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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.
WIRED
08-07-2025
- Entertainment
- WIRED
Parvati Shallow Says RIP to the ‘Black Widow' and All That
Jul 8, 2025 1:27 PM Survivor star Parvati Shallow spoke with WIRED about her new book, social media, the politics of the show, and who from the cast apologized following her time on the beach. Courtesy of Mark Squires/Penguin Random House Parvati Shallow, the reality TV maven and one-time Survivor winner, can now also add published author to her list of achievements. The legendary schemer, who orchestrated scores of blindsides on the beaches of the Cook Islands, Micronesia, and Fiji, has published a new memoir from Penguin Random House titled Nice Girls Don't Win: How I Burned It All Down to Claim My Power . The book, a deeply revealing, personal excavation of Shallow's childhood, divorce, relationships, and experience with reality television, is out now. She also gets into the nitty gritty of what happened during her many Survivor appearances. Courtesy of Penguin Random House During her time on Survivor, Shallow became known as one of the greatest and most adaptable threats to ever play the game. She was known for using charm—or 'fawning,' as she calls it in her book—to manipulate players and build loyal alliances. As the leader of the so-called 'Black Widow Brigade' during Survivor: Micronesia , Shallow famously voted out men one by one. Shallow, who has also appeared on Traitors and Deal or No Deal Island , spoke with WIRED about her new book, social media, Survivor world's reaction to women on the show, the politics of Survivor , and who from the cast apologized following her time on the beach. This interview has been edited for clarity and length. WIRED: I have to start this interview with the very last page of your book, which reads, 'In loving memory of the Black Widow. She served me well, and now she's free. 2008 to 2025.' What does that mean? Parvati Shallow: I stumbled into the Black Widow role when I played Survivor the second time. And in order to play that game, to win, I had to become a different person. So I stepped into this energy, the power, this costume, this role of the Black Widow. And then it became me. It's like, I couldn't take it off. Every time I played a reality game, after I won Micronesia , I was known as the Black Widow. And it came with its own aura of terror, and also curiosity from my colleagues in the competitive sphere. But after writing my book, and after my last stint on Survivor: Australia V The World , which is going to air in August, I was like, 'Oh, I've outgrown the role.' She's not more powerful than me anymore. It's not like a role that I need to put on to protect myself or to have people respond to me in a certain way. I can shed that skin now with love, and I can let someone else pick her up and play with her and put that role on. Because she's incredible, she's super powerful, she's really fun to play with, and she gets what she wants. So whoever wants to pick up the Black Widow costume role from here and take it on, you have my blessing. During my pandemic Survivor binge, I watched your Micronesia season from 2008, and you had such a clear vision as the Black Widow. You played the game so well. I was shocked when I looked up your press after the season and saw such vitriol about it. You wrote in your book that you were portrayed as a 'slut' or 'manipulative whore,' all of this really awful language. That's not how you've been discussed more recently, in what I would call the recent Survivor renaissance. What was it like to see that big switch? It was really healing. It felt like I was taking medicine. I was like, 'Oh my god, this is so nice,' because I didn't expect it. I had gone through what happened in my twenties with the press and critics and the backlash from the girl power. People are scared of it. I'll stand behind that power that women have forever and always promote it and encourage it in myself and everyone else. And I have a daughter, so I'm like, girl, you need to use your voice and be yourself. But when I was in my twenties, I really didn't have a strong sense of self, and I internalized a lot of that criticism, and it really impacted the choices that I made in my life. So I started making some really unhealthy choices, which I wrote about in the book. It was only coming out the other side and playing on Traitors and then receiving all the love after Traitors is really when I was like, 'Oh, maybe I wasn't so bad after all. Maybe all the mean things that people said weren't true.' Hearing other voices say how impressive my gameplay was, and acknowledging that I had strategy as well as a curvy bod or whatever, it was so nice. It felt like the scales were balancing. This is WIRED, so I have to ask: So often, I am looking at social media and the way that it negatively portrays women. But in your case, the gospel of Mother Parvati has spread throughout social media. Evan Ross Katz, noted Survivor fan and so much more, is mentioned in your book—he's one of those accounts that I think of when it comes to buoying you and your gameplay. How has social media played into all this? I love the memes that people make. In the past, in my first few go-rounds on the island, social media wasn't really a thing. It was, like, MySpace, right? Twitter was just starting, so it wasn't that impactful then. But since I've gone back to reality shows, it's like I went back just in time for the social media revolution to be supportive rather than something that's been really nasty. I mean, I still get haters like everyone else, but it doesn't really matter anymore. Since writing my book, I see myself more holistically and accept the good and the bad parts, all the parts I wrote about in the book—the selfish, greedy, slutty, whatever parts, they're all OK, just like the generous, kind, loving, supportive parts. I think social media can be sort of a magnifying glass on certain aspects of a person, that if you don't have a holistic view of yourself, you can get kind of thrown off your center. Now, I just love the love and I can engage with the funny memes and GIFs that everyone posts about me. What are some of your favorites? I love them. The one that people made of me in Cook Islands on the pirate ship, when they like, pan the camera to me and I'm pouting sultry to the camera. I'm like, I remember that moment, and I remember being like, oh, here comes the camera. Here's my chance. And I really turned it on. So I love that the gays have picked that up and are like, 'Oh my God, this girl,' and they go on a boat, and they reenact that moment. It's so funny to me. When I did Traitors , there was all this footage of me squinting and pouting at people. Everyone's memed that, and the headbands. It's really funny. Taylor Owen and James Neal, they're a couple, and they do parodies on shows. They're so good. They did one of me and Peter from Traitors , and it was this very chemical moment where Peter and I are sizing each other up, and I'm like looking at him, and he's gazing at me. And Taylor is so funny. She stacks headbands up higher and higher as the camera pans away and pans back. They're hilarious, and they're now my new best friends. I love them so much. You go on Survivor now, you go on these shows now, and it's an entirely different landscape. How do you think portrayals and even conversations about women on Survivor have changed, as a result of this new era not just of gameplay but how it's being received? I think people are more accepting of women being strategic and being strategic forces in the game of Survivor . There are still some issues when it comes to women versus men on that show. I think it is sort of a male-dominated culture. It always has been and continues to be, though they have been putting effort in to make it more balanced. It's just that the bias still exists. It definitely reflects society as a whole, and society's fear of an empowered woman. Not just an empowered woman, but specifically an empowered woman who is also attractive, who is kind of threatening on multiple levels. There were a lot of really moving parts about this in your book. One of the things that was shocking to me was your section on the 2010 Heroes vs. Villains season and your treatment right after. Years later, how was writing that? How was reliving that? There were a few times when I sat down to write stories where I forced my body to sit at my table, and I just kept leaving my body. I did not want to relive that stuff. I didn't want to look back at it. It was so incredibly painful. The Heroes vs. Villains story, especially because of the context of my life around it, was really difficult. That coincided with my brother's accident, his hospitalization, and the death of my friend's brother, and just so much swirling around in that period of time that nobody knew. And for me to play Survivor at the level that I played, I couldn't share any of that. I couldn't be vulnerable with anyone and tell anyone what was happening in my life. And it was a different era where production didn't tell stories beyond the person's game. So I was reduced to a character in that bubble, in that moment in time, where people were already very threatened by me from Micronesia . And it was super crazy, with rampant sexism at the time. JT [Thomas's] speech when he'd been voted out, which I mention in the book, where he said, 'Never, ever trust a woman. Just never do it.' That's where people's heads were at when I played that season. So sitting down and writing this stuff, I knew that I hadn't repaired some of these relationships, like my relationship with Amanda [Kimmel, Shallow's ally in the so-called Black Widow Brigade] still doesn't exist. I would love to reconnect with her. I think I've done a lot of work to repair relationships from the past, not run away from conflict. But there's some stuff that's still alive. It was really, really therapeutic to sit down and write this stuff, because I didn't even know how much the intensity of those emotions and experiences were still in me until I sat down to write. You mentioned Amanda. Where do your friendships with other folks from the Survivor community stand right now? I have to say, your Paper interview with Natalie Bolton, another Heroes vs. Villains player, was iconic. [ Laughs. ] Love Natalie. Because I've done it so many times, I think of Survivor as a sort of dysfunctional family that I belong to. I love all of the players, all of the production, all the people inside this family, CBS, the whole thing, everyone is my family. And not every family is always totally healthy. There's conflict, there's drama, there's all of that. And of course, with the experiences that I had on Survivor , there is that as well, but we're connected forever. It's this shared experience that very few people on earth get a chance to have and I'm super grateful for it, because it's been so extraordinary in my life, and most of my relationships are good, like I actually talked to Erik Reichenbach on the phone yesterday. [Famously, Parvati Shallow, Amanda Kimmel, Cirie Fields, and Natalie Bolton convinced Reichenbach to hand over his immunity necklace before their Black Widow brigade voted him out.] I think for the most part, I'm good with anybody. I'm chill. Sandra [Diaz-Twine, who won Heroes vs. Villains ] and I have buried the hatchet, and I don't think I have any issues with anybody else. There's some people that I would rather just not have a relationship with. And you know that sometimes happens in a family too. Did JT ever apologize? Did you get any apologies from people after Heroes vs. Villains ? I can't remember ever talking to JT after Heroes vs. Villains . Candice [Woodcock] apologized. Some people did. They were like, I would have voted for you. I'm sorry I didn't. Which is nice to hear, but it's also like, eh. Yeah, you missed it in the moment. Whatever. [ Laughs. ] Whatever. But yeah, if somebody's gonna apologize, yeah, I really don't hold a grudge. I think that that's a waste of energy. It just makes people feel icky inside. So I don't want that energy. So if somebody apologizes to me, and it's sincere, I accept. Still, you've made a career of this! You're a professional reality star now and content creator. Every moment I turn around, you have another show. I can't wait. Yeah! And now I'm creating them and pitching them. So I'm developing shows and moving into hosting and producing. Can you say more about that? Anything that our WIRED friends should know about going forward? I have been pitching a show that I created with my friend Amy Bean, she and I do the Nice Girls Don't Win podcast together. It's just a fun show. It's kind of an intersection of horror and reality competition TV. Amazing. I mean, I clearly have a vested interest in this going somewhere. This doesn't exist anywhere else on the planet. So we'll see what other people say once we get this out to all the networks. So that's what I'm working on this summer, and then I'll probably be starting a new book project, because I have to intellectualize all my feelings. It's wild to think that if you played on Survivor right now, production would probably be talking about your family experiences and the way that you were raised and having to escape that, your relationships, your queer identity. I'm so glad I got to tell my story in my own words. I'm actually really grateful that I played Survivor in the era that I played where they didn't include my backstory and my family history and what was happening in my life, because I got to tell that. That's my story. I don't want anyone else telling that story. Are there parts of the Survivor process, the way it looks right now, that aren't just a little bit exploitative? The emotional music comes on and you know they're going to tell us this very intense story and why we should feel this way. It can be a little much. It's so interesting. I think what they're trying to do is to give viewers a more complete picture of the players, so that they know who we want to root for. And I think they're pulling on our emotions and our heartstrings as viewers, so that we get attached to certain players in a deeper way, in a more emotional way. I am amazed that some of those players are willing to share the things they're willing to share. That's some really personal information for your 30 seconds of Survivor . So many of the things you touch on in the book are, as we've been talking about, incredibly personal. They're also really political, like the way that women are used and abused, society's perception of women, LGBTQ rights, addiction. How does this make its way to the island? Are you talking about politics when you're there? For me as a player, I can't speak to anyone else's experience, but I am looking to bond with every single person in a very short amount of time in a deep way. So I ask questions about people. I find out where their belief systems lie, which you're relating to their politics. But it's not about Democrat or Republican, it's more about, What do they value? I have a lot of empathy for people, and I've gone through some pretty harrowing personal life experiences, especially around addiction, especially around just acceptance of human beings across the board. Life is hard, we're all doing the best we can. And I offer open space for people to be themselves. I connect most with people who share values of acceptance, and I gravitate towards those people, and I probably will blindside people who don't. Who is on that blindside list? I'm gonna win the game. And if your value systems don't jive with mine, we're not gonna connect, we're not gonna bond. I'm not gonna be able to trust you, and so I'm gonna have to blindside you, or get you out somehow, but it's most likely gonna be a blindside. Did this come up at all in Australia? It comes up every single time. Yeah, in every game. This is how I connect with people, it's through sharing stories. Being curious about other people, asking questions, and then looking for places where the things that we care about connect. You don't have to tell me who, but I would be OK if you did—what are some of the most egregious non-connection moments you've experienced on the island, political or otherwise? Well, I don't know JT's politics or Rupert [Boneham]'s, or, any of those guys on Heroes vs. Villains for that matter, like Colby [Donaldson], but I don't think that we share the same politics, and we very clearly did not connect. And you saw how that turned out for those guys. [ Laughs. ] OK, the Black Widow is still here. I think she's in the room with us right now. I'm sorry to say. I'm telling you, I'm a whole person. You're a holistic person. I know, but inside of a game, it's a bubble, and inside of that container, who are your people, who's your tribe, and who's not? I have a very high tolerance for people and their differences, and I just think do you, as long as you're not hurting someone else or taking away someone else's right to be a person. But if you're going to come after someone's right to exist as themselves? No, that doesn't work for me. When people are on the beach, and they're at the basest version of themselves, I've always wondered what comes out after that. Yeah. I mean, I think the most divisive for me was the Micronesia finale and the Heroes vs. Villains finale. That's where you see the politics play out. That's where the voting happens for the winner. I think you saw where people stood in those moments. And that's not to say that people can't change once they get more information, because some of them did apologize afterward. But, you know, some of them didn't, too. Survivor is a very political game. I've talked with Jon Lovett on his podcast about this too. I think there's a reason why people who are into politics love Survivor . My entire life is explained now! You're welcome. I validate you. For my last question, I want to get back to you as this professional reality TV star, content creator, and author. You are continuing and continuing to put yourself out into the world, even though you've been burnt by that so many times. Why did you decide that you were going to keep pushing? I think it's because I am a Scorpio moon. I don't know! I just have this deep hunger to feel. And I'm super curious and adventurous. And I really like putting myself into extreme environments where I have very little control, and seeing what happens and how I adapt, and pushing myself to be resilient. And I think that that is what keeps me growing and young. I want to grow, I want to learn, I want to develop. I want to get better and better and enjoy all there is to enjoy. And I even enjoy suffering. And pain is enjoyable to me, alongside joy and ecstasy and all pleasure. All of it is kind of enjoyable. So like I wrote about in my book, this is my kink, like Survivor reality TV competition shows, putting myself out there, exposing myself in a way that supports people's development and growth and people's acceptance of themselves. That's what my life is about. So I'm gonna keep doing it, even if it seems insane.
