YouTube Omar Zaheer and Drea Wheeler in episode 11 of "Survivor 42."
Although “Survivor 42” became well-known for its lighthearted take on the game and the genuine bonds and friendships formed, it turns out there was a dark and – by one contestant’s account, “traumatic” – story that took place afterward.
On Friday, sixth-place finisher Omar Zaheer revealed that Drea Wheeler, a contestant with whom he formed a tight bond, then proceeded to blindside at the final 7, spread a series of malicious and toxic lies about him at Ponderosa after she was eliminated, in order to “poison” the jury against him.
Here’s what you need to know:
Omar Believes He Must Share His Story Because ‘It’s Important to Get Closure’
In Omar’s “Deep Dive” podcast with Rob Cesternino, he spoke of his hesitation in publicly revealing something which took place on the island in the year since it happened. “It’s an important part of the journey,” he said of the story. “I thought a lot about, ‘Do I talk about this? Do I not talk about this?’ … But I think it is important to talk about it because it was a very important part of the experience. And it’s something that I hope other people don’t necessarily face … For me, it’s important to get that closure, and to get that information out there.”
“It felt wrong to not share part of the experience that was very traumatizing,” he added.
As superfans of the series will know, there was no Ponderosa series released for season 42, as there has been for every season since 2008. As a result, all Ponderosa-relevant information the cast has decided to speak out on is entirely new (though the reason for this lack of content is likely related to quarantining regulations and a conflict in filming scheduling after season 41 had completed, not any interpersonal drama).
Omar, of course, played a rather villainous game during his time on the show, lying to and betraying a number of close allies (most notably Drea and Hai Giang), though both seemed to take it with great stride, with Drea in particular having one of the most graceful and humorous exits in the history of the show. However, it appears as though her smile and laughter upon leaving belied a more resentful and acrimonious undercurrent.
Omar Was Accused of Being a ‘Malicious, Evil Person’ Who ‘Systematically Eliminated People of Color’
Upon coming to Ponderosa on Day 23, Omar revealed that he was greeted with people saying, in essence, “You are a malicious, evil person who I have no respect for, that systematically eliminated people of color in favor of Jonathan [Young] and Lindsay [Dolashewich], and we have no respect for you, and you’re so lucky you didn’t make it to the end because we would have embarrassed you in front of everybody at the Final Tribal Council.”
Omar, shocked and dismayed by these accusations, began to doubt himself and question whether the intense allegations may have been true after all. “You want to acknowledge and validate their feelings,” Omar said of the people he had supposedly hurt, “and so if they feel this intensely about me, there must be something that I did, or I must be a bad person, or whatever it may be.” Omar’s self-doubt even reached a point to where he basically regretted coming on the show in the first place. He explained:
I think for a long time, even leaving the game … I thought it was a mistake to go on the show … ‘I shouldn’t have gone out there, I shouldn’t have done any of that, and I should have just not even done this experience, because I tried to play a hard but fair game, but hurt people in a very deep emotional level that I wasn’t intending to do.’
Later on, Omar discovered the source of these vindictive allegations, which continued even after the game was over: “I think after unraveling all of that – and this is also stuff that came out after the game and months later – where all of the anger that was kind of directed toward me was very much spun by one person.” That person, he revealed, was Drea Wheeler.
Drea Spread Numerous Falsehoods About Omar to ‘Poison’ the Jury Against Him
CBSDrea Wheeler on “Survivor 42.”
Omar went into detail about what kind of lies Drea spread at Ponderosa. For one, he alleges she would tell people that Omar, who is devoutly Muslim, would “pretend to pray when [he] was really strategizing,” and that Omar would consistently ask production what time it was under the pretense of knowing when to pray, when in reality it was to know “how much scrambling time” he had. Omar claimed this lie was particularly egregious, as he “never once” even asked production what time it was, as he knew they wouldn’t tell him.
In addition, Omar had shared the story of the death of his father with some of his tribemates (not including Drea) during the game. At Ponderosa, Hai, who was part of the conversation, told Drea about it. She responded by saying that he was lying about that story entirely. This lie in particular crossed a line for him. “It’s like, don’t talk about my dad that way, that’s crazy!” Omar said.
He detailed a number of other hostile rumors which Drea allegedly spread, including that he intentionally pit Drea and Chanelle Howell against each other “for things that are very sensitive and beyond the game,” that she divulged the fact that she had the Knowledge Is Power advantage to him “in a moment of weakness,” as they were bonding on race the morning after the episode 9 Tribal Council in which Tori Meehan was eliminated, and that he “took advantage” of these cultural and race-related issues “on a very deep level.”
Of course, those who have watched the show know for a fact that these allegations are false, as Drea told Omar of her Knowledge Is Power advantage three days later, in episode 11. Omar explained how he felt in the aftermath of learning about this:
To have that twisted into something that it wasn’t in order to poison the whole jury against me and make sure that I lost on falsities is very hurtful. And when you touch on things like race, religion, and your family, and you lie on those things and then systematically kind of put me on the outs … it was kind of crazy to experience that sort of social dynamic where you feel like you can’t even express yourself, or be normal.
“What you see on camera was not how the behavior was off-camera,” Omar said of Drea. “And that was very intentional.”
Omar also gave his take on why he believed Drea had done this – he believed it may have been a way for her to reconcile the Omar she knew and loved in the game vs. the Omar who betrayed her. “I think [Drea] seemed very convinced she was going to win the game,” he said, “[so] to go out in the way she did by divulging information [at Ponderosa], it’s like, to solve that disparity, it’s almost as if I had to become a monster. And it was just very hurtful to hear that she had created all of these lies about me that were very personal.”
One Castaway Came to Omar’s Defense
Omar also wanted to give a “shout out” to Tori, who he said showed him kindness and empathy that “I’ll never forget.” “Tori was really the person that was like, ‘You don’t deserve this, you shouldn’t be treated this way, they’re wrong, you are good, and don’t let this affect you’,” Omar said. He added that Tori, who is a therapist in real life, even wrote him “the most beautiful letter I’ve ever received,” causing him to start “sobbing” upon reading it. “It was so kind,” he said. “And that’s who Tori is – she’s a very kind, empathetic, passionate person.”
In the months since, Omar has healed both himself and his relationships with the other jury members who were originally understandably upset with him. This was largely due to the grace of his friendships with Tori, Lindsay, and Chanelle, who he said he “got to heal with at Ponderosa,” as well as the psychologists provided by the show.
@chanellehowelll Obsessed with you queen 😭
In addition, he has since tried to reach out to Drea, but to no avail. “I tried for months,” Omar revealed, “because for months I thought that I was the problem. And then … just realizing the magnitude of it and talking with a lot of psychologists, I realized it wasn’t me that was the problem … So, closure there is not something that I need, because I’m depending on myself for healing now.”
Omar also revealed that he was not the only victim of this targeted campaign of mendacity:
This behavior was not restricted to just me. There were lies told about other people on very personal, deep levels.
However, he would not reveal any more, saying that these stories were for other people to share. “It wasn’t isolated to just me,” Omar said, “but I feel like I’m the person that can speak up first just because it mostly affected me.”
In the case that others do come out and reveal their stories, surely they will not be shy in doing so. Fans will be anxiously waiting to see how the rest of this story unfolds.
“Survivor” airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. Eastern on CBS. Season 43 will be premiering in September 2022.
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Omar Zaheer: Drea Wheeler Spread ‘Malicious,’ ‘Traumatizing’ Lies at Ponderosa