Legendary ‘Survivor’ Player Reveals How ‘Cult-Like’ Upbringing Prepared Her for the Show originally appeared on Parade.
Parvati Shallow, 42, is perhaps one of the most prolific reality competition show contestants in history, having competed on Survivor five times (including an upcoming stint on Australian Survivor), Traitors, and Deal or No Deal Island. Now she’s opening up about how the dark side of her childhood gave her the skills needed to excel in those environments.
In her new memoir, Nice Girls Don’t Win, Shallow explains that she grew up in a “cult-like” commune in Florida led by a controlling guru who led extensive meditations, took members’ money, arranged marriages between them, doled out punishments, and even tried to adopt their newborn children. It was an environment Shallow described as “pure chaos,” but it’s also taught her skills that made her a reality competition maverick.
“My early childhood set me up for success on Survivor,” she told he told Us Weekly on June 20, 2025. Though Shallow was very young during her parents’ involvement with the group, she interviewed them for her book and realized that it definitely left a lasting impact on her.
“It was just really interesting to hear my parents’ stories and then overlay them on my adult life because I recreated so much of the same emotional themes that they had gone through without even knowing it,” she told Us. She realized that she was even using cult survival tactics in her reality TV endeavors without knowing it.
“Fawning is one of the most widely used survival strategies, and it’s just this sort of overt people-pleasing, overly complimentary kind of love bombing,” she said. “One of our basic needs is love and belonging, so if we experience a lack of that in childhood, we develop a hunger for it.”
She’s also taken inspiration from the cult-like leaders and gurus she’s experienced themselves. “My go-to strategy to win reality competition games is to make people fall in love with me,” she admitted. “I am just naturally very enthusiastic and warm. I can also turn it on in context like competitions to win.”
That said, it worked. And she doesn’t feel bad about it. “One of the ways you get what you want is by being really warm and friendly. I wanted to articulate these survival strategies and share stories of me using them, to take away the judgment and destigmatize it,” she said. “[But I’m also] a huge proponent of everyone going to therapy.”
Shallow’s book is set to be released on July 8, 2025.
Legendary ‘Survivor’ Player Reveals How ‘Cult-Like’ Upbringing Prepared Her for the Show first appeared on Parade on Jun 24, 2025
This story was originally reported by Parade on Jun 24, 2025, where it first appeared.
