Survivor Game Changers episode 11 exit interviews: Zeke had his game blown up

Not only was the attack on Zeke Smith’s privacy by Jeff Varner devastatingly personal, it also ruined his chances of winning Survivor Game Changers.

This article discusses the entire gameplay of Zeke Smith in Survivor Game Changers, up to episode 11.

When it was revealed that Jeff Varner would out Zeke Smith as transgender, the world immediately showed an unbridled support for Zeke in a way that few trans people will ever get to experience today. Still, though, in that moment Varner had also directly destroyed Zeke’s chances of winning Survivor Game Changers, and a couple of episodes later, he would be voted out in 10th place.

Speaking publicly about his vote-off, “The Episode” and everything pertaining to Survivor Game Changers as part of his Survivor exit interviews, Zeke told Entertainment Weekly he knew he had no shot of winning the season because he had such a great story to use at the final tribal council.

"After what went down with Varner, I had no shot to win. I knew that. I knew that nobody wanted to take me anywhere near the end and that wasn’t a secret. I was the decoy vote against Hali and I knew it and I knew the reason why. You heard it in that episode that I had a compelling story. People were unwilling to get me deep into the game because people weren’t willing to sit next to me. So I didn’t just make that move against Andrea out of nowhere."

He also goes on to argue that he wanted CBS to air that moment because of just how well CBS, Jeff Probst and the Survivor Game Changers castaways rebuffed Varner almost immediately. It shows a positive turn on a very dark, but important, moment in the show’s history, and Zeke is happier that the feedback was swift that it’s not okay to out someone like that.