It’s safe to say that Survivor Season 48 is stimulating its viewers, contestants, and even the host as it never has before! Jeff Probst recently ended up crying and becoming emotional for the first time on the show, after seeing two contestants from different tribes finding comfort and connecting in the middle of a challenge.
In the March 26, 2025 episode of Survivor 48, during an immunity challenge, Eva Erickson became overwhelmed and experienced an “autism episode” on the show. The challenge involved a table maze, where Erickson was struggling to land the final ball to save her tribe from going to tribal council. The stress and pressure led her into a loop of frustration, where she felt stuck and unable to break out of it and eventually, started doing what just looked like uncontrollable screams and crying to the rest of the contestants and viewers. However, out of all the contestants, only Joe Hunter, who was from another tribe and whom she had confided in during the premiere episode, understood what was happening. In a Survivor first, therefore, Probst not only permitted Hunter to comfort Erickson who offered her “compression” and deep breathing exercises to feel normal, but also himself was moved to tears after witnessing the deeply emotional moment. Erickson is just now sharing her sentiments about the whole thing during an interview with PEOPLE:
“I kept failing over and over again. My brain just got put in this big cycle, and I’m stuck in a loop of ‘I can’t do it.’ I became ungrounded, and everybody around me didn’t know what was happening. Externally, it just looks like I’m screaming a bunch. Seeing Jeff get so emotional about the situation and thinking about his own family and his kids, that was the moment when it hit me, that this is a moment that is going to be remembered. It was crazy seeing Jeff cry — I’d never seen that.”
Eva Erickson Is a PhD Candidate and the First Ever Openly Autistic Contestant on ‘Survivor’
Those who don’t know — Erickson is a trailblazer who is balancing her role as a Ph.D. candidate at Brown University with being the first openly autistic contestant on Survivor. So, beyond the challenges at Survivor 48, the lady is breaking barriers in fluid and thermal science too.
During Survivor Season 48, Episode 5, after the emotionally charged moment, Erickson ended up revealing that she was diagnosed with autism at a very young age. “Doctors told my parents that I would never live independently, that I would never hold a job,” Erickson mentioned. She added that the doctors even went as far as to say that, at best, she can hope to marry “someone else with autism.” But her parents never gave up on her and put her through so many treatments, and that’s how she was able to be mainstream. Survivor Season 48 is currently airing and new episodes air Wednesdays at 8 PM ET on CBS. All previous seasons of the show and new episodes later can be streamed on Paramount+.
Source: YouTube
