Parvati Shallow Wins 'Survivor'

After 39 days of outwitting, outplaying and outlasting the competition, 25-year-old boxer and charity organizer PARVATI SHALLOW was named the winner of CBS' hit reality series, "Survivor: Fans Vs. Favorites."

The "Survivor: Cook Islands" alum and self-described "flirt" relied on her social skills to win the game, building the "black widow brigade," a coalition of five women who methodically vanquished their opponents in a series of blindsides.

After a three-hour season finale that involved first NATALIE, and then CIRIE being voted out at consecutive tribal councils, it was down to only Parvati and AMANDA, after beginning the season with ten favorites from previous seasons and ten fans of the show.

Going to the final tribal council, some members of the jury had tough words for the final two. ELIZA wondered if Parvati was just "mean" and said that Amanda's superficiality made her "want to kill [herself]." ALEXIS mocked Amanda's waterworks at the previous tribal council, while NATALIE said Amanda had a "glazed over look on [her] face" all the time, asking her, "Was it your strategy to play the zombied pretty girl, pageant queen cliché?" OZZY, for his part, asked his friend Parvati, who had betrayed him in participating in his ouster, "How can you say that you're a role model when you're willing to discard a friendship like that?"

But it wasn't all criticism -- Ozzy expressed his happiness over her newfound romance with Amanda, telling her, "I honestly feel like I started to fall in love with you. You're just an amazing girl and I really want everyone to know that. I'm glad that I didn't win '[Survivor]: Cook Islands' so that I could be here and could have met you."

ERIK, who was blindsided on Thursday's episode, had harsh words for Amanda, saying to her, "Five to six days ago I would have been 100 percent voting for Amanda in this situation -- I thought of you as a big sister or a cousin. I'm looking at you with a lot of questions. I felt totally burned, totally thrown under the bus." But later, as he cast his vote for the beauty pageant queen, he proved there were no hard feelings, saying, "I'm willing to forgive and forget if you're willing to forgive and forget. You played a good game."

In the end, after the votes were cast and then flow to New York, it was Parvati who was named the big winner of the million dollar prize. Upon receiving the life-changing news, she replied, "I couldn't have done it without the girls that I had."

In a surprise twist, fan favorite JAMES was voted the $100,000 Sprint Player of the Season for the second time consecutively; he also won that award for the previous season of the show, "Survivor: China." Jeff also announced the big news that the next season of "Survivor" will take place in Gabon, Africa.

Published 5/12/08 by