The White Lotus creator, Mike White, will be among the 24 players returning to Survivor for the milestone 50th season.
On Wednesday, the show’s host and executive producer, Jeff Probst, announced the full cast of the reality show’s upcoming season on CBS Mornings. The season, titled “In the Hands of the Fans,” will feature a lineup filled with fan favorites.
The season, which does not premiere until February 2026, will showcase former contestants from as far back as Survivor’s inaugural season in 2000, as well as players from season 49, which is set to debut this fall.
Survivor follows a group of contestants divided into "tribes" based on the season's theme, who are stranded on an island and tasked with surviving by building shelters and foraging for food. Alongside these survival efforts, they compete in a series of mental and physical challenges. Each week, contestants are eliminated through a tribal vote until only one remains. The last contestant standing is crowned the Sole Survivor and awarded the $1 million prize.
Before White’s success with his hit HBO show The White Lotus, he competed on Survivor’s 37th season, which was titled “David vs. Goliath.” The season’s premise saw the David tribe, made up of some of life’s underdogs, face off against a group of overachieving “Goliaths.”
During his time on the show, White became known for his sharp comedic timing, whether it was lamenting not bringing an eye mask, overindulging in red wine during a reward, or humorously cursing a tree after walking into it.
He finished the season in second place with three jury votes, while Nick Wilson secured the title of Sole Survivor with seven votes.
“Mike, after he finished playing, said, ‘I want to play again,’” Probst recalled on CBS Mornings. “When White Lotus hit, and I thought, ‘Well, he’ll never play again.’ But he kept texting and saying, ‘Look, I’m serious. If you ever do anything where you have returning players, I want to play again.’ So we’re happy to have Mike.”
Since his time on the reality show, White has maintained close relationships with his fellow contestants, even giving some of them cameos on The White Lotus. These include Angelina Keeley and Christian Hubicki (both of whom were cast in Survivor 50), Alec Merlino, Kara Kay, Natalie Cole, and Carl Boudreaux.
Other notable cast members on the milestone season of Survivor are Cirie Fields and Ozzy Lusth, who will now be playing the game for their fifth time.
Five of the players come from seasons 48 and 49, while 11 of the 24 Survivor 50 contestants are from the past five seasons, including the only two winners, Dee Valladares(Survivor 45) and Kyle Fraser(Survivor 48).
