Survivor’s most famous contestant was voted off the island in one of the most shocking twists of its 50 seasons.
White Lotus creator Mike White was eliminated from Survivor 50: In the Hands of the Fans on Wednesday by one of his allies in a shocking vote he couldn’t have written better himself.
“Honestly, I was definitely blindsided,” White, 55, said in an interview with CBS Mornings on Thursday. “I was friends with the majority of people on that tribe previous to coming on, so I thought I was in a good spot.”
“Actually, I didn’t even know what happened,” White said, recalling the moment Survivor host Jeff Probst read his name as the last vote. “I was very confused, I guess I’m not as good a Survivor player as I thought I was."
White, who described himself as the “Machiavellian puppet master” of the show, was voted off just four weeks into the season after his own plan backfired. He had previously finished runner-up in Season 37.
After a tribe swap reunited him with two of his former Season 37 cast members, Angelina Keely and Christian Hubicki, White tried to direct votes toward another cast member to unite the struggling tribe.
White’s plan backfired spectacularly when a late-night conversation with Hubicki led to him fearing the Emmy winner’s strategic influence. Hubicki, who even appeared in a cameo on the third season of White Lotus, flipped the script on White and directed an insurmountable number of votes towards the TV writer, ending his Survivor return.
“He showed up to Thailand last season and got himself on the show. I guess maybe he got his cameo and was like, ‘Screw it, I don’t need him anymore,’” White quipped.
“I feel like I would be fun to play the game with, so I was like, ‘Really? You don’t want to play the game with me?’” White continued, saying it reminded him of not getting chosen as a kid at the playground.
The School of Rock writer thought that the game show would be a reprieve from his grueling filming schedule for White Lotus, which he has been helming nonstop since 2021.
“I guess in my head I thought I could escape White Lotus‚" White said. “I think when you become famous, in certain ways you always want to know how people would react to you if you were free of all of that.”
When Probst, 64, announced that the new season would feature returning players, White reached out to him directly.
“It was Mike who called me and said, ‘Just saying, if you end up ever doing something where you need returning players, I want to play again,’” Probst said in an interview with Vanity Fair in January. “When we started talking about 50, Mike texted and said, ‘If you’re doing returning players for 50, please consider me.’”
After being kicked off the Fiji-based game show, White is now on location in France, filming the fourth season of White Lotus.
