[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for the Survivor Season 48 finale.]

Survivor 48 became a battle between the public and secret alliances that controlled the game’s trajectory from start to finish. Joe Hunter and Eva Erickson had a strong majority alliance with Shauhin Davari and Kyle Fraser and others throughout the season, but no one knew that Kyle and Kamilla Karthigesu were meeting in secret to influence group decisions. Kyle concocted a plan to weaken this majority alliance and increase both his and Kamilla’s chances of winning the title of Sole Survivor, and the plan worked.

Kyle, Kamilla, Joe, and Eva made up Survivor 48’s final four. When Kamilla lost at fire to Eva, Kyle had to prove to reveal his and Kamilla’s secret moves to the jury in order to win. Even though Kamilla was now in the jury, he still had to make clear how his individual game differentiated from hers. This was the task Joe and Eva failed to complete successfully. The duo struggled to explain how their games were different, and Eva even insisted that they didn’t need to do that when pressed about this very topic by the jury. As Chrissy rightly said, only one person can win. The player with the best proof of a strong individual, not dual game won in the end.

Here, Survivor 48 winner Kyle Fraser breaks down his win with TV Insider. He also explains why he seriously considered throwing away his immunity so Eva wouldn’t have to make fire, and why he and Joe were allowed to encourage Eva in that make-or-break challenge.

In recent seasons of Survivor, there have been a lot of players protecting their alliances and wanting to play “respectful” games. Of course, I want people to be generally respectful to every player, but within the confines of the game, I want to see people be cutthroat. What is your take on “respectful” Survivor playing?

Kyle Fraser: I think maybe I’m a test case on this. You see me towing a fine line between these very real relationships that I have, but also wanting to win the game and bring back this money for my family. And it’s very hard. Now, it’s interesting when people talk about loyalty and honor and stuff. With respect to the game, I think it’s a little bit more nuanced than that because you’re loyal and you have honor towards the people that you’re in the alliance with. So I think that kind of gets lost in the sauce a little bit, and that’s where the hard decisions have to come into play. But in reality, with my game, I think that if you’re the jury looking at me, they definitely see me as a cutthroat. If you’re me in my mind, I’m like, listen, I’m a nice guy. I’m trying to do the best I can. And that’s what playing the middle is about. You want to genuinely go to the end with so many different people, but you have to make decisions. And that’s what makes the game so hard and made it very difficult for me.

I think what you and Kamilla perfectly understood was that you were playing individual games together. Your conversation in the finale about sending each other to fire showed that. You were being real with your ally and prioritizing your individual games. Joe and Eva didn’t do this enough, I think, and that’s why they lost.

I slightly disagree. I agree with you on the Kamilla point because Kamilla and I, we were playing the game hard in a lot of ways. I feel so grateful to have this partnership in the game with somebody who had all the tools to make any move that we wanted to make. I knew that Kamilla could do it, and I think that she hopefully would say the same thing about me, but Joe and Eva were prioritizing their own games as well. That’s what was scary about it, but that’s what made sense. I was with the threats when Shauhin, Joe, Eva, and myself would get together and figure out what we’re going to do, Eva was crunching numbers. Joe was managing relationships. Shauhin was managing relationships in a way that I think was really nuanced to what made the alliance work and allowed us to get to the end. But it’s what the jury’s receptive to in a lot of ways too. That’s why I knew I needed concrete things to show the jury so they understood what my game was. But the reason that I had to do those things is because of how terrified I was of Kamilla as a player and Joe and Eva too. It was scary. That’s the thing about an alliance like that, all of a sudden you go to the end with the people who have also played phenomenal games, and then it gets a little dicey.

How did you feel during the aftershow when the jury said Kamilla would’ve won if she made it to the final three? And why do you think that she wouldn’t have?

It’s really difficult because here’s the deal. Kamilla and I were playing the same game, but one thing that she had over me that I didn’t have over her is that every time we were writing down somebody’s name, for the most part, I was the one who had the relationship with that person to the large extent. And Kamilla did a great job at every single tribal council of selling this underdog story, which in a lot of ways was true, but in a lot of ways was untrue. She did a great job of it, winning these challenges. She used her necklace to the full extent. She talked about self-confidence. She talked about how she’s competing against these behemoths of people in a lot of ways from her perspective. And I was the one burning the people on the jury in a lot of ways. People were looking at me pissed, and so do I think I had a chance of [beating] Kamilla at the end, and would I have talked my butt off to make sure that I got that $1 million? Absolutely. But Kamilla had things on me that no one else had in the game, and it would’ve been a really, really tough fight for me. It would’ve been an uphill battle if I’m being completely realistic with myself.

Joe and Eva struggled to pinpoint any real big strategic moves they made in their pitches from what we saw. Did they highlight any strategic points that didn’t make it to air? And did any of them make you concerned about your chances of winning against them?

Joe and Eva are very, very good speakers, so that final tribal was really intense. It was really cool, but it was really, really hard and it was scary. This is the issue with being in a majority alliance like the one we were in, where we have a stranglehold on all the advantages and we trust each other enough to go to the end with one another. Everybody’s moves start to look the same. And in a way they are. Everybody’s contributing to the alliance, like I mentioned earlier, but at the end of the day, we’re all writing down the right name of the person who’s going home. And I think that if there’s anything that was difficult for them to communicate to the jury, maybe it’s that. Now, don’t get me wrong, was there a nuance to their games that I saw that maybe other people did not? For sure. But I think that’s the same conundrum Kamilla and I would’ve been in if we were at the end together because we played the same game. And so it’s hard to highlight moves that you both make. That’s the beauty of it. That’s the Shauhin vote. You really have to do things and have concrete evidence to differentiate yourselves. But were they making moves? Absolutely. The entire alliance was a move. It may piss people off on the jury, but that’s a move in itself, protecting strong threats and going to the end together.

Kamilla gave you an assist with her question about the Shauhin vote that set the stage for your win. How did you feel when you heard Kamilla ask you the perfect question and give you the space to reveal your big move?

That was indicative of our entire relationship. I said it before, I’ll say it again, Kamilla was an incredibly dangerous player, but we trusted each other and I knew that she would go out there and advocate for me on the jury. And I hope she knows that I would’ve done the same for her. It would’ve been difficult because I had close relationships with Eva and Joe, but I would’ve done it. And [Kamilla] just gets me. She’s like a sister to me in a lot of ways. We have this sibling energy where she just picks up on what I’m thinking, and I would do the same for her. You saw it on the vote out at four. You saw it in the Shauhin vote, and you saw all the conversations that we had out there. It was efficient, it was quick, and we were always on the same page. I wish we could start a company together or something because it just worked. But to answer your question, Kelli, I was really happy. It felt like I had a stage mom out there in a lot of ways. But it kind of felt expected too.

Define expected. Expected in a good way, as in, “My friend just showed up for me like I knew she would”?

Yes. Everything you do in the game matters, but the things that we were proud of, we wanted those accomplishments to be shown off. And so we wanted one of us to represent our game, and it doesn’t make sense to go to the end with one another if you both lose. And we were counting votes in a very intentional way. We were talking about our game in a very intentional way, and we had a lot of questions. We had a lot of conversations about what it would look like from an advocacy perspective on the jury, or at least making sure that we knew that we were going to represent for one another pretty well.

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Why did you consider taking Eva’s place in fire? Was that a serious consideration or just an intense emotional moment for you?

Oh, it was a very serious consideration. In fact, I was fully ready to put myself into fire. It’s different because my relationship with Eva, it’s hard to show just how important that was and still is to me. And so when you have a friend going through pain like that, and no one will know just how big of an accomplishment that was from Eva and what she did. But it was hard. It was hard. But the coolest thing about Eva and why I love her so much is the moment I told her, you’re making fire, and when I wavered and wanted to take it back from her, there was no way she was going to let me do it. Just like with Joe. Joe was begging her. I was begging her. And she did what she had to do, and I’m so proud of her for it, and I’m so grateful for that relationship in so many ways.

When was the moment you decided that you wouldn’t sacrifice your immunity?

I mean, up until literally they went over to that bench. There were times where I wanted to raise my hand up until that point. And credit to Joe, they didn’t show this, but even when she sat down, he pointed at her and he was like, do you want to do this? Now, that’s tricky because it’s my decision, but it was very, very intense. It was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make in my entire life. But I think ultimately I made the right one, and I’m so glad that I got to witness that, I guess.

What are the rules for the fire-making challenge? Is there a rule against giving advice or encouragement to competitors in the moment? Like you just said, Joe couldn’t volunteer for fire. That was your decision. So what rules are laid out for you guys as that challenge begins, if any?

If you’re looking at the rule book and the rubric, I think whoever wins that immunity gets to choose who does fire, who goes with you to the end. So it really is a very pivotal point in the game. It’s difficult because I also had a very close relationship with Joe, and so you’re balancing all of these things from an emotional perspective. And then you think about it strategically. If Joe or Eva is on the jury, now all of a sudden we have something that looks like Kamilla and me in that final sitting. So you have to weigh all of these things in this incredibly important moment, and it’s tough. But yeah, I get to make the decision. Ultimately I probably would’ve had to do it myself, and I think Joe would’ve been completely fine with that. I think Eva would’ve been fine with it, but at the end of the day, it was Eva’s decision to make. From a logistical standpoint, it’s my decision. But the moment that I gave it to her, there was no way she was backing down. And that’s just Eva for anybody who knows her.

When it came to you and Joe speaking words of encouragement to Eva during the fire-making challenge, is that allowed too?

It’s funny because we didn’t see Season 47 out there, but you look at Rachel [LaMont, Season 47’s winner], who was cheering Teeny on in a lot of ways because she wanted to knock Sam out of the game. Or you go back to 46 and you see the precedent there with Liz running back and getting the puzzle pieces to help out Kenzie to knock out Maria because she’s a threat. That’s the beauty of the game. That’s why I love the way that Jeff [Probst] talks about it so much because you really are out there making your own rules. And in that moment, it was incredibly difficult and weird for me because Kamilla has been with me the entire game. But I also know if Kamilla makes fire, knocks out Eva, sits next to me and Joe, it’s scarier, it’s a much scarier situation for me, just from a logistical standpoint with the votes. So yeah, it’s so weird what players do out there and how it ends up, but ultimately everybody kind of treads that line.

Survivor does have its outline of some rules, but players are allowed to get creative within the margins.

Yeah, there are things in the margins, like I talked about, that allow you to win and see the game in a different light. And I think that ultimately we all toe a fine line in a good way.

Survivor, Seasons 1-48 Available Now, Paramount+, Season 49 Premiere, Fall 2025, CBS