There is no better person to interview another Survivor alum than another Survivor alum.
Survivor alum Zeke Smith, who serves on GLAAD’s Board of Directors, sat down with Survivor winner and Traitors fan favorite Pavarti Shallow to discuss all things about the legacy reality series and her new book, Nice Girls Don’t Win.
In her new book, which hits shelves on July 8, Shallow takes on a very interesting journey before her Survivor days. From her childhood days growing up in a tyrannical Florida commune to her days in Los Angeles casting rooms, she shares stories that allowed her to transform her most difficult moments into moments of empowerment.
Since winning Survivor: Micronesia: Fans vs. Favorites, Shallow has been a formidable contestant in the Survivor-verse and the reality TV world (she is set to compete on Australia vs. the World in August). During the pandemic, there was a resurgence of Survivor binge watching specifically with the queer community. With that and with The Traitors, the LGBTQ community was dubbing Shallow as a queen.
“It’s like medicine for my younger self to hear those comments,” Shallow told GLAAD’s Smith in the interview. “Coming back from The Traitors, I didn’t know how the show was going to be edited or what storyline they were gonna make with me…You play the game and then you give up the claim that you have to your own story.”
Naturally, Shallow and Smith had a lot to say about their respective times on their seasons of Survivor and how the times have changed since their first seasons. “Reality television provides such a cultural time capsule of the time of what was acceptable,” Smith, whose first season was Cook Islands, points out. On his season, the tribes were separated by race (which would raise a lot of eyebrows today). In Nice Girls Don’t Win, Shallow writes how there is a “Wellness Producer”, therapist check-ins, and things of the sort that they didn’t have in their seasons of reality TV. They also spill the tea on how certain Entertainment Weekly journalists reported on them.
In addition to her Survivor and Traitors stories, Shallow gets very personal in her book, illustrating difficult times in her life, including standing up to men who are trying to run her life, or the first time she held hands with her partner, Mae Martin’s hand in public.
“I think it was just a pivotal moment of transformation being out in the world with me, cause we came from the bedroom and the safety in the bubble of the bedroom to then being out in the world,” said Shallow. “For others to judge and have their opinions… that to me felt inherently risky.”
She continued, “I was like ‘I’m gonna for it’. I think that’s what our lives are made of… these moments where we’re asked to say yes to the thing that makes us true to ourselves, and sometimes, doing that…we could lose things that we’ve leaned on for acceptance or safety. For me, my sense of safety, my validation, and my respect for myself are now coming from the inside. I no longer need all of that to come to me from the outside… that’s the whole message of the book.”
Besides Smith, there have been other Survivor alums who have already read the book — and you’d be surprised who. “Boston Rob is actually one of my first readers of Nice Girls Don’t Win,” admits Shallow. “He reads… the man does it all.”
Shallow has been promoting the book leading up to its July 8 release. “I’m doing these drag shows that are super fun,” said Shallow. “I’m gonna be doing one in New York on July 8th, the same day that my book launches, so that’ll be a really fun party!”
“There’s a difference between being nice and being kind,” Shallow says of the book. The whole title of the book, Nice Girls Don’t Win, is because sometimes people are nice at the expense of their truth. So what I’m encouraging is people to be true and authentic to themselves. Sometimes that means not being nice.”
For more information on the book, visit parvatishallowbook.com.
