By Mark Rosman
Staff Writer
Freehold Township resident Michele Fitzgerald, 25, rode victories in two challenges during the final days of the 32nd season of “Survivor” to a winning vote from a jury of players who had been eliminated during the season and captured the crown of “sole survivor” and a $1 million prize on May 18. The show’s spring 2016 season took place in Cambodia.
As the final episode of the season unfolded, Fitzgerald won an immunity challenge that secured her place as one of the final three contestants who would go before a jury of players who had been voted out during the season, and then she won a reward challenge that allowed her to remove a person from the jury who she did not believe would cast a vote for her to win.
The final taped episode of the season ended with the seven jurors having cast their ballots. When the live reunion show began just after 10 p.m., the votes were read by the host of “Survivor,” Jeff Probst. Fitzgerald received four of the six votes that were read – the seventh vote went unrevealed – and was named the winner of the popular reality show. In the jury vote, Fitzgerald defeated Tai Trang and Aubry Bracco.
Moments after the votes were read, Probst handed Fitzgerald, who works as a travel agent and a bartender, an envelope containing a $1 million check.
When asked by Probst how she rose to the top of this year’s competitors, Fitzgerald said, “I played a social game that was not based on emotion; getting to know people on a friendship level first; I wasn’t blamed for anything (that happened during the competition). When I had to come out screaming, kicking and fighting, I did.”
“Survivor” places a group of between 16 and 20 men and women of varying ages in a remote location and separates the participants into groups, or “tribes.” During the series, the participants live together and compete in physical and mental challenges against one another in a bid to win immunity from a vote that could remove them from the show.
At the end of a 39-day “season,” one person is voted by his or her fellow contestants as the “sole survivor” and receives $1 million.
Fitzgerald, who is a graduate of Freehold High School, Freehold Borough, has worked as a bartender for Nonna’s in Marlboro and did catering for the Metropolitan Café in Freehold Borough. She earned a bachelor’s degree in communications studies from Montclair State University.
At one point during the final episode when the remaining contestants were assessing their chances to win, Bracco said of Fitzgerald, “Michele has not (ticked) off anyone on the jury. She has built close personal relationships.”
Bracco’s words turned out to be prescient two hours later when Fitzgerald was surrounded by family members and friends following the vote that crowned her as this season’s “sole survivor.”
The reunion show during which the jury’s votes were read was broadcast live from CBS Television studios in Studio City, Calif.
“People thought I wasn’t playing an intelligent game. I had to keep my cool. I was the only one who had faith in me when everyone else told me I was on the bottom. I’m very proud of myself. … It took time for me to find my footing, but when I figured it out I excelled. I’m a Jersey Girl and you have to get scrappy sometimes,” Fitzgerald said as she put the wraps on her memorable victory.
“Survivor,” which premiered on CBS-TV on May 31, 2000, will return for a 33rd season in the fall. Probst announced that the next version will pit a group of Millennials (people generally born between 1982 and 2004) against a group from Generation X (people generally born between about 1966 and 1981).