Survivor’s Greatest Player Ever Talked About When They ‘Quit’ The Show

When people sign up to play Survivor, they have no way to know what their fate on Jeff Probst’s beloved reality show will be. After all, even new fans who are figuring out which seasons to watch first will know that some players have their fate sealed when they are medically evacuated. On the other hand, some players were able to star in one of the best seasons, be celebrated as fantastic players, become great winners, and are inducted into the Survivor Hall of Fame.

Amazingly enough, one former player went from being inducted into the Survivor Hall of Fame to quitting the show partway through a season. That player, who is considered one of the best ever, went on to discuss their decision to quit.

Survivor Hall Of Famer Sandra Diaz-Twine Spoke About Quitting During Survivor: Winners At War

During Survivor: Winners at War, fans got to see something that truly was a dream come true. That season, which was the 40th season, allowed 20 former winners to compete against each other to win $2 million and the title of Sole Survivor once again.

Survivor: Winners at War featured only one player who’d won two seasons of the show before that season. Sandra Diaz-Twine won Survivor: Pearl Islands and Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains, which is why she is widely regarded as The Queen.

After previously winning the show twice, Sandra’s Survivor: Winners at War experience ended with her quitting. After that surprising, but also logical end, Sandra was very frank about her reason for quitting during Survivor: Winners at War.

During Survivor: Winners at War, Sandra was voted out relatively early during the season. However, since the season featured the Edge of Extinction twist, Sandra could have stayed and fought to win a challenge to get back in the game. Instead, Sandra decided to quit and exit the game entirely.

On March 26th, 2020, CBS published a video of Sandra on X/Twitter talking about her decision to quit. As is often the case with things Sandra says, her remarks in that video were both hilarious and completely logical.

While Sandra is rightfully praised as one of the best Survivor players ever, that doesn’t mean that she is great at every aspect of the game. Instead, Sandra is memorably terrible at challenges, which is why she has always sat out of as many as she can.

In January 2022, the fantastic YouTube challenge “Idoled Out” published a video about players who’ve sat out of the most challenges. That video states that Sandra Diaz-Twine has sat out of more Survivor challenges than anyone else in the show’s history.

While talking about her decision to quit in the X/Twitter video, Sandra explained that she wasn’t going to wait on Edge of Extinction for many days to compete in challenges.

“We have to sit out there for twenty-something days. I wasn’t having it. On Edge of Extinction, to get back in the game, you have to do physical challenges. And all those challenges are usually three parts… Me, Sandra going out there and doing that? No. Absolutely not.”

Given Sandra’s history of avoiding challenges, her statement about not wanting to stay on Edge of Extinction was explanation enough. However, Sandra went on to further explain the motivation behind her decision to quit Survivor: Winners at War.

After becoming the Queen of Survivor, Sandra Diaz-Twine went on to compete on The Traitors. Despite her reputation, Sandra still managed to go extremely far on The Traitors, which was very impressive. Furthermore, Screen Rant published an article about how Sandra’s The Traitors tenure proved she is still a strategic mastermind.

In the X/Twitter video, Sandra explained that she had no chance of winning an Edge of Extinction challenge. To prove her point, Sandra pointed out how athletic the other people on EoE were.

“I saw Natalie who does CrossFit. Amber is active. Dani, Ethan, a soccer player. Boston Rob was out there. Tyson, who does bicycling like Lance Armstrong.”

Given how athletic all those people are known to be, Sandra certainly had a fantastic point there.

Probably the most entertaining part of the X/Twitter video is what came next. As the video uploaded by CBS showed, Sandra hilariously described what Edge of Extinction would have been like for her.

It would have just been torture for me. I just would have sat there for twenty-three days being miserable.

At the end of the X/Twitter video, Sandra explained that she was done with Fiji and content to end her Survivor experience by quitting Edge of Extinction.

“I was done with Fiji. I was just done. I’m happy to go into retirement and know that I did the best I could with what I had. At the end of the day, I’m still the queen, and I’ll always stay the queen.”

However, while Sandra hasn’t played on Survivor again, she went on to compete in a season of Australian Survivor.

Survivor’s Sandra Diaz-Twine Explained How Things Went Wrong For Her Which Led To Her Quitting

During Survivor: Winners at War, Sandra Diaz-Twine was double-crossed and voted out by Denise Stapley. In another video that was originally released by CBS, and later published to a random YouTube channel, Sandra spoke about what went wrong for her during Survivor: Winners at War.

In the video, Sandra spoke about her decision to give Denise her immunity idol in return for fire tokens. As Sandra explained, she was bothered that so many women were being voted out and thought Denise was doomed next. As a result, she wanted to put an end to that trend while gaining the fire tokens.

“I was like, ‘Denise, I don’t want you to go to Edge of Extinction. There’s already too many females over there. Although my strategy was to get rid of all the females because I didn’t want there to be another queen. But, I think when I saw that the men were doing this on the other tribe, then I was like, I’m putting the brakes on this. Right? And I said, ‘Denise, give me your two fire tokens and I will hand you an immunity.'”

After getting Sandra’s idol, Denise used it to make herself safe and vote the two-time winner out. While talking about Denise tricking her, Sandra admitted how much the situation bothered her. “I could cry right now. Let me tell you.”

Ultimately, Sandra explained in the video that she messed up by forgetting her core strategy.

“For me, it’s always been as long as it’s not me. I decided to switch it up, and it just screwed me royally… Don’t do it. But this time around, it felt miserable having an idol and knowing that I gave it to my enemy because of greed and because of my heart, instead of sticking to what I know best, which is, again, as long as it ain’t me, I did it to myself. That was the hardest part for me.”

It is nice to see that Sandra took responsibility for messing up her own game. And while she clearly found it painful, Sandra also gave Denise full credit for beating her.