Aubry Bracco has been on a whirlwind ride since being voted the winner of “Survivor’s” 50th season and the winner of a $2 million payout, the highest in show history.
“Survivor 50: In the Hands of the Fans” marked the fourth season of the CBS reality show since 2016 that featured Bracco, a Hampton Falls native and one-time Hampton Union correspondent. It featured a prize pot that was twice the $1 million amount typically awarded on the show thanks to a surprise appearance from YouTube star MrBeast.
The live season finale took place May 20 with Bracco voted the winner by the show’s jury, comprising contestants who had been voted off the show earlier in the season. Bracco won with a vote of 8-3-0, defeating runners-up Jonathan Young and Joe Hunter.
Bracco spent the next day completely doing press interviews, then flew home from Los Angeles the following day so she could throw out the first pitch at Fenway Park May 23. A little more than a week after winning, she said she is spending time with family and taking a moment to breathe.
“It really, it’s been such a journey on ‘Survivor,’” Bracco said, “From coming in second place, just short, to pulling it out on the biggest season of all time.”
Bracco wins in fourth appearance on CBS’s ‘Survivor’
Bracco’s win was years in the making. She has watched the show since its premiere in 2000, then was runner-up on her first appearance on the show in 2016’s “Survivor: Kaoh Rong.”
Her success varied in her first three appearances on the show. She was the 15th person voted out on 2017’s “Game Changers” season, then the fifth voted out on 2019’s “Edge of Extinction.”
Bracco said her past experience on the show exposed her to every facet of the game, from going “super deep” the first run to getting “blind-sided” in her third season. She said she knows what it feels like to get voted off, and she’s also served on the final Tribal Council.
“I’ve had the gift of knowing all parts of the ‘Survivor’ game, right?” Bracco said.
Bracco ‘floater’ strategy pays off with jury
Bracco also said she studied each of the players from Season 50 since she even heard rumors about who was expected to appear in the season. Now 40 years old, she also believes she has grown as a person in the last 10 years.
“I’ve done a lot of work on myself,” Bracco said. “Ten years is a long time, as an adult, to kind of be more comfortable in your own shoes.”
Bracco said she struggled at the start of the season, but she described herself as a “floater” whose success stemmed from her distance from other players. She said she tried to stay on good terms with others who ultimately voted her the season’s “sole survivor.”
“I intentionally tried to stay in that pocket of being not so close that people are going to be upset at the end,” Bracco said, “And that ended up working for me.”
What viewers didn’t see on ‘Survivor 50’
Bracco said the show runners did well in portraying the action that viewers saw when the show aired. Much was left out, as well. Bracco recalled when fellow contestant Ozzy Lusth cut some of his hair with a machete to leave on the island.
“We buried it on the beach because Ozzy wants to leave pieces of his hair around Fiji,” Bracco said. “That was a fun moment that you didn’t see.”
Who Bracco would like to see compete again
Bracco did not rule out a future appearance on “Survivor.”
“I always say ‘Survivor’ is a drug and you always want to play again,” she said.
At the same time, she believes there are others she hopes will get a chance to win in future seasons. She said she hopes to see Christian Hubiki, Rick Devens and Tiffany Ervin come back, as well as the “RizGod,” Rizo Velovic, one of the final four contestants in Season 50 and who lost in a fire-making challenge.
Bracco said Velovic might have been behind on keeping up his fire-starting skills because of the intense stretch he had of playing “Survivor” in back-to-back seasons. Velovic was on the 49th season that ended just over a week before work on Season 50 began.
“That kid played 50 straight days of ‘Survivor’ with a nine-day gap,” Bracco said. “I think Rizzo probably will have fire under his belt the next time he plays.”
Bracco on life after winning ‘Survivor 50’
Bracco said she has been celebrating her win by reading all the messages she’s received from fans, as well as catching up with people and calling friends. She runs a marketing consultancy and lives in the Seacoast with her family, raising a 2-year-old son. Her family also still lives in Hampton Falls.
“I’m exhausted, I’m not going to lie,” Bracco said. “I’m getting back to my business and my clients, but also like taking a second to breathe.”
The prize money for “Survivor 50” was doubled by a coinflip in which heads would have MrBeast give $1 million to the pot. Tails would have eliminated the contestant who gambled flipping the coin immediately without a vote.
“I’m probably going to get Rick Devens, who flipped that MrBeast coin, a really nice meal,” Bracco said, “Or something fun with him.”
Bracco said she plans to put the prize money away and continue with her work in consulting. She added property taxes are “not cheap” in the state of New Hampshire where she lives in the Seacoast. She looks forward to enjoying the summer this year with her son.
“I’m going to be the same me,” Bracco said, “And just go forward with even more faith in myself that I can do anything I set my mind to.”
Bracco said she does get recognized when she’s out, especially when wearing her glasses. Sweet Chix in North Hampton posted a picture of the eatery’s host, a big “Survivor” fan, with Bracco when she went to dinner there with her family the week after she’d won.
“People love the season, and it’s nice to find out all these local Seacoast folks are big ‘Survivor’ fans,” Bracco said. “I love talking about this show, chatting with people.”
Bracco, a 2004 Phillips Exeter Academy graduate, previously wrote as a freelance reporter for the Hampton Union, Portsmouth Herald, Exeter News-Letter and the Rockingham News. The stories she covered have remained with her and shaped her, she said, like one she wrote on a fatal car accident in Kingston.
“It just helped me know how to talk to different people and understand what different people need in order to feel comfortable to share their story,” Bracco said. “I learned so much being a journalist, and I am so grateful for those days on my old Seacoast beat.”
This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald. Reporting by Max Sullivan.
