“Survivor” star Zeke Smith spoke to Andy Cohen about being outed as a transgender man during a 2017 episode of the show.
Jeff Varner outed Smith in a shocking Tribal Council “Survivor: Game Changers” moment. Smith has now spoken about the impact it had on his life during Thursday’s episode of Cohen’s “For Real: The Story of Reality TV”.
Cohen’s show focuses on regular people who became household names, thanks to shows like “Survivor” and “Big Brother”.
Smith explained how he “was checked out for about 45 minutes to an hour” after Varner, who was eliminated without a formal vote, outed him.
“In all the ways I had gamed out I would potentially talk about being trans, it was never being so dramatically outed at Tribal Council,” he said, according to toofab.
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“The day after I got voted out, I was on the phone with Jeff Probst and he made a handful of promises to me about how my outing was going to be handled,” Smith continued. “He was like, ‘We’re not going to promote it, we’re not gonna sensationalize it, I’m gonna go to bat for you.’ He kept every single one of his promises.”
Smith said that he had no intention of becoming any kind of role model for the trans community when he auditioned for the show: “Initially, I was very scared because I didn’t feel up to the challenge.”
Looking at the positives from the show, Smith said: “I’m very proud of what we were able to do. Before the episode aired, if you were to Google ‘Trans person outed’, the first 100 results are all news stories of trans people who had killed themselves after being outed.
“Now if you Google ‘Trans outing’, you don’t get all the stories of suicide, you get my story. Mine is a very positive one. Subsequent to my outing, my life has only gotten better.”