The franchise legend also speaks to his “Survivor” future and if this is really the end.

Colby Donaldson reveals Survivor 50 doctors tried to pull him from game before Tribal Council

The franchise legend also speaks to his "Survivor" future and if this is really the end.

By Dalton Ross

Dalton Ross is a writer and editor with over 25 years experience covering TV and the entertainment industry. *Survivor* is kind of his thing.

EW's editorial guidelines

April 2, 2026 10:01 a.m. ET

Colby Donaldson on 'Survivor 50'. Credit:

Gail Schulman/CBS

Colby Donaldson experienced the ultimate *Survivor* roller-coaster over his 25-year reality TV career. He was the franchise’s biggest star when he first appeared on *The Australian Outback* in 2001 and would have won a million dollars had he taken the easy win over Keith Famie. Instead, he chose the person he deemed the most worthy in eventual winner Tina Wesson to sit beside him, launching a million debates over the decision.

But Colby’s follow-up showings on *All-Stars* and *Heroes vs. Villains* were underwhelming, and the one-time reality TV legend was left wondering for 16 years if the game had passed him by. NEWSFLASH: It hadn’t.

Yes, Colby was eliminated this week on *Survivor 50*, one spot before making the jury. And yes, his body ultimately failed him when he injured his foot during a challenge. But Colby firmly asserted himself as a power player who brought together both old and new era players into a big umbrella alliance. That is why Cirie called him the head of the snake that needed to be chopped off.

Colby was a sitting duck after the newly merged tribe was randomly broken up into three smaller groups, and he found himself without a vote and with only one ally (Coach) facing off against an aligned trio of Cirie, Dee, and Emily. He was voted out that night, but would he have even stayed in the game had he survived the vote? Dee and Emily mentioned the possibility of Colby being medically evacuated. Just how bad was the foot, and what happened after the cameras shut off?

We asked the franchise legend all that and more, and you can now watch or read the entire interview below.

**: Watching that Tribal Council, it seemed like everyone already knew it was you going home. Was that the case?**

**COLBY DONALDSON:** They did. They did. Even Coach, I couldn't remember last night, Dalton, whether Coach voted for me or not. I think I knew at some point, but I didn't recall. And then seeing that he did last night, that tells you right there. Which, again, I don't fault him for that. He needed to switch gears and go into self-preservation mode at that point. But yeah, it was the right move for them.

Again, I have so much respect for Cirie and her gameplay, and I knew. When I saw it on screen last night, I could have predicted that would be a conversation that Cirie would have with Dee and or Emily about taking me out when they had the chance. And the misfortune of losing a vote and then not having a Shot in the Dark was what sealed it. The injury was one thing, but I don't know that the injury would have necessarily taken me out — probably. But losing the vote and then being a sitting duck in that Tribal where I just don't have enough friends. My friends are on the other beaches over there. We all knew going in.

Explore EW's *Survivor* HQ

Exclusive video, interviews, breaking news, games, polls, and more!

**What happened with the foot injury, both in terms of the game and after you left? How bad was it?**

Yeah, so I first injured it in the Zac Brown challenge when we were pushing the boat up the beach. And that ultimately turned out to be a torn ligament in the bottom of my foot connecting my big toe to my heel. That was bad enough, but as luck, or the lack of luck, would have it, leaving that challenge walking, and I was barefoot, just down a production trail, I stepped on something that must have punctured my foot because I then developed an infection, which became a staph infection.

And the infection was far worse than the ligament injury itself, to the point where I'm not sure I could have made it through the game because of the infection. And they couldn't treat it while I was in the game. So we're meeting with docs before and after every challenge, and the docs were looking at it. We initially couldn't find the puncture wound because the infection could not have come about just because of the ligament damage. The infection had to be introduced from the outside in, and we couldn't find a puncture mark. The doctors couldn't.

And so we really didn't know when it happened or where it happened, but my foot was swelling every day. It was super hot to the touch and the pain threshold… my pain level, my threshold's high, but the pain level was through the roof. That infection most likely would've taken me out at some point. In fact, the docs wanted to pull me before Tribal, but because I knew I was going at Tribal, I said, "No, let me just go to this one Tribal. I think I'm gonna get sent home tonight. If I don't, we can reassess the injury in the morning."

So it's part of the luck or, or the unluck, because again, the infection didn't come during a challenge, I don't think.

Colby Donaldson and Chrissy Hofbeck on 'Survivor 50'.

Robert Voets/CBS

**It's fascinating because we saw Dee and Emily trying to run these calculations and be like, "He might get pulled. We might get a two for one." And it sounds like what you're saying is had you made it through that Tribal, there was good chance you were gonna have to go the next day anyway.**

But the thing is, if I make it through that Tribal, then I'm on the jury. And that goes to Cirie’s point of the head of the snake or the tail of the snake. Now, I'm not saying I'm the head of the snake, but I had a lot of friends and I had a little bit of influence on a lot of players in this game. So if I'm on that jury, that's not good for Cirie. And that's not good for Dee and Kamilla. I haven't talked to her about it, but I think that's part of what Cirie was thinking there was, was, “Yes, he may get medevaced, but if he's still on the jury, he's got influence there.”

**Would you have felt bad if you had made it through that Tribal and they'd taken Coach out and then you had to go 12 hours later?**

That was part of it. You saw the clip of me sitting down with Dee on the wood there on the beach and saying, "Look, this is my only proposal." And I did scramble, Dalton, for a grand total of 15 minutes, but then I started running the numbers and the math in my head and I'm going, "What am I doing?"

First of all, Coach was the guy I was playing with. He was a guy that I really enjoyed and was aligned with. I wasn't completely averse to pivoting and getting away, but I was locked in with Coach pretty good. The second thing was: *Boy, this is really gonna be selfish if Coach goes home tonight in this Tribal, and then I go home tomorrow because of a medevac*. And that definitely crossed my mind.

Colby Donaldson, Stephenie LaGrossa Kendrick on 'Survivor 50'.

Robert Voets/CBS

**You don't want to call yourself the head of the snake, but Cirie called you the head of the snake and I'll call you the head of the snake. You had a big alliance with both old and new era players. But who was your number one out there?**

Well, Stephenie's like my sister, and we tried to play that down in the first day or two, and it was so obvious to everyone that we were locked in, we just couldn't hide from it. And so everyone knew we were a package deal. In fact, there was some conversation that took place on Vatu beach, where someone brought up Stephenie's name. It was a small group of tribemates, and I just told them, "Look, if you're gonna have a conversation about getting Stephenie out, you better make sure I'm not present when you do that, because I don't wanna have anything to do with it, and I will trainwreck every conversation or every plot to get Steph out."

So she was my number one, but here's what would surprise most people because none of it aired: I got locked in with Genevieve on the first night we were there. And I had no designs on that. I didn't anticipate that. I was up in the middle of the night, couldn't sleep at all, went down the beach. If you remember that first episode, when we won the challenge, we had a big bonfire waiting for us on our beach. So we moved that fire up to what would be our permanent camp, and there were still some coals and some embers down on the beach that we had covered up with sand. I went down there and used those embers to just start my own little fire. And it was just sort of a cool reentry into the game for me, private and personal. And then I put the fire out, went back up to the camp.

Genevieve was awake at that point. All the other tribemates were asleep. And so I said, "Man, Genevieve, I wish I knew you were awake. I would've brought you down to the beach. I just started a fire down there." And she said, "Well, let's go down there." I said, "Well, I already put it out." She goes, "That's all right. I'll get it started again."

So Genevieve and I go back down to where those embers were buried in the sand, and she does successfully by herself get a fire started with all the twigs and all the tinder and the fuel that she needed. And we sat there around that fire for several hours. All the camera crews were around us, and that's where we started bonding. She didn't quite trust me fully yet, but she knew I was at least someone she could play with in the short term. And then we played the whole game together up until the merge. We got tribe-swapped together, so Genevieve and I were together the entire time. Nobody saw that because it didn't play into the totality of the storyline, but the truth was, I was locked in with Genevieve very well.** **

Rizo Velovic and Colby Donaldson on 'Survivor 50'.

Robert Voets/CBS

**Ideally, whom did you want to be sitting with in the final three?**

Oh, I don't know. I'll tell you this. I had a conversation with Rizo last week, and the young man, he's so funny the way he articulates things. He said, "You know, Colby, you were absolutely in my final three." He might be a guy I take because I don't see a world in which a season 49er and a guy 25 to 26 years old wins this thing. So I actually think tactically and strategically, he's a good guy to take a long way because I don't think he goes home with the money.

**What’s something that happened out there that we didn’t see that you wish had made it to TV?**

Let me tell you a funny moment. And the barometer in the game for whether or not something's funny is if the crew behind the cameras start laughing, right? And Stephenie and I, we had fishing supplies that we had earned at some point and we had a canoe there on the beach with an outrigger on it. And so Stephenie and I decided to go fishing, and we're up in the camp by the campfire and she's going out and getting the appropriate sticks. I'm tying the fishing line onto them and I'm putting the hooks on them and then I'm leaning them up against a stump by the campfire. And everyone else around the camp is working, gathering firewood, doing something, except for Rizo — being Rizo, being lazy, not doing anything.

I said, "Rizo, come on, man. You gotta help out around here. Why don't you do something?" He said, "What do you want me to do? " I said, "Tend to the fire." He said, "Okay." And so Stephenie keeps bringing me what would be fishing poles. I keep attaching the string to them and setting them down. Stephenie's like, "All right, let's go. We got enough."

And I look over there and I said, "What'd you do with the fishing poles, Steph?" She said, "I didn't do anything with him." She said, "Where'd you put them?” Rizo is fueling the fire with our fishing poles, and the crew is all filming it and they are laughing. Rizo has no clue. He's so lazy, he doesn't even walk out in the jungle to get firewood for the fire. He's grabbing these sticks that he just assumes are fuel for the fire, and that was all of our fishing poles.

And Stephenie and I, the only reason we realized that he did it is because all the crew behind the cameras are laughing their butts off at it. And so that was a fun moment. We did end up getting out in the canoe, and that was my most frustrating day there. And I think I might've dropped plenty of Rizo's F bombs out on the water that day. That was a fun time for, for Steph and I to get out on the water.

Colby Donaldson on 'Survivor 50'.

**You had a rough go of it on *Heroes vs. Villains* and had to sit with that for 16 years. What does it mean to come back and restore your reputation with an outing like this that you can be proud of and leave with your head held high?**

Well, it's just been a blessing and a gift. And I meant what I said about the experience for me with regards to the players in the game. I had fun with these players. And it stinks because it was so long ago in episode 1 when Kyle had to go home. But I connected with that guy. Q was another one that I was completely wrong about. I didn't think there was a world in which I could play the game with Q, and I connected with that guy and had so much fun. And so it was the mindset I took into it to make sure I made the most out of this final experience of mine, and I feel comfortable that I did that with the cards I was dealt. We all know there's a lot of luck involved, and I caught some early breaks, but didn't catch them at the end when I needed them.

**Is this the end of your *Survivor* story?**

Oh, yeah. Nobody wants to see me back on that TV one more time. And I knew going in. Coach is a guy you could never believe him if he said, "This is my last time,” because he could certainly surprise us all and go back, but I don't see a world in which I would go back. And it's not because I don't absolutely love it, but it has given me everything I could ever ask for, so many gifts, so many blessings, and I just loved that chapter. This was the time for me to close that chapter.

***Want to be kept up with all things Survivor? Dig deep and sign up for 's ******free Survivor Weekly newsletter****** to have all the latest news, interviews, and commentary sent right to your inbox. ***

- Survivor Fandom

Original Article on Source

Source: “EW Survivor”