“The lesson I left people with was that you had to pretend to be somebody else in order to do well. And that’s not the lesson that I want to leave people with.”

Emily Flippen says ‘If I win Survivor, something crazy has happened’

"The lesson I left people with was that you had to pretend to be somebody else in order to do well. And that's not the lesson that I want to leave people with."

By Dalton Ross

Dalton Ross is a writer and editor with over 25 years experience covering TV and the entertainment industry. *Survivor* is kind of his thing.

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February 14, 2026 9:15 a.m. ET

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Emily Flippen had a pretty incredible arc during her run on *Survivor 45*, transforming herself from a brash tribe outcast pegged as an early boot to a woman dancing at *Survivor* food auctions and making powerful connections in the game — connections that made her enough of a target that she was voted out in seventh place. Her on-island and on-screen transformation was remarkable to watch, and one of the key story arcs of the season.

But what about those of us who loved Emily 1.0? What about those who appreciated the spicy alternative to typical peppy *Survivor* casting that Emily provided when she told ** in pre-game press how she only applied to the show because she was so mad Mike Gabler won *Survivor 43?* Or when she openly called out Bruce Perreault just moments into the marooning?

Are those of us hoping Emily might revert to her original form and Flippen off some of the other *Survivor 50* competitors completely out of luck? Has our edgy heroine lost her edge?

Those were some of the things bouncing around my brain as I sat down with the 31-year-old financial analyst in Fiji just days before her return on *Survivor 50* (premiering Feb. 25 on CBS), and if there were any questions as to whether she would still be speaking her mind, those questions have now been laid down to rest.

*(This is one of 24 deep-dive, on-location interviews with the *Survivor 50 *cast. Links to the other interviews will be posted at the bottom of this article as they become available.)*

Emily Flippen of 'Survivor 50'.

Robert Voets/CBS

**: Alright, Emily, why are you going to win *Survivor 50?***

**EMILY FLIPPEN:** I'm probably not, to be honest with you. But I wouldn't be out here if I didn't think there was a chance. So I think if I win *Survivor*, something crazy has happened, you know what I mean? What does it take for me to be sitting at final three? That'd be a wild season for that to have happened. So in my mind, if I'm going to win, it's going to be because there's a certain amount of chaos and I've managed to fly under the radar the entire time because the big threats wanted to take out the big threats. And who's thinking about Emily in the corner?

**I'm always thinking about Emily in the corner. What have you been up to since you last played *Survivor?***

The biggest thing is I got married. I owe a lot of that to *Survivor.*

**Why is that?**

Because I had the realization that I was maybe more open to that than I thought when I was out here the first time. I had the mindset going into it that I never imagined myself getting married. I thought there was a loss of identity associated with it and I would stop being me. And when I was out here, all the things that I thought were me, I just didn't spend any of my time talking about. I spent the entire time talking about my partner. It was honestly embarrassing, but it gave perspective about what's important in life. So when I got back from *Survivor*, we chatted about it and went to the courthouse.

Emily Flippen on 'Survivor 50'.

Robert Voets/CBS

**That's amazing. So why come back and do this again?**

I never thought I would, to be honest with you. When I left season 45, I was really happy with my experience there. I was thinking: That's my story. I'm happy with how it was told. And I don't know if I have anything else left to give in terms of my *Survivor* story. But the longer I had to think about it, there were a couple of things.

One is that my desire to not go back was maybe based in fear. Mostly the fear of disappointment, not even the fail of failure. I had such an amazing edit on 45. I wasn't expecting to have the entire season basically written from my point of view, so I felt like if I came back a second time, the only thing I could do was disappoint people. I wouldn't have changed as much as I thought I'd change, I'd make similar mistakes, I would do worse placement wise — all the many different reasons why you wouldn't want to go back.

And I think fear was part of it, but the more I thought about, the more unhappy I was with the way I left my story on 45. I think one of my last confessionals, I said that I learned to be a softer person, and while I think I grew and I changed and I took a lot of life lessons from that, at no point would anyone in my life describe me as soft. Even to this day. Nobody would be like, “Oh yeah, Emily. She's very soft.”

I feel like the lesson that I left people with was that you had to change or pretend to be somebody else in order to do well. And that's not really my experience or the lesson that I want to leave people with. So I hope I can come back on 50 and be that nice middle ground of, I'm still very true to myself while also taking some of the lessons that I learned the first time around and hopefully doing better the second.

**I love that answer and I was going to ask you specifically about that, because you had this editorially amazing transformation on season 45, but I was the original Emily 1.0 stan.**

I appreciate it.

**I remember when we spoke before 45 and I loved the Gabler stuff you told me, which maybe you regretted later, but I loved that you were unafraid to speak your mind and put it out there. And I was telling everyone, “This is what *Survivor* has been missing!” And the truth is, if we never get that first version of Emily, you're probably not sitting here right now.**

I'm probably the most hated *Survivor* contestant of all time if I go out when I'm supposed to go out.

Emily Flippen of 'Survivor 50'.

Robert Voets/CBS

**How do you maintain that spark of Emily 1.0 with the more social game [focused Emily] we saw in the second half of the season?**

Yeah, it goes back to that fear. It's the whole reason why I didn't want to play again. I wasn't sure if it was possible. Again, I went into 45 blissfully unaware of all of this — the people watching and the dynamics. I knew it was on TV, but nobody in my life watched it. I didn't know there were fans that talked about it online, all that stuff.

And I was worried coming back a second time, now I'm acutely aware of that dynamic and it's like: *Okay, are you going to go back and are you going to be a caricature of yourself? Are you not going to be authentic and so consciously worried about what other people think about you and what you say and how it comes across?*

And actually, a conversation with Kaleb for my season kind of convinced me that I wouldn't need to be as afraid of that as I maybe am. Kaleb was like, “They don't cast people who can't be themselves. You can be as conscious as you want that you're being filmed, Emily, but you can't help yourself. You're going to say something probably inappropriate and probably a little bit out of touch.”

And that actually is kind of reassuring in a weird way, that I'm still always going to be me. And to your point, that first episode 1 Emily — there are a lot of qualities about that person that I am really proud of, and it took me a really long time to develop that. I was a really shy kid growing up, and it took me a long time to speak my mind and be confident in front of a group of people. And I hate the idea that what I view as positive and qualities of myself that I'm proud of were painted as horrible negative things about me that needed to be changed.

I don't think the person that I was on episode 1 was some evil villain, because I don't view myself as some evil villain. Those qualities needed to be folded against my other qualities, which are deep-seated insecurities and my ability to kind of self-reflect and change. And I'm happy that I had the opportunity to do that in 45.

Emily Flippen and Jeff Probst on 'Survivor 45'.

Robert Voets/CBS

**Anything you regret on a personal level from the last time you played?**

Oh, certainly. If I look back on 45, my game is full of regrets. I think on a game level, obviously I made a lot of game mistakes. You can go all the way from the very first time I opened my mouth all the way to voting out Bruce, or not writing somebody else's name down when I got idoled out — there are a million, and ones I won't get into it.

But on a personal level, I made a lot of really snap judgments of people. And I think it's fear-based decision making where, I'm so anxious and I'm trying to make sense of everything. And I met people for the first time, and that's part of the game of *Survivor*, and you make judgments based off of that. And I left no room for the gray area and the nuance to get to know people deeper, and for there to be flexibility in our relationships that would and did eventually evolve over time. So on a personal level, I don't think my snap judgements of people are often very accurate, even though I'm very inclined to make them.

Sabiyah Broderick and Emily Flippen on 'Survivor 45'. Robert Voets/CBS

**What's your biggest weakness in this game?**

Probably my insecurities. I tend to lack confidence in my decision-making. And that can lead me to be a pretty effective follower, which is a good thing in some instances, and hopefully people will view that as an asset. But it's bad when I start to feel like I lose agency. We saw some of that insecurity in 45 when I voted off Bruce, which was still a bad move. But I came back and felt the need to brag about it because I remember feeling so insecure about my game and I felt like I had made no decisions for myself.

But I do worry that my insecurity is probably my biggest weakness and I'm trying to come in there with an element of self-confidence that I didn't have before at the risk of just horribly embarrassing myself with that self-confidence.

On the beach for 'Survivor 50': An exclusive, all-access first look at the biggest season ever

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**How much pre-gaming did you do with the other players, Emily?**

Virtually none. I know a lot of these people in real life. I've met most of the new-era contestants in real life. I've played video games with Christian, but that's about it. So I'm a little bit worried coming into this game that I'm just not naturally as social as people. A lot of people just make friends a lot easier than I do, and I'll respond when people reach out to me. But I'm not the type of person who is very proactive when it comes to relationships in my life.

So sometimes I worry that I could already be on the outs and just not be even aware of the fact that I'm on the outs. But my speculation this season is I think the new era of players, especially anybody who has a preexisting relationship, I genuinely think we're all here to play the game and win, and you leave the relationships that outside the game.

Now that doesn't mean that you should ignore them, that they're not relevant, but I don't think anybody's coming in being like, “I have to work with so-and-so and I'm going to vote out this person.” I think there's just got to be a lot of flexibility there. I could really be wrong though.

7:23 The Cast of ‘Survivor 50’ Reveals Who They Want to Vote Out First

**So who *are* the people you want to work with and the people you're very wary of?**

I'm torn in two directions, and one is the people that I will naturally be able to work with well just because I know their archetype. I don't know what it is about nerdy white boys, but I just kind of get along with them and easily gravitate towards them. That didn't do me very well in season 45 though. In fact, my strongest relationship was with somebody, Kaleb, who I just immediately judged off the bat too. I wouldn't have otherwise worked with this really strong, fit, social guy.

So I'm out here and I'm looking around. I'm immediately threatened by Jonathan and Kyle and what is his name? From Australia? Colby? All of these big guys that come in who I think to myself: *There's no way they're ever going to want to work with me because I do not fit their archetype. I know ideologically we don't agree. I am this weak, outspoken woman and they're the mad opposite of that, more traditional burly men*. So I'm inclined to be like, anybody who's not that, I want to work with. But I really also want to challenge myself to not just immediately prejudge somebody. Because that did me so poorly in the last season.

**What's your take on Dee in this game?**

Dee is such a tough nut to crack because on one hand we have a very positive relationship about this outside this game. We're friends, we've taken vacations together. But without the context of *Survivor*, we would've never met and would've never hung out. We're very different people. I've already lost to Dee once. I really, really don't want to lose to Dee twice.

But the benefit of Dee is that if somebody's looking at the new era and season 45 and they're thinking to themselves: *Who am I threatened by?* Are you threatened by Emily, who should have been the first boot of her tribe who brings absolutely nothing to the game? Or are you threatened by arguably the most dominant strategic, social, physical winner of the new era?

And that could be an asset for distracting people away from me, but I think Dee's coming into this game with a medley of options. I think everyone kind of gets along with Dee and could want to play with Dee. You want to keep big threats around if you're a big threat yourself. So I can easily see a situation in which she kind of strings me along and then cuts me whenever it's convenient, and I don't want that to happen again.

Emily Flippen of 'Survivor 50'.

**Do you think it's going to be new-era vs. old-era alliances?**

I really don't think so. At the risk of being terribly wrong, I haven't spoken with any of these people, so maybe everyone's talking around my back and saying, “We're going to vote off in this direction.” I have no idea. But I actually think that's probably what's more likely to happen is that we're going to see a new era culling at the pre-emerge. That's my estimation for the pre-merge part of this game. I think a lot of people are going to work with the pre-41-era people.

I think they viewed them as a little bit more open. And I think there's a lot of people who look around themselves at the new-era contestants and view big threats, for better or worse, and will want to take out the big threats in the game and prevent people from winning twice.

I know, speaking for myself, I'm looking around and I would love to work with Coach. I've never talked to Coach before in my life, but how cool would that be? I feel like we actually probably have a lot of similarities underneath the surface of our games, and I'm coming in at that mindset, so I have to imagine that other people are coming at that mindset too.

**You sent in this crazy application to *Survivor*, you end up pretty much immediately on the island, now here you are back about to play with people like Cirie and Ozzy and Coach. Is that a little surreal to you?**

Yeah, it's surreal to be doing it again for the second time. Interestingly enough, I don't feel the fan pressure. I'm such a casual fan of *Survivor* that seeing some of these people, it's been so long since they’ve been on my TV, not to be rude or anything, but I'm kind of like, I don't really remember their games.

I recognized them and I know that Coach was called the Dragonslayer. I can't remember anything Coach did in his previous seasons. I can't even remember if he played once or twice, that sort of thing. So I almost feel like I'd be more of a fan or more starstruck if I was playing with somebody who I had just seen on a different program opposed to this.

Joe Hunter, Savannah Louie, Christian Hubicki, Cirie Fields, Ozzy Lusth, Emily Flippen, Rick Devens, Jenna Lewis-Dougherty of the Cila tribe on 'Survivor 50'.

Robert Voets/CBS

**So you weren't going back and doing research on all these people or anything, which is interesting. I was going to ask you how you felt about the 49 people knowing nothing about them, but maybe that's not a big deal for you because there's other people that you don't know a lot about either.**

Yeah, and actually, I kind of purposely didn't go back and watch their seasons. I thought about it. If you're [the] type of person like myself to overthink things — and I already make snap judgements of people — the last thing I want to do is go back and watch somebody's season and try to make a judgment call with that person about whether or not I can work with them based off a person they were potentially a decade ago.

I want to take them at face value. And I feel the same way about the 49ers. I'm taking them at face value. That being said, I am watching them a little bit closer than I'm watching everyone else because I genuinely know nothing about them and they're such an interesting pair. They're avoiding each other like the plague.

Yeah. I mean we're sitting at Ponderosa and one's on one side, one's on the other. They're not even making eye contact. I mean, Dee and I, we're not avoiding each other. We're not trying to actively be like, *I'm going to sit next to you*, but if we occasionally end up sitting next to each other, who cares? These 49ers, I don't even think they've been in the same room since we've been here.

And that makes me think that one of two things. Obviously, they could just hate each other, or it's almost so deliberate that I feel like they worked together on 49 and they're trying to make it seem like they're not together by purposely avoiding each other. But between the two, Rizo just seems so jaded. I haven't heard him say a word. So maybe once he talks, my opinion will change. But I feel like that guy has a bone to pick.

**Who else are you wary of?**

Just having recently seen season 48, I'm very wary about some of the guys that may look at each other and have a lot in common and want to make alliance based off their physicality. So somebody like Jonathan for no reason other than how he looks is just somewhat threatening to me. And I've never met the guy in real life. So again, all these people, I'm sure they're pleasant, CBS background checked everybody, they can only be so bad. But I have a hard time seeing a world in which Jonathan and my interests are aligned. That does automatically make me feel a little bit insecure in that relationship… or would-be relationship.

***Want to be kept up with all things Survivor? Dig deep and sign up for 's free Survivor Weekly newsletter to have all the latest news, interviews, and commentary sent right to your inbox. ***

**Other *Survivor 50 *deep dive player interviews:*****• Survivor 50* star Ozzy Lusth opens up about hitting 'rock bottom of my life'**• *Survivor 50* star Aubry Bracco opens up about the 'freedom when you fall from grace' **• Colby Donaldson reacts to playing *Survivor* for the first time without Jerri**• Angelina Keeley refused to do *Survivor 50* unless they gave her a jacket**• *Survivor 50*'s Coach goes deep on evolving from an 'arrogant ass' into the… Tide Walker?** • *Survivor 50* star Jenna Leiws-Dougherty is 'here to f--- you over in every way, shape, or form'** • Cirie Fields says winning *The Traitors *does not take sting out of *Survivor* loses** • Mike White on how he is handling *Survivor 50 *castmastes angling for *White Lotus* cameos** • Chrissy Hofbeck opens up about controversial season 35 finish and being bashed by previous cast** • Rick Devens explains why he is a lunatic that wants to play with other lunatics** • Stephenie LaGrossa Kendrick wants to prove that 'mom really is a badass'** • Christian Hubicki wanted to tell Survivor 50 pre-gamers to 'f--- off'** • Genevieve Mushaluk on why watching *Survivor 50* will be more terrifying than playing it** • Dee Valladares welcomes being one of *Survivor 50*'s biggest threats: 'I want them to come for me'** • Q Burdette reveals ridiculous things he did to prep for *Survivor 50*** • Kamilla Karthigesu feared she would be cut from *Survivor 50* for pregaming**

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