Coach Wade Says Cirie's ‘Survivor' 50 Move Was ‘Deep Manipulation'

Jeff Probst promised surprises during Survivor 50, and the season keeps delivering. This week’s episode sent home two players in a double elimination that left fans reeling. Newsweek talked to one of them, so consider this your spoiler warning.

Benjamin ‘Coach’ Wade and Chrissy Hofbeck had a stormy few episodes, with much of the cast questioning their gameplay and Tribal Council decisions. That turmoil came to a head this week when both Wade and Hofbeck were sent home in a double elimination set up by a partnered challenge. At times it felt like everyone against Wade and Hofbeck, which only made them double down on their strategic response. It was only when another original era player, Cirie Fields, got wind of Wade and Hofbeck’s plans to eliminate her alliance with Rizo Velovic, that she quietly set a plan in motion to take them out first.

Wade knows how he comes across, and he is the first to acknowledge the shift. “I think you saw that dad for the first 12 days, and then things got sloppy on my behalf,” he told Newsweek. The self-proclaimed Dragon Slayer has been performing his whole life, starting with his mom in fourth grade, and he says Survivor simply pulled a bigger version of that performer out of him. “Halfway through my first season, I realized that here’s my normal parameters of collectiveness in real life, and what the producers wanted was way out here. I’m like, that’s what you want? You’re going to get it.”

Newsweek chatted with Wade about Fields’ moves against him, how the Dragon Slayer’s gameplay changed 12 days in, and he even gifted Newsweek with an original haiku.

The following transcript was condensed and lightly edited for publication.

It was fantastic seeing you on 50. How did it feel to be part of such an iconic season?

It’s so joyous. I kind of waffled back and forth if I was going to do the season, and I really decided to go all in just a few weeks before. I’m so glad I did. So healing. So joyous. To be a part of this historic season was amazing. And even further than that, they didn’t have to show half of the stuff that I did, but they did. The fact that they have honored me over and over again, even if it’s Tiffany getting screen time for reaming me out and saying she couldn’t wait to vote me out, even if it was the eye rolling, they’ve done me a great service and honor to always make sure that I was a big part of the plot.

One of the things that’s so surprising about you is that outside the game, you’re just a good dad, a fun, good dad. I think when you play the game, people miss that part of you. Do you feel that sometimes the player that you are and the person that you are two different things?

Yeah, for sure. I think you saw that dad for the first 12 days, and then things got sloppy on my behalf. Nobody wanted to split the vote, which was just preposterous in this day and age. They wanted to put 12 votes on Dee [Valladares]. So I had to stand up, to my own detriment. But they did see that happier side, right? I made songs up for all my kids when they were young. Sometimes if my daughter’s having a nightmare, I go in there and sing that song to her. She knows the words by heart. So that’s me. You did see that. But I would not get up in front of a classroom, I would not get in a symphony concert and get on the podium and say, thank you for being here, we’re going to have a great day and I hope you enjoy this song. No, man. What’s up, everybody? You guys are going to love this. Here’s the history of this song.

I started performing with my mom at a mental institution because she wanted to instill in me how to give joy and kindness to other people, even the ones that were less fortunate than us. I started performing when I was in fourth grade with my mom, and then my brother joined on violin and my mom played piano and I played trumpet. I’ve been performing my whole life. There’s a part of all of us performers that lives dormant until the moment you walk on stage, and then there’s another part of your personality that comes alive. Halfway through my first season, I realized that here’s my normal parameters of collectiveness in real life, and what the producers wanted was way out here. I’m like, that’s what you want? You’re going to get it.

You’re telling me the Dragon Slayer was there when you were in fourth grade. That’s kind of what it feels like, that the Dragon Slayer came out after that 12-day mark.

That’s interesting. Yeah, that’s true, actually.

Your game shifted, and you just said some of it was sloppy. I don’t know if I necessarily agree with that, but you and Tiff [Ervin] definitely had a thing. When you went to her in this past episode, how did you process dealing with Tiff? She’s new era, and you both come at the game very differently.

It’s unfortunate. I forgot Colby [Donaldson] didn’t have a vote, so I could have won that challenge. I thought it was going to be Emily [Flippen]. I started getting sloppy with Dee. Then people wouldn’t split the vote, so I had to aggressively push that split because I didn’t want to go home in case the shot in the dark was played. Tiffany and I had a day one alliance. They didn’t show that part. Tiffany and I were smack in the middle of everything. Every time we did the merges, I was smack in the middle of everything. I was great with Kamilla [Karthigesu], I loved playing with Kamilla, I loved playing with Tiffany on that first beach. Chrissy would have gone home if we would have gone to the vote. So I was in the nucleus of everything, and I had a really good relationship with Tiffany. But when you draw lines in the sand, she actually was very old school in that moment. We had previously talked up on the shelter and she said, well, you haven’t talked strategy with me for three days. And I’m like, yeah, that’s because I don’t want to come at you and be dishonest. I did not talk strategy with you, but let’s talk strategy now. So she was a new school player, but she wanted to draw that line in the sand with me. When we went down to the boat, she wasn’t buying it at all. She asked me point blank, who wrote my name down? I couldn’t answer her. I think it was Joe [Hunter] and Jonathan [Young]. We had a conversation: Who do we want to go? We got to have Dee. Who’s going to be second? Well, it should be Tiffany because they’re the closest. We kind of came up with it. But in that moment, I just froze and looked really bad. I knew walking away from that, man, I’ve lost her.

That was the dad coming out in you. You freezing in that moment was the real you coming out. That’s just my observation. You and Chrissy had to be aligned in this episode, and you had to kind of take orders from Chrissy, which is something new for us to see, Coach taking orders from someone. What was that like for you?

It’s also wisdom, right? I don’t want to pat myself on the back, but in Tocantins [Survivor season 18] I wouldn’t have taken advice from anybody. Looking at myself in the mirror and saying, man, I do take life too seriously, I take myself too seriously, you’ve got to be able to laugh at yourself, you’ve got to be able to progress. It was really apropos, because we learn when we’re in the valleys, we forge our character in the valleys. The 10 years before I went on Survivor, I was winning championship after championship. Everybody thought I walked on water. One of the winningest soccer coaches in American history for college women’s soccer. Then I go on Survivor and I get my career taken away from me, people are laughing at me, people think I’m a pathological liar. But I learned more about myself in those four months than I had the previous 10 years. We only learn about ourselves in the valleys. We only forge our character in the valleys, not when things are going right.

It was a great moment for me. It’s a subtle moment that I think most people miss. When Rizo says, we’ve slayed dragons at Tribal, not around camp, I remember when he said that, because for a second I’m like, okay, somebody gives me advice, I let it come in, I roll it around. If it has validity, then I’m in action about that. If it doesn’t have validity, then I let it go. If not, I’d be friggin’ suicidal right now, with people whining about me online and all that kind of stuff, I’d be a friggin’ wreck. In fact, I just take it like, can this make me a better person? If somebody on the periphery is telling me something that’s going to make me a better person, then I’d be a fool not to take it. In the moment, I thought it was good advice. In hindsight, maybe I should have worked the beach a little bit better that last day, but they gave me sound advice and I took it. Again, it was the dad in me. When I’m at home, I lead from the bottom. I wake up every morning and I think, how can I make my family better? How can I make my wife a latte at 7:30 when she wakes up? How can I make sure that I’m sitting on the couch smiling for my children when they wake up and they come in and see me, and I’m not on my phone just saying, oh, what’s going on? I make them breakfast. It’s waffles one day, pancakes the next, French toast, cereal the next day. Put it on rotation back to the waffles again. I’m trying to lead from the bottom. In that moment, it was like the dad. Hey, we are a family out here. Even though I hate to sit here, I’ll make good use of the time and throw some haikus and write an original song.

You made this episode of Survivor a mini musical. I do need to ask you about how in the end, and you probably weren’t privy to it out there, the Cirie orchestration of the vote. It really was her and Tiff, but it was Cirie orchestrating a lot of that vote against you and Chrissy. How do you feel about that move, original Survivor players coming at each other?

It was a colder move, that’s for sure. I was a man of my word out there, preferable alliances. It was deep emotional manipulation. We sat on a hammock and she says, I don’t know what it means to be in an alliance, but to me it means we fight together till the very end. I’ll fight to my last breath to stand up for you. I did text her last night, I just said, okay, nothing bad, I just said, I thought I could see, you know, what if I can. Then she texted me and said, if you don’t, Dee came up to me and said that you were throwing my name around for the Colby vote. Then she later said, no, actually, she lied about that. I think she was given this information, she ran with it. I did feel betrayed when I saw that, but at the end of the day, it is Survivor. She showed she can say nothing strategically for a few episodes, and then in that moment she showed, this is why I’m dangerous.

My last question for you: right now at this point in the game, whom are you rooting for to go all the way?

I’m rooting for Jonathan because we were so awesome out there. We did coaching together, and I just think he’s a great guy. He’s a powerhouse, he’s strategic. I love him. He’s so good. Who would I be rooting against? It would be Ozzy [Lusth], because I want Ozzy to fail, because he caused my demise. Before we get off this call, man, I’m giving you a haiku. Why don’t I give you a haiku about that moment?

Ozzy must be gone.

Jonathan slay dragons.

I wish them all.

Oh, I got a Coach haiku. My day is made, my month is made, my year is made. Coach, you’re fantastic. It was so great seeing you back on television.

Appreciate you, my man.

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This story was originally published April 17, 2026 at 8:46 AM.