council every single time. There’s so much nostalgia for that era of the show, and she is also one of those people who really disappeared from the spotlight for years in favor of a normal life.

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So did Jeff Probst and producers do everything they could to bring her back? Absolutely, and he explained to TVLine that the only thing that stopped it from happening was the specific window in time the show had to film:

“Everybody wanted [her] back. We wanted her back. We asked her to play. She wanted to play, but it was a scheduling issue and she couldn’t do it … Ultimately, you just have to start making cuts, and they’re painful and brutal. And I don’t want to talk about how close some people were because I think it would just make other people’s feelings hurt. I can only say this with absolute sincerity, that was the single most difficult thing any of us have had to do, and we had many versions of casts put together with different people, and we would look at them and say, ‘This would be really fun,’ or ‘We could go this way.’ And we ultimately decided on this group, and I’m really happy with this group.”

We do think Kimmel could still be in consideration for another season down the line, and the same goes for other people who were cut here at the last minute. The truth is that no cast is perfect, and we are more eager to see how the people who are on the show this time end up playing.

Related – See the official tribe breakdown for the Survivor 50 premiere

Are you bummed that Amanda Kimmel is not on Survivor 50?

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