'Survivor: Winners at War' Season 40: Ethan Zohn's battle with cancer inspired him to survive Edge of Extinction
'Survivor: Winners at War' Season 40 is entering its merge when it returns on Wednesday night. But what fans are waiting to see is who makes it back into the game from the Edge of Extinction.
With $2 million dollars at stake, the castaways at the Edge of Extinction are struggling to collect as many fire tokens as they can, so they gather enough to make it back in the game. To date, Natalie Anderson leads with four fire tokens, Amber Mariano, Danni Boatwright, Ethan Zohn, each has one fire token. Rob Mariano has three fire tokens. Tyson Apostol has one fire token. Parvati Shallow and Yul Kwon have not collected any.
It is going to be an interesting episode to see who makes it to the merge. With the merge coming up, and the competition getting tougher, MEA WorldWide (Meaww) caught up with Ethan Zohn, who is known for winning 'Survivor: Africa' and appearing in 'Survivor: All-Star'.
Returning again for 'Survivor: Winners at War' Season 40 was voted off during a blindsided elimination at tribal council and sent to the Edge of Extinction. In an exclusive interview with Meaww, Ethan opened up about his time on 'Survivor: Winners at War'. He shared about if he was happy how he played the game, and what motivated him to not quit the competition.
Last week when 'Survivor' aired we saw Sandra Diaz quit the competition after she got to know how hard it was to survive at the Edge of Extinction. But Ethan decided not to quit despite the tasks being difficult. Sharing what motivated him to stay, he shared, "I feel in the game of 'Survivor' You really never know what's going to happen. So I didn't want to take myself out of the game because I just don't know what would happen. Maybe you find a clue that gets you back in the game. Maybe there's a play in the challenge. Maybe the fire tokens get you something."
"The second part is, you know, there are a lot of parallels between living on the Edge of Extinction is kind of going through cancer. You know, the Edge of Extinction you're in between life and death. Cancer, you're kind of like in between life and death. You're hoping and dreaming of a cure, a new drug, another chance at life. Same with the edge of extinction. It's a similar theory," he added.
"I've been through cancer before. I did to the edge of extinction literally twice. And I battled myself back. So I knew what it takes to persevere over the hardest and most difficult times, even when your head is throwing tricks at you. I want to just keep the hope alive like if you just hang your hat on the hope, the hope for a new drug or a new cure, that's kind of what was going through my mind," Ethan shared.
During the last fire token challenge at the Edge of Extinction, Rob Mariano found three out of the four fire tokens on top of the hill and lied to the rest of the castaways that he had none. Talking about his reaction when he found out, Ethan shared, "Oh, my God. I had first run past one fire token soo as we all blasted out to the top of the mountain. I and Rob had explored that area of the island. I had been up there, but I hadn't really explored it that much. That's where we have our rice. They put our rice up on the top of that frickin mountain."
Adding to that he shared, "I was shocked when I saw that on TV because I didn't know. I was convinced Tyson had them. But I ran right over one that's how frustrating it was. I and Rob were running together. And I got to that area and he saw me looking around in that area. I was shocked and surprised to see that he had found three the other night when I saw it on TV."
Talking about if he is happy with the way he played the game, Ethan said, "Yes, of course. Definitely. No regrets. No regrets at all. I mean, I wish I was a little chubbier going into it. But other than that. No regrets."
'Survivor: Winners at War' Season 40 airs every Wednesday night only on CBS. Check your local listings for more information.
