No one leaves her mark on a reality show quite like Parvati Shallow, and this year, she’s taking her talents to Deal or Deal Island.
“I enjoyed watching it,” Parvati, 42, told Us Weekly during an exclusive interview at our NYC studio about why she joined season 2 of the NBC show after fellow Survivor superstar Boston Rob appeared on season 1. “I love watching Rob play. It was so fun. And then Joe Manganiello is the host. He’s perfect for the role. It’s on an exotic private island. It’s got a little Charlie’s Angels, a little Austin Powers, a little Survivor, a little game of intrigue. I was like, ‘I gotta play this game.’”
After a stint on The Traitors last year, Parvati had hinted that she was hanging up her reality TV cap.
“I unretired double time because I did Deal or No Deal Island and I did Australian Survivor vs. the World in one summer, back-to-back,” she told Us about her previous remarks. “There’s something that gets in my blood about these reality competition games — their peak experiences, their life-changing experiences and who gets the opportunity to play them more than once? It feels like a blessing and a curse.”
On Deal or No Deal Island — which follows contestants competing in physical challenges to obtain briefcases containing cash values before taking on the “Banker’s Challenge,” a.k.a a game of Deal or No Deal — Parvati is dealing with mostly people who have never been on a competition show before.
“They don’t have any reality TV background, but they have huge personalities, which I’m used to when I play these games,” the five-time Survivor competitor said. “But then when it comes to gameplay and strategy, people who’ve never done a reality competition, they don’t understand. It feels real when you’re in the moment. And these people can get really caught up in the drama and the emotionality and everything. So it does kind of make them easier to maneuver in a way because you know how their emotions are going to guide them and they’re not gonna be able to stop that. So for me, I can sit back [and be] like a lifeguard, stand above them and watch the kids play in the pool and just make sure they’re safe and then pluck them out as they need them. And then let them keep swimming along with each other.”
While she added that she “can’t really make a plan until I know what I’m working with,” she doesn’t worry about figuring out her next move once the game begins. “I have refined that ability to just kind of wait, be patient, sit in the unknown, don’t stress too much about what’s to come,” she told Us. “And then just when it comes, it feels like a big improv experience.”
Deal or No Deal Island airs on NBC Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET and starts streaming on Peacock the following day. Keep reading for the biggest takeaways from Partavi about season 2 so far:
On Dr. Will:
During the second episode of the season, Big Brother star Will Kirby — a.k.a. Dr. Will — joins the cast, much to Parvati’s dismay.
“I don’t really know that much about Dr. Will. I only know what I saw of him on Traitors when he guest hosted the challenge in the creepy cabin. So I’m like, ‘Oh, he’s an odd man.’ And also I know he’s a Big Brother legend. That’s all I knew about him,” she told Us. “And I was like, ‘OK, well he’s another big threat coming into the game, so we can play together.’ But then when he showed up in a tux and then spouted off all of these statistics about me, I was like, ‘He’s a stalker who makes weird fashion choices. This [is] not my guy.’ And then it just got worse from there.”
Fans saw Dr. Will blow up Parvati’s plans not to openly discuss her Survivor past in group settings on the show.
“It’s a classic dynamic of a pathological narcissist and someone who has, you know, really learned how to assert myself around those types of people and kind of put boundaries up and let them know, like, ‘Your game that you’re playing doesn’t work for me, so this has to stop,’” she continued. “There is definitely gonna be a power struggle that occurs between Will and I. He doubles down and digs his heels in and so do I.”
When asked whether the overlapping Survivor and Big Brother fandoms could be torn about who to root for, Parvati said, “Will hasn’t been on Big Brother in 20 years, so I feel like I had the recency bias of the fans. Hopefully the fans have a little bit more warmth and support for me. I’m gonna need it ’cause he [is] crazy! I can be crazy too, but like … he’s really crazy, outta his mind.”
On Sydnee:
Parvati called Sydnee — who was eliminated in the second episode — a “hot mess express.”
“She was having a time,” Parvati said of how quickly the contestant imploded. “And I think Sydnee thought she was really running the show. The level of it felt pretty delusional. It was like, what’s reality and what’s inside Sydnee’s mind of reality don’t match up. When I saw her at the airport, she had the Art of Seduction — that book in her bag. And I was like, ‘I got your number, girl.’ I read that book. So I thought she was gonna come in with some moves and then when I saw how she was operating, I was like, ‘Oh, she needs to keep reading.’”
On David:
Parvati is working with David Genat, known as the Golden God of Survivor Australia.
“Nobody knows who David is. Will doesn’t know who David is. I’m the only person who knows who David is,” she explained. “Will’s trying to figure him out. Will would, like, stop me on the path and be like, ‘I think that David is the Boston Rob of Survivor Australia.’ And I was like, ‘Will, you are out of your mind. What makes you think that? He sucks in challenges, he is kind of a dumb dumb.’ I just kept playing that up and Will was like, ‘Oh.’ But Will and David, there’s also gonna be a power struggle with those two. I think David respects Will’s style because David is a performer — a Survivor competitor-slash-performer. He knows how to play the role of ham it up, be a villain and play into what the audience wants to see. Will takes that to the extreme. So Dave’s like, ‘God, he’s like a method actor.’ And I was like, ‘No, he’s not. He’s just insane!’”
On Dickson:
Dickson was referring to Parvati as “mom” on the show, but she won’t be afraid to betray him if she has to.
“I’ll be Dickson’s mom. There’s something about him. When we were sitting on that swing and he was telling us the story about how his parents essentially gave him up for adoption when he was three months old and he grew up with this older white couple as his mom and dad, I’m like, ‘Oh man, alright, I’ll be your mom. Take you under my wing,’” she said. “But I know he’s got ice in his veins because the stuff he was saying when Luke went home that first episode! Luke loved Dickson. Luke was giving Dickson his jewelry, like, his watch. ‘Protect Dickson at all cost,’ is what he said to me. And I was like, ‘Are you sure?’ Because Dickson was like, ‘I don’t want that watch,’ like, tossed it in his bag. He’s not feeling the same kind of warmth toward other people as they’re feeling toward him. People felt very protective of him. But I knew that that was, like, a strategic alliance. If he’s gotta go, he’s gotta go.”
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On the living conditions:
After several seasons of Survivor, Parvati has nothing but praise for her time on the undisclosed Deal or No Deal Island set.
“Girl, put me on an island any day of my life. I love an exotic, beautiful beach. Deal or No Deal Island was a glamping experience that I would’ve paid for,” she said. “I mean, minus, like, sleeping next to Rock who snored or Dickson who was always hacking and coughing in his sleep, sometimes talking in his sleep. I was like, ‘Oh, I could do without these guys.’ But the glamp experience was so nice. And then the pavilion that they had us in the dock, the hammocks, the swing — loved it there. The castle in Scotland is nice, but it’s cold — and it’s probably haunted by the ghosts of the first murdered.”
“Everyone was really happy to be there, but the bugs freaked people out and the snakes,” she continued. “There were a lot of snakes, [but] I don’t mind snakes. Some people really do — wrap me up in a Cobra.”
On the challenges:
“The challenges are really intense and complex,” she said. “And the challenges change every single time, so it’s not the same. You can’t rely on, ‘Oh, there’s gonna be two people safe, everyone else is in the bottom.’ They’ve changed it. It’s really dynamic. It’s really fluid. So when I was getting ready mentally for the challenges [every day] from camp, I [didn’t] know what to expect. I just need to be in the most grounded, confident, peaceful, calm, eyes open, present state to be able to absorb all the information that’s happening at lightning speed and then be able to win these challenges. So it just required a different level of operation for me because it’s so non-linear.”
On Temple:
Parvati told Us that you have 20-30 minutes after a challenge to shower, do your hair, put makeup on, get dressed — and strategize for Temple, where they play Deal or No Deal.
“[That’s the time to] convince these new reality contestants who’ve never played a reality game to do what you want them to do,” she said. “And they’re all running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Then I started to think about Temple as tribal council, like, this is my forum. If I wanna influence anyone and I don’t have power, per se, of who goes up to play, I could say something and maybe get people’s heads [or the] wheels turning in their heads.”
Parvati noted that the “strategy is so layered” in “such a different way to any game I’ve ever played” as contestants can only control so much while actually playing Deal or No Deal. “Unless you have psychic site, which someone on this cast might have,” she teased to Us.
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