Latest news with #ParvatiShallow
Yahoo
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'Survivor' gave Parvati Shallow a cutthroat reputation. She's learned to stop judging herself.
'I love a good villain,' Parvati Shallow tells me from her couch as we're connected on Zoom. 'Everyone has the capacity to lie. Everyone has the capacity to be mean or bad or cutthroat.' Despite the bright smile and warm personality that I see throughout our conversation for Yahoo's Unapologetically series, I know that she knows from experience. Shallow was just 23 when she made her reality television debut nearly 20 years ago on Survivor: Cook Islands, swiftly becoming known for her good looks and flirtatious personality. In her first return to the series for Survivor: Micronesia — Fans vs. Favorites, her lore grew. She was labeled the 'Black Widow' and leader of the season's all-female alliance, the 'Black Widow Brigade,' where she encouraged other women to use sensuality to their advantage in the game. 'Taking out the guys by flirting with them and making them love me and then slitting their throats,' is how she explains it to me. It led her to win the season, but also to garner a bad reputation. 'The culture of that time was very sort of slut-shamey. People had a negative opinion of me and I internalized it,' she says. 'I didn't know myself. I had no sense of self that anchored me to my values, what I stand for. So I was very easily influenced by other people's opinions of me.' Now, she couldn't care less. As a 42-year-old mom, divorcée and author of the new memoir Nice Girls Don't Win: How I Burned It All Down to Claim My Power, Shallow feels the most confident she's ever felt because she finally knows who she is. Here, she explores what therapy, motherhood and life experience have to do with it. This is the most accepting I have been of myself and the best I have known myself. It's kind of the height of my inner radiance era, and that exudes outward. I look at myself in pictures and I like how I look. I feel like I look better now than I did 20 years ago, and I think it's a testament to the work that I've done on getting to really like myself and appreciate me for me. I'm only now connected to the girl I was 20 years ago because I have done the work. I look back and realize, Oh my God, she was such a baby. She had no idea what she was getting into. She said 'yes' to an adventure that was well beyond anything she had ever experienced before in her life. And then, you know, really hammed it up for the camera. I think I used to judge myself for that 'cause I got a lot of criticism and a lot of backlash when the show came out. Now, I can accept myself more holistically because I've integrated all of those parts of me. It's always me [onscreen], but it's me inside the context of a game with very specific rules. So when I play Survivor, I play with whatever skills I have naturally developed over the course of my life through being in a sorority, being a bartender and a waitress, being a boxer in an arena in Hollywood, knowing how to perform and knowing how to compete. It's an arena where the rules are to bring people in, get really close to them and then if you're not intending to take them all the way to the end with you, you gotta lie to them, you gotta backstab them, you gotta get them out of the game. When we left the commune, I was 9 years old. My parents essentially were refugees. They had no friends, no community, and they had to start a life from scratch with two young kids. We were in survival mode, and that's been my default mode of operating. We come up with these strategies that help us do life when we're kids, and they keep operating even when we become adults. I realized I was just creating my life unconsciously from those early childhood coping mechanisms, and it was no longer working for me. As soon as I filed for divorce [from ex-husband and fellow Survivor alum John Fincher] and was in my own place. I had the custody split where my daughter [Ama] was with her dad some days, and I had empty space for the first time in basically my entire life where I got to sit with myself, and I was like, well, How did I get here? How did I get into a place where I was in a marriage that I didn't wanna be in? I got off track at some point. So I started to dig in from that question. I started reflecting back on my childhood, which I had not thought of ever. I needed to stop, clear the decks, empty calendar days on my schedule, and just sit down and write to put these pieces together and thread these stories together. It brought me to write this book. My whole foundational blueprint of life was formed in that commune, but as soon as we left, we didn't really talk about it ever again. I never talked to my old friends from that place, and it was sort of a black box. I wish [my parents] had written their stories, or I wish we'd talked about it, because maybe I could have thought differently about my own life or made different choices — not that I have any regrets or resent [my parents] at all. They were heroic to get us out of an unhealthy situation, and I know I'm in a different place now. I'm not in survival mode. Having my baby was like a death and rebirth for me, where I was like, I can't keep doing life the way I have been doing it and take care of this kid and give her what she needs to be a well-adjusted person in the world. So I really had to stop and take a hard look at myself and feel the pain and trauma from my past so that I could heal it, resolve it and do things differently. I created a business where I had enough money to really take some time to process the experiences I've been through and hire some healers and therapists to work with me so I could understand myself. I've worked with a lot of different people to get this book written, to just get myself to a place where I could think about my life differently and then offer my story as a gift to my daughter for whenever she's ready to read it, if she wants to read it. If she doesn't want to read it, that's fine too. But at least it's there for her if she wants it. When I got divorced, I had to kill my dream of having a nuclear family. I realized I could make whatever family I wanted. And lucky me, I had this kind of foundational experience of living in a commune with people running around all over the place. So, I live my life like a commune now. We have a huge chosen family. There are kids over here all the time, and I have people living in the back house all the time — it's like an open-door policy. If anyone needs help or a place to stay, they will stay at my house. If I leave to go shoot a show, my parents are here and the extended family is here. Everyone's pitching in. My daughter is so deeply loved by so many people, and it takes so much pressure off of me to be the one role model. She has so many people who are very diverse, who are interesting, who have different perspectives and opinions about things in life, and who are pouring love into her. I just feel super-blessed to have expanded my life from my divorce; so many possibilities have opened up of what a family can look like and feel like. I would say this is still my biggest sort of growth edge. This is the first time I'm in a place where the other pieces of the puzzle of my life are pretty set. I feel great about my career, I've got the momming down, I can be flexible and negotiate with the co-parenting situation at the drop of a dime if I have to. I've got so much support built into my life for motherhood and for my work that the relationship piece, I can devote more time and emotional energy to. But it's really hard. I am a freedom-seeking person. I've realized that heterosexual monogamous marriage was too tight a container for me. I've now been in a queer relationship [with comedian Mae Martin] and that was so incredible and expansive and nourishing — it was like soul food for me. If there are other people who are willing to explore possibilities of different kinds of relationship structures, that'd be really cool for me. I'm digging into that these days. I know myself so much more now, so if people have opinions of me, good or bad, it doesn't really have anything to do with me. Your opinion of me is none of my business — and that feels like a good place for me to be. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
USA Today
08-07-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
'Survivor' winner Parvati Shallow on commune childhood, divorce and queerness in memoir
Parvati Shallow is ready to right the record on her 'Black Widow' reputation. The four-time 'Survivor' contestant is telling her story in far more detail than you've seen on TV in her new memoir, 'Nice Girls Don't Win' (out now from Penguin Random House). In this new tell-all, she goes behind her million-dollar 'Survivor' victory at 25, starting from her childhood in a Florida commune run by a tyrannical female guru. 'Nice Girls Don't Win' chronicles her journey to rebuild her life after public scrutiny, divorce and the death of her brother, accepting herself as more than the 'villain' persona she was given on 'Survivor.' Parvati Shallow took this skill from her commune childhood to 'Suvivor' Shallow's parents raised her in the Florida commune of controversial religious figure Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati. They left when she was 9, after years of enduring "indoctrination of indentured servitude," abuse, financial demands and "love bombing" by leaders. It was here that Shallow confesses she learned 'fawning,' a 'competitive likeability' that felt like a 'magic trick' to gain friendship and social status both in her school years and later on 'Survivor.' From a young age on the commune, she realized that fawning was a survival skill to 'persuade someone to like us so we can escape danger.' The adults around her were rewarded for fawning over religious authority figures. It's this charm that earned Shallow the nickname 'Black Widow,' a contestant known for her cunning social strategy. 'Fawning is one of the most socially rewarded survival instincts of all time – other people love it when we fawn over them,' Shallow writes. 'We can amass friendships, money, coveted jobs, romances, and awards … and all you have to trade is your truth – if you even know what that is.' Public scrutiny after 'Survivor' 'rocked' Parvati Shallow Shallow came home from 'Survivor' to a wave of public scrutiny, many calling her a 'slut' or 'vapid whore.' Viewers came up to her in person and told her how much they disliked her. She felt her time on the show was 'powerfully transformative,' but realized the public didn't feel the same about her 'flirty-fawning strategy' 'The intensity of the backlash confused me. I'd always seen myself as a likable person. I'd been accepted and invited into diverse social groups with ease. I couldn't make sense of the harsh criticism I was receiving from simply being myself and playing a game,' Shallow writes. She 'couldn't untangle the game from real life,' she writes, which led her to a spiral of controlling relationships with men and self-hatred. Personal grief behind the scenes of 'Survivor' Shallow returned to "Survivor" two more times after her win on her second time playing. She played in season 20's "Heroes vs. Villains" in 2010. In "Heroes vs. Villains," Shallow writes that she was a last-minute switch to the villains tribe. Shallow recalls feeling 'hated' by fellow contestants and like an "underdog" for the first time. In her personal life, she was struggling even more. Just before Shallow left for filming, her 15-year-old brother Kaelan suffered a skateboarding accident and her best friend's brother died in an alcohol-related boating accident. When she got back home, Kaelan had started abusing the painkillers he had from surgery. The experience left her feeling 'rejected and unlovable, like a real loser.' 'When the season eventually aired, it was strange to feel so far removed from the love that was being poured onto me from fans, production, and the network. … But because I was so deeply lost inside my frozen shame pit, there was nowhere for this love to land. I couldn't feel it, receive it, or own it. I was sure they were all wrong,' Shallow writes. Shallow returned to "Survivor" again in 2020 because she and now-ex-husband John Fincher needed the money. Suffering from postpartum anxiety and struggling with her marriage, she writes that she knew returning to the show "would take whatever was left" of her. Later that year, her brother died of a drug overdose at age 26. They held his memorial over Zoom, which she said made her feel "numb." Parvati Shallow felt 'alone' in marriage to 'Survivor' alum John Fincher Shallow married fellow 'Survivor' alum Fincher in 2017 and had daughter, Ama, in 2018. She filed for divorce in 2021. In 'Nice Girls Don't Win,' Shallow writes that she felt 'alone inside (her) marriage' and that the end of her marriage felt like she 'was being held against (her) will inside an agreement or contract that was too tight and there was no room for renegotiation.' She alleges Fincher only wanted her as a trophy wife and abandoned her on trips shortly after Ama was born. Shallow and Fincher's marriage began to crumble further after she started exchanging flirtatious messages with another man on Instagram. After Fincher found the messages, they tried to repair their marriage, but Shallow still found herself sliding toward divorce. Then her brother died, and Shallow asked Fincher to financially support the family while she grieved, but she alleges he didn't follow through on his promise. It was her breaking point. Then Fincher got diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer. Shallow shifted her priorities to focus on his care and support. Five months after his diagnosis, she proceeded with the divorce but still felt a 'wifely duty to help him through his cancer treatment.' 'I knew then that staying in my marriage would mean letting a part of myself die – the part of me that longed for real, honest love and partnership,' she writes. 'Traitors' helped Parvati Shallow reclaim the word 'villain' Shallow appeared on Season 2 of 'Traitors,' during which she was in the process of a radical self-love and acceptance to reclaim the word 'villain.' At the time she was teaching an online course called 'How Villains Are Made' and working on her confidence. She was also in a relationship with comedian Mae Martin, who she says was supportive and transformed her outlook on love and gender. Shallow came out as queer in an Instagram post in December 2023. On Alan Cumming's reality show, Shallow started as a 'Faithful' but was quickly recruited to be a 'Traitor." Because of the therapy and personal work she'd done, it was more difficult to lie without internalizing the shame and guilt that she was 'being bad.' But eventually, she was able to lean into playing the part – Shallow says she saw 'Traitors' as just a game, her decisions and lying not inextricably linked to her core personality like she did on 'Survivor.' Clare Mulroy is USA TODAY's Books Reporter, where she covers buzzy releases, chats with authors and dives into the culture of reading. Find her on Instagram, subscribe to our weekly Books newsletter or tell her what you're reading at cmulroy@
Yahoo
30-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Legendary 'Survivor' Player Reveals How 'Cult-Like' Upbringing Prepared Her for the Show
Legendary 'Survivor' Player Reveals How 'Cult-Like' Upbringing Prepared Her for the Show originally appeared on Parade. Parvati Shallow, 42, is perhaps one of the most prolific reality competition show contestants in history, having competed on Survivor five times (including an upcoming stint on Australian Survivor), Traitors, and Deal or No Deal Island. Now she's opening up about how the dark side of her childhood gave her the skills needed to excel in those environments. In her new memoir, Nice Girls Don't Win, Shallow explains that she grew up in a "cult-like" commune in Florida led by a controlling guru who led extensive meditations, took members' money, arranged marriages between them, doled out punishments, and even tried to adopt their newborn children. It was an environment Shallow described as "pure chaos," but it's also taught her skills that made her a reality competition maverick. "My early childhood set me up for success on Survivor," she told he told Us Weekly on June 20, 2025. Though Shallow was very young during her parents' involvement with the group, she interviewed them for her book and realized that it definitely left a lasting impact on her. 'It was just really interesting to hear my parents' stories and then overlay them on my adult life because I recreated so much of the same emotional themes that they had gone through without even knowing it,' she told Us. She realized that she was even using cult survival tactics in her reality TV endeavors without knowing it. "Fawning is one of the most widely used survival strategies, and it's just this sort of overt people-pleasing, overly complimentary kind of love bombing," she said. "One of our basic needs is love and belonging, so if we experience a lack of that in childhood, we develop a hunger for it." She's also taken inspiration from the cult-like leaders and gurus she's experienced themselves. 'My go-to strategy to win reality competition games is to make people fall in love with me," she admitted. "I am just naturally very enthusiastic and warm. I can also turn it on in context like competitions to win.' That said, it worked. And she doesn't feel bad about it. "One of the ways you get what you want is by being really warm and friendly. I wanted to articulate these survival strategies and share stories of me using them, to take away the judgment and destigmatize it," she said. "[But I'm also] a huge proponent of everyone going to therapy." Shallow's book is set to be released on July 8, 2025. Legendary 'Survivor' Player Reveals How 'Cult-Like' Upbringing Prepared Her for the Show first appeared on Parade on Jun 24, 2025 This story was originally reported by Parade on Jun 24, 2025, where it first appeared.
Yahoo
29-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Parvati Shallow Reveals How 'The Traitors' Led to Her Coming Out
Parvati Shallow Reveals How 'The Traitors' Led to Her Coming Out originally appeared on Parade. For members of the LGBTQ+ community, every coming out story is different. For Parvati Shallow, it was a dropdown list. The Survivor legend sat down recently for an interview on "The Pride Has Spoken," a podcast on the "Rob Has a Podcast" network that focuses specifically on interviews with alumni of the CBS reality stalwart from the LGBTQ+ community. In the chat, she spoke about what led to her realizing she was queer, and shocking the internet with her announcement back on New Year's Eve 2023. And it turns out it was at least partially due to her return to reality TV that would only come about a month later, with her star turn on Season 2 of The Traitors. 🎬 SIGN UP for Parade's Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox 🎬 "When I was on Traitors, the show is about to air," Shallow recalls. "They sent me, um, like, a PR form for marketing and stuff. And they're like, 'Okay, well, tell us what your preferences are, so we organize your marketing and publicity for what fits you. And so they had a drop-down for LGBTQ+ and they said, 'Are you? Are you an ally, or none of the above?' And I was like, 'I'm an ally.' And Mae is like, '...No, you're not.'" Mae, in this case, is referring to Mae Martin. Shallow had been dating the comedian since March 2023 at the time of the story. The four-time Survivor player told People in January that their relationship is currently in an "in flux situation." However, at the time, she heavily credits Martin with helping her realize her own sexuality. "Oh my god, it blew my mind," she says. "I was like, 'oh my god, I'm queer, exciting!' And so then I just really went for it. I told everybody, and I've never put myself back in the box, and I never will." Related: Indeed, since coming out, Shallow has been able to undergo an entire rebirth of her on-screen career. Following her run on The Traitors as one of the titular cloaked agents of chaos, she made a deep run on Deal or No Deal Island. Later this year, she'll be making her return to Tribal Council as a part of the all-star cast of Australian Survivor: Australia v. the World. And she's even in the process of releasing a memoir, Nice Girls Don't Win: How I Burned It All Down to Claim My Power, set to release on July 8. And Shallow claims in the interview that discovering this new part of her identity has allowed her to enter reality TV in a completely different way than she did the first decade-plus of her career. "It just gives me more maneuverability," she says. "There's more ways to connect with people. I don't know that it reduces my threat level in any way, but it does make people curious about me. They want to understand. So I think even though people know that I'm a threat and that I'm a dangerous player, they still want to get close to me because they want to figure me out. So I think adding in the layer of now I'm queer, people are like, 'Wait what? She wasn't before, now she is?' And it sort of boggles people's minds. So they can't wrap their head around me and contain me, and they can't put me in a box. How do you fight a shadow? You can't." Despite the shadow metaphor, Shallow's star is arguably shining brighter than ever. And it's all thanks to that dropdown question from a year and a half Shallow Reveals How 'The Traitors' Led to Her Coming Out first appeared on Parade on Jun 29, 2025 This story was originally reported by Parade on Jun 29, 2025, where it first appeared.
Yahoo
27-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Parvati Shallow's next reality TV show will reunite her with two U.S. ‘Survivor' legends in Australia: It's a ‘wild ride'
After traveling the world to exotic islands (Survivor: Micronesia), forbidden temples (Deal or No Deal Island), and Scottish castles (The Traitors), where is Parvati Shallow off to next? The 42-year-old American reality TV superstar had better start practicing her didgeridoo, because her next venture will be Survivor: Australia v the World. The highly anticipated season is being dubbed the "Olympics of Survivor" because it pits contestants from Australia against those from the United States, New Zealand, South Africa, and Norway. More from GoldDerby 'Deal or No Deal Island' champ on 'incredible' $5.8 million record win, and why he 'related' to new Banker Chrissy Teigen 'I go out to win!' Parvati Shallow admits she would've cut her 'Deal or No Deal Island' family members, teases her 'Survivor' future 'The Voice' Season 27 Episode 8 recap: Michael and Kelsea close out 'Battles' round with final steals Parvati will be competing alongside two fellow U.S. Survivor legends, Cirie Fields and Tony Vlachos. All three of them know what it's like to claim a show's ultimate prize money, with Parvati winning Survivor Season 16, Tony winning Survivor Seasons 28 and 40, and Cirie winning The Traitors Season 1. As far as whether she'd want to take part in the 50th season of the American Survivor, Parvati tells Gold Derby, "I would have a hard time, because it doesn't seem like people want to play with me, or they haven't in the past. So, I'm not really feeling compelled to go out." Comparatively, she says her upcoming stint on Survivor: Australia v the World will be a "wild ride." SEE'I go out to win!' Parvati Shallow admits she would've cut her 'Deal or No Deal Island' family members, teases her 'Survivor' future The international program will debut this July on Australia's Network 10. Sadly, there are no current plans for U.S. distribution of the program. Likewise, older seasons of Australian Survivor are not available to watch in the States due to streaming rights issues. (Online Survivor communities continue to debate this hot topic.) The Australian installment filmed in Samoa, just like 2023's Heroes v Villains, 2024's Titans v Rebels, and 2025's Brains v Brawn II. But unlike those cycles, which each took place over 47 days, Australia v the World will be a shortened version at only 16 days. In addition, there will be only 14 castaways, down from the normal 24 who play a normal season Down Under. In addition to Parvati, Cirie, and Tony, it has been announced that "King" George Mladenov, Shonee Bowtell, and Kirby Bentley will be representing Australia. The identities of the New Zealand, South Africa, and Norway competitors will be unveiled at a later date. Actor and TV personality Jonathan LaPaglia returns as the show's resident torch-snuffer, who notably closes out each episode with the same iconic catchphrase as America's host Jeff Probst: "The tribe has spoken." Probst has gone on record that he doesn't watch Australian Survivor, or any rival reality shows, because he never wants to be in a position where someone accuses him of borrowing an idea from elsewhere. Besides her winning moment in Micronesia (watch below), Parvati also finished sixth in Cook Islands, second in Heroes vs. Villains, and 15th in Winners at War. As for non-Survivor projects, she placed 11th in The Traitors Season 2, and fourth in Deal or No Deal Island Season 2. SIGN UP for Gold Derby's free newsletter with latest predictions Best of GoldDerby 'The Masked Singer' spoilers: Who is Boogie Woogie? 'American Idol' deaths: Full list of singers we've lost 'The Masked Singer' spoilers: Who is Griffin? Click here to read the full article.
