A television host left audiences absolutely speechless after accidentally spoiling the result of a live finale. Last night, the American reality series Survivor wrapped up its 50th season with a special episode filmed in front of a live TV audience on CBS. The game show sees a group of contestants stranded in a remote location with little more than the clothes on their back. Whoever lasts as the sole survivor then takes home a whopping million dollar prize (£745,000).
However, during a critical moment of yesterday’s final, longtime host Jeff Probst, 64, made a huge mistake by revealing the loser of a challenge before fans were able to watch it. As the fire-making challenge was about to play out on air, Probst brought out Rizo Velovic, who lost and would not be making it to the final three of the competition. After telling the audience that Rizo has now become the final member in the show’s jury – who determines the winner of the game – the host was met with awkward silence as nobody clapped or cheered. Probst then asked ‘what just happened?’ before the jury members replied: ‘Fire hasn’t happened yet’, which left the live studio audience gasping.
Fan Reactions to the Blunder
Reacting to the moment online, viewers could not believe the mistake. Mia said the level of secondhand embarrassment was ‘Emmy worthy’. Wyatt also said: ‘As someone who missed the Will Smith slap live, this was the wildest live TV moment I’ve ever seen. RIP to whoever just lost their job #Survivor50.’ Meanwhile, Jonathan said: ‘I was in the audience… the crowd was speechless and the most quiet of the whole night with the confusion. It was awesome.’
Probst's Recovery Attempt
After the TV break, Probst acknowledged his major blunder and tried to play it off as a ‘Survivor twist’ and the ‘last twist of the season’. ‘I love doing live television,’ Probst said. ‘In case you’re confused, this is what happened. We were going to show you fire-making and then have the loser of fire-making, Rizo, come out and talk about if he had practiced fire-making maybe he would’ve won. Instead, we did a Survivor twist, it’s the last twist of the season. We call it, “A peek into the future”. So now, we’re going to watch Rizo lose in a fire to Jonathan.’
And it appears that he may have gotten away with things as some viewers hailed his handling of the situation. Writing on X, Susan said: ‘He’s so smooth! It was hilarious and he did a great job with it.’ David also argued that it was ‘actually a really funny way to handle it’ as Caiden also wrote: ‘He handled it very well.’
Survivor 50 aired on CBS across the United States.
