‘Survivor’ begs fans to ’embrace kindness’ after Maria’s epic betrayal

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Survivor just wrapped its 46th season, but in a rare move producers asked fans of the show to be nice to one another.

The move came after Maria Gonzalez ended up voting for Survivor 46 winner Kenzie Petty instead of her close friend ally Charlie Davis in last month’s finale.

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“One of the best things about the Survivor community is the passion, engagement and excitement around the show, gameplay and those brave enough to compete. So, a reminder as we watch and discuss the entertaining competition, epic blindsides and emotional journeys these players go on, remember that who you see on screen are real people navigating this experience. Please consider embracing kindness, respect and compassion before commenting,” the show wrote in a message to its 585,000 followers on Instagram.

“I was really shocked,” Davis told Entertainment Weekly after his lost. “I mean, I said it I think in the after-show. I haven’t watched the after-show in full yet, and I think they showed it very barely on the show, but it was very stark. One of the very last things she said to me before getting voted out was, ‘Get to the final three. You’ve got my vote.’ So I don’t know what more I can do. It feels to me almost like it’s like a perfect control experiment. Obviously, I have to perform at final Tribal, that’s always on me. But in terms of thinking I had someone’s vote going in, yeah, I really did think I had Maria’s vote 1000%.”

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In a separate chat with Us Weekly, Davis said he was “a real sting” learning that Gonzalez didn’t back him.

“She was completely avoiding my gaze,” he recalled after Petty was declared this season’s sole survivor. “She didn’t come up, give me a hug, didn’t say anything to me, and that just sucked. I was just totally in shock and just really out of it.”

Petty was also surprised she nabbed Gonzalez’s support.

“I literally said, ‘There’s no way I am getting Maria, so that’s out,’” she told EW. “I was like, maybe I’ll get seven, but there’s no way I am getting Maria. When I figured out she had voted for me, I was very shocked, but I really did work hard at connecting with everyone as hard as I could, especially post merge. I’m just a people person and I wanted to build bridges with everybody. And so I did spend a lot of time getting to know Maria. Obviously not as much as Charlie, but at the end of the day, you never know what people are going to vote for or what speaks to them. So I think my strategy was just to be authentically myself and hope that that showed through to the jury.”

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On social media, criticism of Gonzalez’s move was fierce.

“I don’t respect Maria, and it’s not just because of her final vote. I do not feel like she had integrity in general. She makes decisions, then lied about why to make her seem like a good person,” one person wrote on Reddit.

“Maria gave a million dollars to the person who had to cheat to beat her. She betrayed Charlie twice and deserves the villain treatment,” a second added.

Still, Gonzalez’s reasoning for voting for Kenzie did garner some support among some of the Survivor faithful.

“I do think there’s a bit of truth in that she liked Kenzie and thought (the money) would make a big difference (in her life) whereas Charlie is I believe a Harvard law school grad about to become a lawyer and relatively had an easier life. Shouldn’t be the criteria but people always factor it in a bit,” one person wrote, defending her decision.

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Gonzalez, who was eliminated after Petty teamed up with Liz Wilcox to orchestrate her ouster, told EW that she voted with her heart.

“In this game, I feel like there were many times where I was torn between my heart and my head, my heart and my head,” she told the publication. “When I watched Kenzie make fire, there was a look in her eyes — a fierceness in her eyes of a powerful woman who overcame something. And that spoke to me so deeply in my core.”

Despite pledging her allegiance to Charlie, Gonzalez was resolute in her decision which shook viewers last week.

“It’s hard to watch. It’s hurtful. I have been so upset just thinking about how hard this decision was for me, but I stand 10 toes down on the choice that I chose somebody who was about to start her family, who wanted to have a baby. And it spoke to me as a woman on a personal level that this is what I faced so many times in my life and I chose me, and she chose her. and that’s why I chose her,” she said.

On Instagram, Gonzalez directly addressed critics of her gameplay writing: “We are real people with real lives who played a game. We can turn off social media, but we can’t shut off out text messages, voicemails and close our businesses because people disagree with something we’ve done.”

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