‘Survivor 49’ star Shannon Fairweather reacts to ‘heartbreaking’ Sage hug denial

Shannon Fairweather had just been blindsided out of the game. Her Survivor 49 journey was abruptly cut short and you could tell she was reeling a bit from the whiplash of it all. But she rallied, put on a brave face, and asked the people who had just voted her out for a hug. Two people complied. One did not.

Sage Ahrens-Nichols chose not to hug Shannon, explaining, “I’m gonna give you a handshake because I want the hug to be genuine and I don’t think I can give that to you right now. But I look forward to hugging you in the future, okay? Take care.”

Shannon took the gesture and statement in stride, telling Sage she loved her, but how did she really feel in that moment? Hurt? Confused? Sad? We asked the seventh person out of Survivor 49 about that awkward moment when we spoke the morning after her televised ouster, and found out if she ever got that hug after all. We also inquired about Steven Ramm turning the tide against her on Kele 2.0, and what happened out there that we did not see on TV.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: First off, does someone need a hug?

SHANNON FAIRWEATHER: [Laughs] I would absolutely love a hug. I’ve been grateful to get a lot of hugs from a lot of people in the past couple months, but I am down for a hug, Mr. Ross. That’d be great.

Let’s back up a bit. You had to have been surprised when you saw your name keep coming up at Tribal Council. Tell me what was going through your head as that was happening?

It’s such an epic moment. And I’ve journaled a lot about this, as you can imagine, and just reflected, and there’s almost two sides to it. The fan in me was almost having an epic moment. But the human in me — my heart and my soul — was heartbroken. It was heartbroken. You can see it in my face instantly. And I can see it in her face. I would be ignorant to act like that moment wasn’t absolutely heartbreaking and devastating, but also, to be a part of an epic blindside, it’s oddly a Survivor bucket list item as well.

Let’s talk about Sage rebuffing your attempt at a hug. What was your reaction to that in the moment? Were you hurt or confused? I’m guessing you were confused, but you tell me.

Yeah, I was so confused because I loved Sage in the game. I love Sage out of the game, and I genuinely trusted her. And everything that I said to her was very authentic and very real. Like, I still believe me and Sage are soul sisters, and I could go into that in depth, but in that moment I felt confused, but also concerned about what happened, right? I felt like, did I hurt her?

And that was really upsetting and really hard because for me, it was so important to go out there and be loving and kind. I love these people so, so much. And so to feel like there was a reason for her to reject my hug, you know, that was heartbreaking. But I also respected it, because Sage is incredibly authentic from second one, and it was very on-brand for Sage to not give me a hug. So I knew that there would be more to that story at some point, and I just knew I would have to be patient and trust the process until I got to talk to her.

And I want to get into that in a minute, but what do you make of her belief at the time that you were being inauthentic and performative in the game?

It was really surprising. Again, really surprising to recognize the depth at which she was upset with me and had this perspective of me. But Sage and I have also talked a lot, so I also knew it was coming. And watching it back, it’s really easy for me to see how the fear and the paranoia and the stress of the game, it impacts people.

We’re playing a game where if you’re not being paranoid about anything anyone does in the game, then you might not be playing as hard as you can. So I also had a lot of compassion and understanding for why people could see the way I was playing as gameplay, because you could do anything out there and it could be seen as gameplay, you know?

Every player out there is going to be a little inauthentic in that you want to be nice to people that you’re ultimately trying to get out of the game, but what I saw from you on the screen matched what I saw when I spoke to you before the game. So it seemed to me at least as authentic as one can be while playing an inauthentic game, if that makes sense.

I saw CBS come out with something, it was a clip of the show, and it was like “Sincere or strategy?” And I reflected on it, and my strategy was to be sincere. And that was for a couple of reasons. One, because I believed that socially, that would be my strong point — connecting with people, but beyond that, you have so much time with these people that it was so much more enjoyable for me to play this game actually caring about people and actually getting to the meat and bones of who they are and why.

And perception aside of what other people may think about it, it made my experience so much richer because I got to talk to Kristina about her Irish twins and her mom, and I got to talk to Alex about his love for his sister, and I got to talk to Steven about space. And so for me, it was like that blend of, is it sincere? Is it strategy? Being sincere was my strategy to play the game, but also to enjoy the experience as much as possible.

Have you and Sage had a chance to talk it out — and perhaps hug it out — since leaving the game?

Sage is a real one. Sage is as real as it gets, and that’s something I really appreciate in this cast is she didn’t try to hide what happened and what she said. She reached out to me the day she got back — before anybody else did. And we have had so many conversations kind of just starting with her perspective and where I was coming from, and I think she was really surprised. She’s told me she was surprised as well with how I just honored her perspective, and I honored where she was at, and I honored how she felt.

I’m not a perfect person. I’m not, and there are maybe things I could have done better in the game and maybe there are things I could have done better in the game strategically. But also, there could have been things I could have done to maybe support her emotionally differently as well.

I am someone who’s very open to feedback and criticism. I think that’s a great way to grow. Me and Sage, you saw it on day one, we did connect in a different kind of way in the essence of we both really appreciate the psychological, deeper aspects of life. So me and her, we can have some really good, emotionally mature conversations. That’s what it is. It’s very emotionally mature where if what she said triggered me and then I’m getting defensive, versus I am really able to receive what she was saying.

We’ve just gone back and forth like that many, many times, and we talk pretty consistently and really have been helping each other navigate the game. So I am really grateful for my friendship with Sage that I have. And you’re the first person I’ve told this, but me and Sage have hugged since the final episode! [Laughs] So we were really looking forward to that.

That’s awesome. I’m glad to hear that. It’s always tough when you have a moment like that with someone, and it’s even tougher when it is broadcast on national television. Let’s move on to something else. How surprised were you when you watched it back on TV to see Steven leading the anti-Shannon brigade and flipping people you had already made connections with against you?

I know! And I’m actually recognizing how bad that final swap went for me, right? Because Kristina was vibing with me, Alex was vibing with me. Obviously, I had my core four from Uli, whom I never got to see again in the game. And so to end up with the one person who had a straight-up personal vendetta against me, and then Steven, who kind of could see the player in me.

There were two parts to my game. One was, I want to be genuine and I want to care about these people and I want them to feel safe and I want to care about them because I do. But I also wanted to give it my all. And when that second tribe swap came, I knew that I couldn’t take the role of like, “Don’t worry about Shannon.” I had a feeling. Sage knew I was connected with the four back there. I thought she was going to be able to play that role a little bit better of like, “Oh, I’m on the bottom, just please take me.”

So the play dead role isn’t going to work for me. I have to give it my all. I have to go all in on this, right? And so that’s when I kind of started just scheming and thinking I need to give them an offer they can’t refuse. And if they do refuse, at least I gave it my all. So I just wanted to give it everything.

I really trusted Steven. Me and Steven slept next to each other every night at the Tribe Swap, so I really trusted Steven and he did a great job of making me feel safe, which then obviously added to the blindside. Like, I couldn’t even have told you where my Shot in the Dark was. It might’ve been back at camp. I was so comfortable. I felt so, so good. And so obviously seeing that Steven was never really fully was on the Shannon train the way I thought he might have been… But me and Steven have talked a lot since as well, so to see it on TV, it wasn’t like fully surprising obviously, but in that moment when I was blindsided, I was shook.

You saw your Uli allies were taking out Hinas in Matt and Jason, so why then go try to save a Hina in Steven and get rid of a Uli in Jawan? What did you think their reaction to that would have been?

This is kind of a complex answer because at this point in the game, it was getting complex for me. I wanted to create this alliance. I wanted to bring in Rizo, Kristina, Steven, Alex, and Sophi. You kind of saw me talk about that idea of “Let’s have the three different tribes moving into merge.” And then I saw that as way for me to still work with my Uli four, because that was who I was trying to stay super loyal to. Which also kind of put me at a disadvantage going into that tribe swap because Sage could sit down and be like, “Rizo has the idol” to everybody, where I was trying to maintain these relationships with more of a long-term perspective.

So when it came to getting Jawan out, I was like: If I get Steven out at this time, that’s going to kill my opportunities with other Hina members as well as maybe Alex and blue Sophi as well. And so I was just thinking long term, and you can see it in Savannah’s vibes — Jawan was at the bottom of Uli as well. I love Jawan. Jawan is, like, high key one of my best friends from the cast and I loved him so much out there too. But he was just doing kind of sketchy stuff early, so I didn’t have that trust with him.

So for me, it was like, let’s get Jawan out, kind of chill out the Hina-Uli war a little bit, give me more opportunities. And I trusted Sage so much. Part of the reason why I was so blindsided by Sage, although I was saying her name, was because me and her had a conversation when we first had that tribe swap along the lines of like, “Let’s say what we need to say to get through this.” So I felt like even if people are telling her that I said her name, we know we’re doing what we can to survive here. So I felt very secure there. And so then my perspective was like: I’ll work with Sage, we’ll go into the merge, and we’ll be able to work both sides.

Finally, what’s something that happened out there that did not make it to TV that you wish we’d had a chance to see?

There are three things that I would’ve loved to make the air. One, me and Jawan made an alliance on day one, minute one called the Salt and Pepper alliance, which was just iconic and added an element to my blindside. I obviously felt like I couldn’t trust him after that, but that alliance was just a really cool quick, “I trust you.” Then there was the Family Alliance, which did solidify for a moment, even though we know Steven wasn’t really in with me. That was me, Kristina, Steven, Alex, blue Sophie. And then I wanted to bring in Rizo.

And then the third moment that I think is just relevant to why I trusted Sage so much was the fact that we had a conversation where I said, “Let’s say what we need to say to get through this tribe swap.” So those things I think are the things that I was surprised didn’t make it just because it added context and was kind of interesting too. But you can’t show everything.

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