Since Survivor began airing, Jeff Probst’s beloved reality show has introduced fans to many compelling people. In fact, new fans who have to figure out which seasons to watch first will almost certainly begin to have favorite players from the time they watch their first episode. Since fans love Survivor stars, it is disappointing that some former players refused to return and some competitors on the show have been medically evacuated. After all, fans tend to love the most entertaining seasons that featured the best players and had one of the greatest winners.

During Survivor 48, many fans grew to love Eva Erickson, a player who was already leading an incredible life before the game. With that in mind, Eva’s fans will likely be very interested to learn that she revealed that Survivor 48’s finale was misleading in a way that left her feeling “almost disappointed.”

Why Eva Erickson Was “Almost Disappointed” By How She Was Portrayed During Survivor 48’s Finale

When fans watch Survivor, they intellectually recognize that they are only seeing a fraction of the events that take place during the game. Despite that, most fans walk away from each episode feeling like they understand what happened. With that in mind, it is fascinating to look at a complaint that has been around since Survivor began.

Throughout Survivor’s history, there have been players who’ve complained about how the show portrayed them. Those players tend to make remarks about being edited to look bad.

However, just because a player feels like the show misrepresented them, doesn’t necessarily mean they think they were made to look bad. A perfect example of that is the fact that Eva Erickson recently complained about how Survivor 48’s finale portrayed her.

When most fans watched the finale of Survivor 48, they were likely to feel like Eva came across well. After all, not only did Eva do a solid job advocating for herself during the finale, she was successful enough to get more votes than her top ally, Joe Hunter.

However, when she was interviewed by Entertainment Weekly in May 2025, Eva expressed that she felt like a scene from that episode misrepresented her.

During the finale of Survivor 48, Eva found herself in an extremely stressful situation. Knowing that she was going to compete in the final four fire-making challenge, Eva needed to succeed to keep her chances of winning the game alive. The problem for Eva was that when she was practicing building a fire before the challenge, she was severely struggling.

During the finale, fans saw that Eva was getting so upset that her tribemates heard her and Joe stepped in to try to help. However, during her Entertainment Weekly interview, Eva explained that the episode downplayed how bad that moment was for her.

While talking to Entertainment Weekly, Eva expressed that when the episode showed her tribemates hearing her being upset, they could have been showing footage of her. “When they showed Joe and Kyle hearing me screaming, they’re not showing me.”

While still talking to the outlet, Eva went on to describe how bad her autism “episode” became when she was practicing to make fire.

“This was probably a time when I was most affected, most impacted by my autism in the game where I was stimming, I was scratching myself, I was on the ground rocking in a ball”

From there, Eva said something that is truly admirable if you think about it.

In life, most people do everything they can to hide from the world when they are feeling vulnerable. However, Eva told Entertainment Weekly that she was “almost disappointed” that viewers didn’t get to see how upset she truly became.

When fans saw Joe help Eva during her “episode” earlier in the season, something similar happened during her fire-making practice. As she told Entertainment Weekly, and was shown during the finale, Joe and Kyle Fraser tried to convince Eva that she didn’t need to make fire. However, Eva explained to the outlet why she insisted on competing.

“Both of them begged for me to let them do it for me. And I was never ever going to let anyone take that moment away from me. I knew that I could do it. I knew I just needed to push past what was going on in my head. And once I got through that, I was going to make that fire, and I did.”

Jeff Probst Responded To Eva Erickson Insisting On Making Fire During Survivor 48’s Finale

After the finale for Survivor 48 aired, an episode of “On Fire with Jeff Probst: The Official Survivor Podcast” about the finale was published. During that podcast episode, that can be heard on Apple Podcasts, Jeff was asked about Eva insisting on competing in the fire-making challenge.

During the podcast episode, Jeff’s podcast co-host was talking about how inspiring it was to see Eva insist on entering the fire-making challenge. The co-host then asked Jeff to comment on how powerful that moment was. In response, Jeff explained that Eva wasn’t cast to be inspiring.

“It’d be easy to say, ‘Well, yeah, we anticipated, an emotional and inspiring moment like this, and that’s why we put Eva on the show.’ We put Eva on because we liked Eva as a person who happened to have autism, not because she had autism.”

From there, Jeff revealed that Eva was cast after telling him a story about refusing to back down.

“She said playing hockey wasn’t easy because [she] was told to [her] face that [she didn’t] belong. And [she] said, ‘Who says I don’t belong?’ I say, ‘Not you.’ And she said, ‘I would have full-on fights and hockey games with guys telling me to get out of this sport, and my teammates would support me when somebody came after me.’ So that really stood out to me that she does not fear confrontation, even physical confrontation.”

Jeff also explained that Eva was also cast because she was so fiercely true to herself.