Survivor rules are no joke, as two season 49 contestants discovered the hard way.

The long-running competition series was forced to make a last-minute change to the cast lineup just before filming began, host Jeff Probst told Entertainment Weekly last month. Producers booted two participants from the show after they discovered they were communicating with each other. 

‘Survivor’ brought in two alternates for season 49

Those pre-competition conversations were a clear violation of Survivor rules, which forbid contestants from making contact before the game begins. The two violators — a man and a woman — were replaced by alternates. 

“Survivor has rules and standards, and if a player crosses that line, we act. It’s one of the reasons we bring alternates, is to have our own insurance,” Probst told EW. 

The shocking move led to Jason Treul and Michelle “MC” Chukwujekwu being tapped to join the competition less than a day before it began. 

Booted ‘Survivor’ contestants were ‘disrespecting’ the show’s rules 

Probst elaborated on the decision to go with the Survivor alternates in the latest episode of his On Fire With Jeff Probst podcast. 

In the days before filming starts, all the players stay together at a place producers call Ponderosa. But even though they’re together as a group, the competitors are not allowed to speak to each other. 

“You have all of your competitors, but you’re not allowed to talk. That’s why we have so many handlers there to make sure nobody’s talking,” he explained. 

Unfortunately, this season, two prospective players thought they could bend the rules. 

“The rules are you cannot talk to each other, for obvious reasons. And in this season, season 49, we had two players who were disrespecting that rule,” he shared. “They just kept talking. So much so that I got a call from our Ponderosa team saying, ‘There’s a level of concern.’”

The players got a “stern warning,” Probst said. But that wasn’t enough to change their behavior. As Probst was consulting with the show’s executive team, he got another call about the players’ behavior. 

“I got a second phone call saying that the level of disrespect had reached an even more blatant level,” he said. 

“That was all it took,” he added. “Candidly, the decision was made in that moment to immediately remove those two players from the game and replace them with our alternates, Jason and MC. And it sent shock waves through the rest of the players as it was very clear that something was happening with those players.”

While the decision likely left the ejected players stunned, the remaining contestants were relieved.

“They thanked our producers because they said, ‘We were all aware that this was happening. And it felt like cheating,’” Probst said. “Like there was an advantage being had.”

Probst added that he hoped the move would send a message to future Survivor participants.

“It’s the first time in history we’ve ever done this, which is saying something. We’ve done this 49 times, several hundred people have played,” he said. “But it should be clear to future players, although I doubt this will ever happen again, to just know we will not hesitate to pull you from the game. It doesn’t matter how much time or money we’ve invested in you; we value the integrity of the game more than anything.”

Survivor airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CBS. Episodes stream live and on demand on Paramount+. 

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