CBS
Eagle-eyed viewers noticed something during the Survivor: Island of the Idols reunion Wednesday, December 18 — that Elizabeth Beisel and Jack Nichting, who were both members of the season 39 jury, were not in attendance at the reunion special where Tommy Sheehan was named sole survivor. Why?
Both Elizabeth and Jack are mum on social media, but Elizabeth did receive a lot of flack after the episode where Kellee Kim broke down in tears over the unwanted touching she received from Dan Spilo.
What happened was that Elizabeth — and contestant Missy Byrd, to a lesser extent — used Kellee’s discomfort with Dan as a game-play tactic. They made Kellee think they agreed with her and that Dan was going to be voted out; they also told those things to Janet Carbin to keep her in the dark about the real play, which was to vote Kellee out. Kellen was later voted off the game, and then she was forced to sit in silence as a jury member during the subsequent Tribal Council where Dan was confronted about his behavior.
Dan was later removed from the show for a second incident of unwanted touching, this one involving a producer.
But after the initial episode aired, many fans were outraged that Kellee’s experience with unwanted touching was used as a pawn in the game. As host Jeff Probst said during the live reunion, Elizabeth and Missy “got a lot of really unfortunate social media hate mail” in reaction to the way they treated both Kellee and Janet.
After the episode, Elizabeth posted an apology to Instagram that said, “After watching the episode, my eyes were opened to a completely different truth, and I received an abundance of information that I was entirely unaware of while playing the game. I had no idea the severity of the situation. As a player, I am limited to my own experiences and knowing what I know now, my decisions would have been very different.
“To Kellee. I was sick to my stomach watching the episode and seeing how much pain you were in. I wholeheartedly apologize to you for using your accusations against Dan for gameplay. In no world is that acceptable, and I take full responsibility for my actions, and lack thereof.
“To Janet. I deeply regret ever taking advantage of you in the game this way. Watching the episode, it was clear your sole intention was to protect us women, and I am distraught by the way I handled this situation. I am extremely sorry.”
So all of that may be why Elizabeth chose not to come to the reunion. As for Jack, there are rumors that Elizabeth and Jack began dating after the season wrapped and that he declined to attend the reunion out of solidarity with her.
Either way, neither of them was there, but Kellee did get a segment where she was allowed to speak about the season from her perspective. She was incredibly gracious in saying that she hopes the way things went down on this season will be an instrument for change; Probst assured her that it will. He apologized for the way the production team handled her situation and he says that in the future they know better how they absolutely should handle something like this.
Survivor returns for season 40, “Winners at War,” on Wednesday, February 12, 2020, on CBS.
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