She’s held the title of Sole Survivor, has been called a traitor and “the black widow,” and taken on the roles of mother, life coach, boxer, podcast host, and author. But before she became a reality superstar,
Parvati Shallow was just a Bulldog.
It’s been nearly 20 years since Shallow ABJ ’04 appeared on Survivor: Cook Islands. Donning a camouflage cap with the Georgia ‘G,’ Shallow enchanted audiences and was invited to a return for three additional seasons of the show (soon to be four).
Spoiler alert: On one season, she earned the $1 million prize. Across nearly 50 seasons, only a dozen Georgia residents have competed on Survivor, and Shallow is the only one to win.
In her winning season, Survivor Micronesia: Fans vs. Favorites, Shallow created the infamous ’Black Widow Brigade’, an all-female alliance that dominated the game. They even got the fifth place contestant, Erik Reichenbach, to give his individual immunity to Shallow, just for the remaining four women to vote him out. (Photo special)
“Why do they always wanna vote me out? I’m just a sweet, innocent little girl.”
“I felt very tied to my identity as a Georgia girl,” says Shallow, a native of Marietta. “In Georgia, there’s this sense of sunny charm, optimism, and buoyancy. You can make connections with people, and you can be non-threatening because you’re from the South, so I really embraced that.”
And embrace it she did. When she made her Survivor debut in 2006, Shallow’s charisma and cunning social strategy stood out.
At UGA, as she earned her broadcast journalism degree, studied psychology, and built friendships in her sorority, Alpha Omicron Pi, she had no idea each of these things would give her a leg up in the ultimate group experiment. 09n
“There is something about what the University of Georgia requires of a student; it’s to be brave in self-exploration, to get really curious about what you’re interested in, to be open to meeting new and different kinds of people, and to be willing to put yourself into uncertain situations where you don’t know what the outcome is going to be,” she says. “It helps a person blossom and grow, and that was my experience at UGA.”
“It’s, like, the Black Widow Brigade. All the girls are coming together, and we’re spinning the guys around as much as we can.”
Her second season on Survivor, she helped unite one of the only successful female alliances in the show’s history. As a favorite on Survivor: Micronesia (Fans vs. Favorites), she earned the nickname “black widow” for her ruthlessness and the title Sole Survivor, along with a $1 million prize.
Shallow ended with a controversial second place finish in her third run—Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains, with many fans declaring she should have won then, too. (Host Jeff Probst even admitted he would have voted for her to win.) In her fourth go at the game, Survivor: Winners at War, viewers saw Shallow dipping her toes back into the world of reality TV, after a 10-year break from the game. Life had become more than securing hidden immunity idols and building a legacy, as Shallow became a wife and mom. That came with a different set of challenges not based in a televised competition.
After a 10-year break, Parvati Shallow returned to reality television in 2019. Since then, she’s starred on a variety of competition shows winning legions of fans along the way. (Photo Robert Voets)
“I discovered how to do life on your terms while trusting you can always start over and begin again. You have the capacity and the courage and the ability to learn new things and new ways of living,” she says.
“What do you call the one who slayed the Dragonslayer?”
Taking out popular male players over the years, such as Benjamin Wade (i.e., Coach; i.e., the self-proclaimed Dragonslayer) comes with some upset fans.
Women, she says, are often criticized for demanding the best for themselves and called “villains” for insisting on control of their own lives.
“It’s hard to figure out how to like yourself. It requires consistency and commitment to doing things that are just for you,” Shallow says. “But the freedom that we can have on the other side once we get to this place of radical self-acceptance is really powerful. I think that’s the treasure that’s waiting for women through this.”
This is the message Shallow focuses on in her first book, debuting this summer, Nice Girls Don’t Win: How I Burned It All Down to Claim My Power. The memoir dives into her struggles with self-assurance. Her new podcast, under the same name, goes even further.
“Like a phoenix rising from the ashes ready to burn down your house.”
Shallow is back to her roots with a fresh outlook on life. She has also expanded her reality resume with exciting results, as a star on NBC’s Deal or No Deal Island and The Traitors. She will appear in the upcoming Survivor vs. The World on CBS.
Now a resident of Los Angeles, Shallow still sees Athens as foundational. One of her core beliefs is to honor the past but accept that the future is never fully predictable.
“Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Don’t be afraid to fail. Don’t be afraid to embarrass yourself,” she says. “Never fixate on a linear path to success. We are all flawed humans who are trying as hard as we can to figure it out.”
