Survivor 50 is full of firsts. The latest first: Jeff Probst rapping. The host revealed the fan voting results for tribe swaps in Season 50 through a rap in Episode 3, which aired on March 11. While the players were having fun with it onscreen, not every viewer was as entertained. Probst explained the decision after the episode.
Here’s how the song went: “This season’s in the hands of the fans. They’re calling the shots. It’s out of our hands. They picked the buffs you’re wearing today and the rice and supplies, but they said, ‘No way.’ And now it’s time to drop another fan vote. The dangerous kind, this one will cut your throat. So are you ready to drop your plans? Are you ready to drop your hands? Are you ready to drop your bluffs? Because the fans have spoken, it’s time to drop your buffs.”
Probst told Entertainment Weekly that he rapped to show the players that he’s giving everything to this season, just as he asked them to do in the Episode 1 marooning challenge. He also wanted to remind them to have fun.
“Me rapping is really just me having skin in the game,” Probst said. “I asked the players to bring it, and I want them to know I’ll bring it too.”
“You can criticize the rap. I’m not a rapper,” he added, “but my moment with them was to say, ‘Let’s play. Let’s have some fun this season.’ And they did, and we do.”
Probst wrote the rap himself, and the idea came to him the morning they filmed it. He wrote and memorized it that morning in Fiji.
“And then I debated it, and then I talked to [executive producer] Matt Van Wagenen,” Probst explained.
It was filmed in one take, no do-overs. (Having been on set for Season 50, we can attest to the fact that Probst films most of his commentary in one take, with rare mistakes.)
“I said, ‘If we do it, we’re doing it,’” Probst told EW. “Because I can’t say, ‘Well, that was kind of fun. Now let’s just do a normal one.’ And we did it!”
The host was worried that the players’ faces and snapping would distract him and require another take, but he powered through.
“I concentrated as hard as I could to not mess it up,” he said. “And the finger snaps were a little off, and that was throwing me off. And then when I saw it in the edit, I laughed out loud and said, ‘That’s what I want! I wanna be held accountable in the same way the players are.’ But I’m telling you, it was a last-minute thing.”
He filmed it in one take, but Probst still had a rehearsal.
“I workshopped it for [challenge producer John Kirhoffer] and everybody,” he shared. “I go, ‘Listen, I got a crazy idea.’ I rapped it, and I waited, and there’s that moment where they might say, ‘I don’t think you should do it.’ And everybody said, ‘I think you should do it.’”
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