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Embarrassing things can happen on national television. Especially on Survivor. It can be something as grand as playing a fake idol you believed to be real, or something as simple as a belly flop dive into the ocean. But as the cast of Survivor 49 is about to prove, embarrassing things can also happen when there are no cameras around.
As is our tradition here at Entertainment Weekly, we warmed the Survivor 49 cast up for any possible on-air humiliation by having them tell us before the season began about their most embarrassing real-life moments. (Note: We don’t think Sage needed any warming up.)
Enjoy this collection of contestant stories that are equal parts hilarious and horrifying, and then judge on who brought their A game to this exercise and delivered the absolute best of the bunch. The choice is yours!
Jason Treul
Robert Voets/CBS
It was the first time I drank in high school. A bunch of my friends and I found some old Canadian whiskey in my dad’s garage. And we take that and a bunch of red solo cups to the reservoir and we just start getting f—ing hammered. We’re like little kids that are downing in way more alcohol than we really should. None of us really had a concept of what a shot is.
Multiple people black out. We have one designated driver who is trying to take us to his parents’ place. People are not okay. I’m not okay. I’m not blacked out, but I’m in the back corner of his mom’s minivan and I’m looking to the guy next to me who’s also out of his mind. I’m like, “Dude, this is not good. I do not feel great.” And he’s all like, “Bro, we shouldn’t have done that.”
We park at his parents’ place, we’re all going to get out of the car. But before that happens, I projectile vomit all over the window, and the guy sitting next to me immediately does the same thing because I was so gross that it made him do it. We were pulled out of the van by my friend’s parents in our vomit-soaked clothes, woke up in the morning in our underwear, and had to scrub the van. It was rough.
Sophie Segreti
Robert Voets/CBS
I worked at a job once where everyone had their own offices, and I love Mediterranean food, which is often multiple types of chickpeas, which are known to make people gassy. And I had had a ton of hummus, falafel, and chickpea salad for lunch. And the problem is you’re in the safety of your own office, so there’s this false sense of security. It’s like when you have AirPods in and you don’t think anybody can hear you.
I was just farting like crazy because it was my own office, and it was the same day that there was a fire drill on one of the cases I was working on, so the person who was on the team with me kept coming in and out of my office, and every time he came in I was like, “F—, it’s obviously only me in here. I know it smells bad.”
This has happened now twice, so I’m like, “I’m going to turn off the light to my office. Maybe he’ll be like, ‘Sophie’s working, I won’t want to bother her.’” And then he comes in a third time and I was like, “Is there anything worse than poor Steven coming in and it’s like this dark smelly cave?” I’m forever scarred, and poor Steven must’ve been like, “Should she go to the hospital? Does she have a gastrointestinal issue?”
Steven Ramm
Robert Voets/CBS
At my college graduation, I had finally gotten my diploma, said I was officially a rocket scientist after all those years, and we’re doing our walking ceremony, and I decided to wear these big, bright orange pants and my really good buddy wore big, bright blue pants and we were the Broncos colors. But we weren’t walking at the same time, so it just looked like I’m a clown in big orange pants. And I’m walking out, and, of course, you’ve been celebrating, so I’m a little tipsy and I just was so excited.
Everyone’s walking very stoically and they shake your hand and you go along and there’s all the professors, a bunch of future colleagues, and I’m walking across and I’m like, “What’d be really funny is if I just start blowing kisses and then I do a cartwheel.” And I’m doing this and I’m thinking it’s hilarious. And, of course, nobody in the audience is reacting. They’re like, “Who is this clown?”
I look back on that moment and in my head, I thought it was so epic, and really, at the time, I think people were like, “This guy just needs to get off stage.” I’m pretty sure that my professors were kind of like, “I can’t believe this guy’s going to be in charge of designing spaceships.”
Kristina Mills
Robert Voets/CBS
I had a very awkward moment at a kids’ birthday party. All the moms were together, and there were a few dads, and we were getting phone numbers. We always see each other, but we never had a text group together. And so I was going around asking all the moms for their numbers, and one of the dads comes to me and he’s like, “Hey, can I be on the text?” And I said, “Oh, it’s kind of for females, but where’s his mom? I can put her on it.” And he’s like, “Oh, I’m a widower.” I was like, “Oh f—! I don’t even know how to get out of this.”
Alex Moore
Robert Voets/CBS
I’m a hopeless romantic, and I had a high school crush on this girl who is one of my best friends now. And so it was kind of like pre-planned where everyone kind of figures out that you’re going to ask this person to the formal. And so I was supposed to ask her, and I wanted to do it in this grand way.
We’re in the middle of a test and I literally planned with my Spanish teacher to pass a note and have him read it to the entire class. And he reads this note saying, “Will you go to formal with me?” I used to pun with her name. It was really cute. And she turns bright red and she’s like, “Someone just asked me last period and I couldn’t say no.” And the whole class is just silent.
It is literally so cringey, and everyone just goes back to taking their test. My teacher pulls me aside at the end of the class and said, “Out of all my 20 something years of being a teacher, nothing more embarrassing has ever happened.” I got rejection in front of an entire class, so I can face any rejection I get here.
