We're only a few weeks away from the Survivor 50: In the Hands of the Fans premiere on Wednesday, Feb. 25, and Jeff Probst is finally starting to open up about the upcoming season.
In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Probst shared some insights from his time with the Survivor 50 cast out in Fiji. He revealed two players who he thought had changed for than the rest of the cast since the last time they played.
Those two players happened to be Colby Donaldson and Ozzy Lusth.
How Colby has changed for Survivor 50
Here's what Probst said about how Colby has changed heading into the new season.
"I think Colby is one of the players who's changed the most in terms of his attitude. Because the last time he played, he wasn't happy. He left disgruntled and frustrated and was done with Survivor. And then over the years he's grown up, he's matured, he's reflected on it and he came back with as much gratitude as anyone in the game.”
Colby is one of the most interesting Survivor players to get so many chances to play the game, and I think it all goes back to his days on Survivor: The Australian Outback, which is one of the most-watched seasons in the show's history. Colby was part of an incredible cast, but he delivered one of the most memorable performances simply because of his physical prowess and ability to win big challenges.
He also seemed quite — I don't know if bitter is the right word, but we'll go with it — bitter after losing in Heroes vs. Villains. That was 15 years before Colby played Survivor 50, so I'm sure he's a different person than he was long ago.
Jeff also shared that he thinks Colby's feelings of gratitude were real, but she shared he's still the old Colby in a lot of ways.
"What hasn't changed much about Colby is his looks. He still looks incredible! He's still a stud. He's still fit. He works at a real ranch. He does those physical things. And it was fun to see him out there and realize, ‘Yeah, he's aged a little bit, but relatively speaking, not very much.”
Is Survivor 50 Ozzy's season?
While I'm excited to see Colby return to Survivor 50, there's no debate that he wasn't the same player in Heroes vs. Villains that he was in his first two appearances on the show. You can't say that about Ozzy Lusth, who has been basically the same player all four times he's played.
We've seen Ozzy be arrogant, cocky, generous, and at times, a very loyal team player throughout his time on the show. He's one of the most physically talented players we've ever seen on any reality TV show, but he's always let himself down in the social and strategic areas of the game. With minor improvement in either area, Ozzy could have been a Survivor winner, potentially, multiple times.
Here's what Jeff said about Ozzy's transformation as a player in Survivor 50:
“I think Ozzy's undergone a lot of maturity and I think a lot of this came from being this one-name player associated with such a big show and in such positive ways — you know, the original Jungle Boy who could do anything. And I think that was probably pretty tough to manage. Like, how do you maintain who you really are and live alongside this image of what people think you are, who they think you are or who they want you to be?”
In the run-up to Survivor 50, it just feels like Ozzy is a different player than I remember. It's been a decade since Survivor: Game Changers, so it will be interesting to see what he brings to the table physically. I'm most excited to see if he's changed the way he plays the game socially and strategically.
There is no player on that beach who wants to see Ozzy on the other tribe in terms of what he can do in challenges and how he can contribute around camp. He's going to make lives easier if he plays his cards right, but when the game starts, all bets are off.
Will Ozzy revert to some of his previous tendencies? We'll just have to wait and see when Survivor 50 premieres on Feb. 25.