Erika Casupanan becomes 1st Canadian to win Survivor reality series

“All I can say is, look what occurs when Survivor begins casting Canadian ladies,” Casupanan joked in an job interview with CBC News. “I believe they’re on to some thing.”

Casupanan, who has Filipino heritage, said she’s been given assistance and suggestions from supporters, buddies and relatives who have been excited to see a fresh new facial area earn the best prize and felt noticed by her existence on the well-liked series.

“It really is actually these types of an honour to be that human being for a large amount of people,” she said.

Abnormal time of well-known fact display

This time of Survivor was a exceptional a person. To account for COVID-connected health and fitness treatments, the show’s conventional 39-working day filming schedule was lower to just 26, making it possible for for a two-week quarantine.

Casupanan and her castmates identified out they’d be competing on the clearly show in early 2020 — only for the pandemic to strike days right before filming was established to commence in Fiji, an island state in the South Pacific.

The display is a grueling activity of technique, in which contestants endure a sequence of bodily and mental challenges although forming alliances to make sure that they are not “voted off the island” by greater part ruling at the conclude of each episode. For Casupanan, competing on the extended-managing television display was a dream appear legitimate — especially after the pandemic triggered a filming delay.

“Soon after likely by way of that roller coaster, last but not least finding to the boat in Fiji, I just begun to cry,” Casupanan mentioned. “I could not think that I truly — I felt like I had finished managing a marathon, and I genuinely indicate it. 

“And then it turns out the actual marathon was in fact playing Survivor, so it was like an ultramarathon.”

‘You have to have a thick skin’

Seeing the display was a hard practical experience for Casupanan, presented how the producers of the actuality display craft a narrative all-around every single contestant, in some cases portraying them in an unfavourable light-weight. 

Casupanan became notorious for her “lamb to lion” strategy, positioning herself as a non-threat to give rivals a wrong perception of security.

For the year 41 winner, it was an exercising in allowing go and accepting that she had no command about how the story plays out, the two on the Television set display screen and on social media, wherever enthusiasts ended up dissecting her each and every shift.

“You have to have a thick pores and skin in terms of, at times, the criticism and in some cases the accolades that you get from the web and know that you are sort of not a genuine individual,” she mentioned. “To numerous persons, you are a Television set character and you might be also continue to working with the emotions of the sport.”

If Casupanan could do it all in excess of all over again — Canadian-type, no tropical island in sight — she is aware specifically the place she’d go.

“I have usually wanted to go to the Yukon,” she said. “I believe it would be so cold, but I’ve always wished to go there. I consider that the character seems attractive.”

“So maybe which is a vacation I require to consider now that I’ve come into some income.”