Survivor is an emotional game, and what happens on the beach often bleeds over into real life.
That's true for Charlie Davis and Maria Shrime Gonzalez who were as thick as thieves for most of Survivor 46. Unfortunately, Charlie and Maria are not nearly as close after Survivor 46 ended.
On the new episode of On Fire with Jeff Probst, Charlie Davis, who is a cohost of the podcast for Survivor 47, revealed that he and Maria have not spoken since Survivor 46 ended, signally there are still open wounds from what happened in the last few episodes of Survivor 46.
"So, yeah, Maria and I, we haven't spoken since our season aired," Charlie said. "It hasn't been all that long. It's only been a few months. And, you know, I don't know what that relationship holds in the future."
For those who don't recall, Charlie and Maria were basically running the show in Survivor 46. They were the strongest alliance and the most savvy players in the game for most of the season. Maria and Charlie talked about the moves that had to be made to eventually separate themselves from each other. They each made the finale, but Maria took a chance on blindsiding Charlie in the penultimate episode of the season and missed.
During the second to last immunity challenge, Kenzie Petty, who eventually won Survivor 46, was helped by Liz Wilcox. Kenzie finished her puzzle before Maria, and Maria was voted out. She finished in fifth place on Survivor 46.
Then, what happened next gets a little bit weird. Everyone, including Charlie, expected Maria would vote for him during the final tribal council, but she did not. She voted for Kenzie, who eventually won. Then, things got even weirder. I don't know how much is true and how much is false, so I don't want to share inaccurate information. From the outside looking in, it seems like, at the very least, Maria's vote for Kenzie could have shifted the other jury members to vote for Kenzie over Charlie in the final vote.
We don't know exactly what happened, but if the person who played almost the entire game with someone votes for someone else who has a less clear resume, it sure signals to the others that you don't think very highly of that person's gameplay. For the most part, it appeared at Final Tribal that the jury members thought Charlie was just riding Maria's coattails.
"But what I do know is that what happens on Survivor is very, very real," Charlie continued. "The relationship was real, and that means that fallout can be real."
Again, I don't know what actually happened, but it's definitely interesting! It definitely seems like something extra happened to go from "Uncle Charlie" to not speaking.
I do agree with Charlie that no one deserves any hate whatsoever from this situation. Charlie was protective of Maria in his answer, as well.
"But I will say a message to Maria and fans is that she deserves absolutely no hate," Charlie said. "You know, we're all just trying to navigate what is a very, very difficult game."
For me, Charlie and Maria are on my list of the former players I want to return in Survivor 50. Will it happen? I sure hope so!