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Key Points Shannon Fairweather was blindsided and unanimously voted off Survivor 49 after a tribe swap. She focused on sincerity and social connections, preferring to "play hard" rather than coast. Shannon's unique preparation included advice from Boston Rob and AI tips from spiritual figures. Survivor 49 is here! Every week, Parade.com’s Mike Bloom will bring you interviews with the castaway most recently voted off the island. It makes sense for “HerVibe” founder Shannon Fairweather to base her game on, what else, vibes. Over the course of nearly two weeks, while the wellness specialist didn’t go to Tribal Council, she didn’t opt for a meditative state, instead choosing to game hard. She was unaware, though, that she was losing possible disciples for her actions, most prominently Sage Ahrens-Nichols. And whether you consider Shannon a seal or a shark, they wanted to make sure her game was underwater. By the end of it, Ms. Fairweather was left without even fairweather friends, blindsided unanimously. 🎬 SIGN UP for Parade’s Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox 🎬 Shannon had perhaps the most unique preseason preparation in Survivor history. Her family connections with Boston Rob Mariano allowed her to get some key advice from the legend, even years before she would go out to play. And, when she found out she’d be traveling to Fiji, she programmed an AI to give her playing tips in the style of spiritual figures like Jesus and Ram Dass. While Shannon remembers being in the womb, her “birth” into Survivor was a late arrival. Due to the success of her first two tribes, she didn’t cast a vote through the first 12 days of the game. But that didn’t stop her from putting in work, making connections with the other Uli women in Sage and Savannah Louie. Shannon experienced her first bit of Survivor discomfort when she was swapped over the Kele tribe. But she made sure not to feel blue on the new blue tribe, making immediate connections with people like Kristina Mills, Alex Moore and Steven Ramm. Despite being on the bottom, her confidence was not shaken, as she was proposing cross-tribal alliance at the crack of dawn. Her nonstop chatter, however, was beginning to wear thin on both connections old and new. Particularly, Sage was growing increasingly sore at her “soul sister.” And when she found out Shannon had thrown her name out, she went on the warpath, eager to squeeze her out like a blackhead. On Day 11, the players were truly feeling the heat. Not only from a literal perspective, but structurally as well. An unprecedented swap put the castaways back into three tribes of four. And, improbably, Shannon and Sage were still together, as was Steven and a former Uli member, Jawan Pitts. Facing her first vote, she was surprisingly looking to draw some red tribe blood, wanting to take out Jawan to keep her options open. As she walked into Tribal Council, she was confident that the structure she had built was as sound as her parents’ four-floor sports bar. But “last call” came much quicker than anticipated, as the vote turned on her. And, while Shannon had nothing but hugs and warm words to her fellow castaways, it wasn’t entirely mutual, as Sage declined an embrace, offering her a handshake. Now out of the game, Shannon talks about her reaction to her blindside (and Sage’s last gesture), the accusations of her authenticity from other players, and how her unique preseason prep played into her game. Related: Read our Survivor 49 pre-game interview with Shannon Fairweather I want to start with where things ended. There was a litany of emotions not only coming from you, but towards you on your way out. How surprised were you that it was you? I was shocked. I was completely shocked. My Shot in the Dark might have been like left at the beach behind or in my shoe somewhere. I felt so solid. And that just speaks to to how well Sage, Jawan and Steven — specifically Sage and Steven — had me feeling so confident and comfortable. In the moment, when Sage declines your hug and offers a handshake, you seem to just carry on, saying, “Love you too.” But what was your reaction as that was happening? I mean, it’s not coming as a full surprise now. Because Sage and I have talked a ton, so I knew what was coming. To watch it back, you can kind of relive the experience. And in that moment, like I said, I was fully shocked. In that moment, there’s almost the fan in you who’s like, “This is sick! This is epic.” It’s almost odd to say that to get blindsided is like Survivor bucket list. But not everyone gets to experience that. And even for me, you know me with this perspective. It’s like, how are you gonna handle that in the moment? And you can see it on my face that I’m devastated. But then I come back to who I am. And it was funny to me. Sage, you won! It’s over. I’m not trying to play the game anymore. It was just funny to see. And I look forward to talking to her about this, because I’m curious what she was feeling. I get up and I hug people, because that’s who I am. And to see even that was still bothering her, that’s interesting. And it kind of just showed how the stress of the game is very real. Although it can be painful. I love Sage. I love Sage in the game. I love Sage out of the game. Sage is one of my closest friends from the cast. And so to kind of go back to that and like to see how she felt, it’s obviously painful. But I just have so much compassion for anyone who plays the game, because it’s so stressful out there and that gets to you. So to go back to your question there about the moment of the handshake, I am just doing my best to stay composed and kind and go out in a way that feels true to myself. When she offers the handshake, I’m like, “Whoa. It’s computing. What is going on now? Blindside into no hug. What is happening?” And so I was just doing my best to just continue to be kind and loving to her You talk about bringing yourself into the game. And, throughout your time on the show, we saw a few comments from the other players about how they felt you were being overly strategic about the ways that you would find things people value and hone in on them. We even got one point where Sage expressed that she felt you were being “performative” with some of your more spiritual moments. What’s your reaction to that? Were you actually playing things up for strategy, or were those still closely hewn to who you are? That’s a great question. I love talking to you. So I saw this post that CBS did that was like “Sincere or strategy?” And for me, being sincere was the strategy. You know from how we talked, God’s my favorite topic. God’s going to continue to be my favorite topic. And for me, I knew I wanted to lean on my social skills and my social ability to connect with people. One, because I was hoping that would give me an opportunity to work with different people when I needed to. But two, it was just my favorite way to spend time out there too. We can only talk so much about your favorite junk food and TV show to watch. So for me, actually using this time to get to know people, to talk about Kristina’s Irish twins and her mom, or Steven and space and his girlfriend Kelsey, or Savannah’s boyfriend, or Nate’s daughters, or Rizo’s relationship with his brother. Jawan’s grandmother just passed in the past year. So those conversations, you’re playing the game, right? And I remember listening to Rachel talk about how it doesn’t matter what’s happening in the game; it’s a game. And I forget exactly what moment she was talking about. She’s talking about a sincere moment that was happening there. Maybe it was Eva and Joe or something. But she was talking about how everything’s game. And so I have a lot of compassion for the fact that people are like, “She’s being performative,” or, “It’s not authentic.” Because it’s the lens of a game of Survivor, where everything’s the game. And what matters to me is that I was authentic to myself. And anyone who knows me, my family, anyone who looks at my content, anyone who looks at the things that I talk about, this is who I am. And so for me, and again, you know how I like to see things. It was just a great test of like, I was misunderstood by people on the cast. I’m misunderstood by people online. But I know myself. I know myself, and I love myself. Just go a little bit deeper. I have had a lot of people-pleasing tendencies in the class that come from high school and childhood. And so they talk about how you have to get your million dollars a different way if you don’t win. And moving through this process of being targeted by Sage and having her say negative things about me, or having people on the internet dislike me, it’s just this opportunity to to let go of this need to have everybody like me. And that’s just such a wonderful thing to get out of this experience, just a new level of confidence and authenticity that I think you can only get by going through an experience like I have just gone through. We need to get back into your relationship with Sage. Because she spoke on the show about feeling like you were patronizing her and treating her as a “wounded puppy” who didn’t strategize. And then of course we see these moments when you hug or air-kiss and she’s rolling her eyes behind your back. What’s your perspective on things? Did you get a sense she was feeling that way at all when you were out there? Oh, so me and Sage, I felt so close to her. Because I almost felt like we had this sister relationship, where we had other dynamics. She spent the whole game with me, all three tribes. We did the math last night, my boyfriend I. There’s like a 3% chance of me ending up on every single tribe with Sage. And think I saw that as really special and significant. And there’s some things that happened pregame as well, where I just felt like, “This girl’s gonna serve an important role for me in the game.” And so my heart felt so connected to her. But just naturally in the beginning of the game, the strategy just moved in such a different way for me, where it made more sense to work with Savannah and Nate and Rizo. And then the tribe swap came, and it became more about self-preservation in that moment. And I now recognize that that Sage definitely caught on to the fact that we four were so, so close. And I think a part of me knew that she felt on the bottom of Uli, and I knew she probably could tell that I was really close with them for over at Uli, but definitely not to the extent that that it was. And that just speaks to how smart Sage is and how aware she is. She has military background and is a psychologist, so her ability to read people is really, really incredible. And I was playing a game where I was doing my best to maintain relationships with people no matter the situation. And it’s interesting, because it’s almost like not going to Tribal Council can cause it almost makes it harder in a certain way, because you don’t have that opportunity to build trust with somebody. And I was hoping that I was going to be able to build that trust with Sage in that moment. And it was just too late at that point, and I understand that. We see at one point you wake Steven up to tell him your idea for a cross-tribal alliance. What was the plan you were proposing? And, had you survived the vote and made it to the merge, how much would you have valued that versus your initial Uli alliance? So I was definitely very aware that if I made it to the merge. I was going to be in a complex situation, because, like I said, I didn’t go into this game to play like “dead fish, just take me to the end.” I had to give it my all. I was like, “I’m gonna give it my all. If it works, it works. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.” And so if I were to make it into the merge, part of the reason why I wanted to get Jawan out was to maintain a certain aspect of loyalty to that six-person alliance. We did come together, me, Kristina, Steven, Alex, and we called it the “Family Alliance.” And we joked, “Oh yeah, we’re going to call it ‘family time.'” I thought it was such a good idea. And so I wanted to maintain a certain level of allegiance to that group. But my goal was to get back to to the Uli. But I was also aware that Rizzo and Savannah and blue Sophi had just spent a lot of time together too, so I knew it was going to be important for me to have options moving forward as well. And my goal was to honestly lock it in with Sage and then kind of play both sides from there. But I knew that it was going to be a little tricky, just because I felt like I had to play so hard with all the different tribe swaps and different dynamics and also managing the social connections that I already had from earlier in the game too. It kind of put me at a disadvantage going into that tribe swap, where Sage felt like she was at the bottom. So she could be like, “Rizo, has the idol.” Where I was trying to make new relationships, while also honor the relationships I already had. So it got tricky. You have probably the most unique prep process I’ve heard for a Survivor player. You have a family friend in Boston Rob, and were able to get some advice from him and Amber. But you also programmed AI to give you tips on how to play in the voice of Jesus and the guru Ram Dass. Ultimately, how much do you think the steps you took were incorporated into your 12 days in the game? Again, great question. I feel like the preparation I had before the game kind of speaks to the two components that were really important to me. That part of being sincere and loving people and caring about people. And I think that even speaks to just the conversations I had with people I wasn’t even necessarily fully trying to work with as well. I just loved to talk to people about their lives. You have something that isn’t depicted because it’s just how much time you have out there. And so there was this one element of my game that was about being sincere and being an emotionally safe space for people to navigate the more difficult aspects of the game. Because this game is a game, but it’s also a deep, emotional, psychological, physical experience. And so being there for Kristina in that moment. I remember crying in my one-on-one interviews about like, “I feel like this is why I’m actually here, to help people navigate the different emotions of it.” But then you have the other side of me too that is like the Boston competitive, like, “I’m gonna give this my all.” And I think that’s what is portrayed. I was gonna play hard and I was gonna give it my all. And I was gonna play hard because I would rather go home for playing hard and trying everything I had, versus just going home after being strung along or whatever. And so I think my preparation with my connection to Jesus, my faith, my spirituality, added to my social game. But then you also have the Boston Rob advice of, “Make sure you have two number ones.” So I really gave it my all strategically, and really tried to control the game the best I could. And then I also genuinely wanted to be an emotional safe space for people out there as well, and just really care about them on a human level. Because I do, and I always will. I love these people.
