‘One of my favorite origin stories ever’: Jeff Probst celebrates ‘Survivor 45’s Jake O’Kane’s incredible weight-loss journey

This article contains spoilers for Survivor 45‘s fifth episode, which first aired on CBS and Paramount Plus on Oct. 25.

Jake O’Kane had a scary moment during Survivor 45‘s fifth episode, but it led to him sharing his inspirational weight-loss story, and it was something host and showrunner Jeff Probst applauded on the latest installment of On Fire: The Official Survivor Podcast.

During our first glimpse of the Lulu tribe after Reba’s Sean Edwards was voted out on day 9, Jake passed out walking for the second time in his Fijian marooning. He regained full consciousness within an instant, and the likes of Bruce Perreault and Kellie Nalbandian offered aid, but he maintained that he was fine.

While resting, Jake shared with his tribe his worry that Survivor production would pull him from the game even though he’d been performing well in the challenges and around camp barring the two random incidents — he also collapsed during episode 3 when he was a part of the first Belo tribe, but popped back up right away.

During a confessional after his second spill, he opened up about his frustration with his body considering he had done so much to get it healthy. The 26-year-old attorney said he weighed 287 pounds before coming onto Survivor, which was a product of binge eating.

“I just said to myself, ‘I’m not okay with this,” an emotional Jake recounted. “‘I can do better — this isn’t how my life is meant to be. I can overcome this.’ And I did.”

Speaking on his podcast, Jeff pointed to Survivor’s new-era approach to casting and storytelling. Since Survivor 41, a lot more of the series’ edit has been focused on telling individual castaway’s stories, which are often traumatic but can be inspirational for many watching.

And Jeff views Jake’s journey with binge eating as likely “relatable to millions of people.”

“Jake, as I said last week, is one of my favorite origin stories ever mainly because of the courage of Jake to share so openly,” Jeff said. “I mean, that was a very personal story and so relatable to so many people. But, also the beautiful way that it was told and the editing, and that shift where he’s down and he’s telling you about his lowest moment and then he laughs.

“[Then to] use that moment to then turn from the down to the up, and it finishes as one of the most moving pieces we’ve ever done. And I think Jake should expect to do some speaking events because I really do mean it. I think that was probably relatable to millions of people, and maybe he should start with playing this scene from Survivor 45 and get into it.”

In terms of the game, Jake’s seemingly positioned himself well on his Lulu tribe. He has yet to see Tribal Council heading into episode 6, but with the merge looming, the attorney will likely make a trip to the voting urn sooner rather than later.