Savannah Louie and Rizo Velovic on Survivor’s 9-Day Turnaround to Season 50 (Exclusive)
There’s usually a decompression period after playing Survivor — time to eat real food, sleep in an actual bed, see your family, and hopefully process what just happened before it all airs on national TV months later. For Season 49 winner Savannah Louie and her closest ally Rizo Velovic, they didn't get that luxury.
The day after their Final Tribal Council, mere hours after wrapping filming out in Fiji, both were asked to immediately turn around and compete again on Survivor 50 just nine days later, with little time to recover physically or emotionally before reentering the game.
“When they called me into this room to get this announcement, I thought for some reason they were going to pull up my parents on a Zoom,” Louie tells Men’s Journal following her victory. "First of all, to seeJeff [Probst]on the Zoom, I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh. What is going on?’ I thought he was pranking me."
After the shock of being asked back, the logistics set in for her. "When you play Survivor, you are gone for over a month," the former reporter, 32, says. “There’s a lot of things at home that are going on… and I needed to make sure I could actually clear all of these things before I got back out there to Fiji."
Even so, the answer was easy for her. "I was so happy to be out there,” Louie says. "I was honored just to be asked, especially with this elite group. It’s literally a dream come true. I grew up rooting for a lot of them."
For Velovic, the call was just as shocking. "The next day, production pulls me into a room. Jeff is on the Zoom,” he recalls. "And Jeff, very stone-face, says, ‘Rizo, Season 50 is around the corner.’ … And then he asks me, and I start crying. I’m like, ‘Holy s--t. This is crazy. This is cinema.’ And of course, I say yes. Like, I say yes before I even talk to my family."
That decision made for a rather interesting homecoming. "My family sees me at the airport. They’re like, ‘Oh my God, we’re so happy to see you. You look so skinny, you look like you just died,’” Velovic says. “And I was like, ‘Stop crying, because I’m leaving again in nine days to go on Survivor.’”
The New York native, 26, didn’t even tell his family how he did before heading back out: "I didn’t tell them how I placed on 49. Maybe I’m the winner. Like, who knows?"
Despite concerns from home, he wasn't changing his mind. "My mom was so gutted… she’s like, ‘You can’t go out there,’” he remembers. “I was like, ‘You’re crazy. I’m going. I’m going right there again to see Jeff Probst.’”
Heading into Survivor 50, that familiarity became a rare comfort. Louie says seeing Velovic on the beach helped steady her amid a cast filled with longtime veterans. "Survivor’s been going on for 25 years,” she explains. “A lot of these players… have probably met at events [and] had conversations that are deeper and bigger than the game. So going into that, it’s a little bit scary—but I at least know that I have someone who might have my best interests at heart."
She adds, "It’s someone who I trust, who I genuinely love, like family. And to see that family face out there on the islands, I was so grateful for it."
Velovic, who worked closely with her throughout the game and rallied for her win on the jury, echoed that sentiment. "I’m so grateful,” Veovic says. “I’m actually very happy it happened the way it happened. And I’m excited to be a part of Season 50.”
Both players went into the game as unknowns given that their season had yet to air. They joined a stacked cast of players spanning the entire Survivor franchise, including everyone from Season 1's Jenna Lewis, to six-time player Cirie Fields, five-time player Ozzy Lusth, to creator of The White LotusMike White, and more.
Survivor 50 premieres on CBS Wednesday, Feb. 25 at 8/7c.
Related: CBS Is Turning All 50 States Into a Real-Life 'Survivor' Game for the Show’s 50th Season