This article contains spoilers for Survivor 45 episode 1, which premiered on Wednesday, Sept. 27.
CBS’s 45th season premiere of Survivor is in the books, and the first castaway’s exit was unceremonious, to say the least. After a less-than-impressive showing at the first Immunity Challenge, the Lulu tribe was sent to Tribal Council after Belo and Reba finished their final puzzles.
Ahead of their first trip to see host Jeff Probst and the voting urn, Hannah Rose, 33 years old from Baltimore, MD, continued her dismay about being marooned in Fiji. And by the time the six tribemates sat down at Tribal, she had seemingly made up her mind that day 3 would be her last on the reality competition show.
Although Emily Pippen, Brandon Donlon, and Kaleb Gebrewold had all been discussed as possible targets, Hannah pleaded with the group to vote her out. Instead of putting pen to parchment, a noticeably upset Jeff asked the other players if they’d honor Hannah’s wish. They all agreed and Hannah’s campaign for $1 million ended. He snuffed her torch and after waving goodbye to her tribemates, the remaining contestants dropped from 18 to 17.
Well, Jeff spoke with Entertainment Weekly in an interview published after episode 1 aired. And he made it clear that he viewed Hannah’s departure as quitting.
“Oh, that’s a quit. Yeah, 100 percent,” Probst said. “That is a very clear quit. I think what Hannah was doing was giving her tribe a fair warning that if you do not vote me out or agree to let me go home right now, then this tribe of six will quickly be down to four because I’m not staying. That’s what I read.
“And as difficult as it is, especially if you were in an alliance with Hannah, when someone is that dead set on quitting, I think the smart move is to let them quit and then adapt your game. Because it was very clear to me this was not a typical, ‘Oh, bamboo’s really rough to sleep on.’ This was, ‘Yep, I made a bad decision and I’m going to course correct right now and go home.’”
“And the first call I made was to [casting director] Jesse Tanenbaum and Dr. Liza, our head psychologist, to say, “Add this into our data, because we got it wrong. We missed something with Hannah. She shouldn’t have been on the show.”
Jeff said Hannah is a reminder to viewers that Survivor puts the ‘reality’ in ‘reality show’
Hannah isn’t the first wide-eyed contestant to show up on Survivor ready to wheel, deal, and compete to become the “Sole Survivor” only to find out that they aren’t cut out to live in the elements with just the bare necessities. All in all, 18 players (including Hannah) who’ve competed in CBS’s version of Survivor have quit without being voted out.
And Jeff told the outlet that Hannah and her game’s demise was a testament to how real Survivor is.
“I think Hannah is a reminder that Survivor is 100 percent real, and that’s what she offers us as an episode 1 quit, because as everybody else was suffering the same way she was, nobody else even considered going home,” Jeff said. “I mean, quits in general are very rare on Survivor anyway. And it could happen again. She might not be the last person to quit, but it’s good news for everybody else.”
Entertainment Weekly also caught up with Hannah after Wednesday’s premiere. She said that hunger, above all else, led to her early exit. But, her sleep deprivation, lack of caffeine and nicotine, and a 24-hour monsoon took a toll as well, she said — Hannah “couldn’t function” by the time the first Immunity Challenge commenced. “Sorry to the haters that think that I threw away an opportunity, but I’m so glad that those tribemates got to keep playing and give you the show that you want to see,” Hannah said. “Because as I said to Jeff at Tribal: This ain’t it. It’s not it for me.
However, she was clear that she didn’t believe she quit Survivor 45. “Technically, it’s not a quit,” she said. “It was at Tribal. Let’s just own that.”
But, considering a traditional vote wasn’t held and Hannah leaving was her choice, her name will be etched in the Survivor history books as someone who quit the opportunity of a lifetime.
Survivor 45 airs 90-minute episodes every week at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CBS, and it’s also available to stream live and on-demand via Paramount Plus.