Why Cirie Fields On 'Big Brother' Is the Reason for the Season
As fellow 'Survivor' legend Parvati Shallow puts it, “If Cirie goes to the end on 'Big Brother,' she’ll win.”
The best to never win the game — that’s a title that has been bestowed upon Cirie Fields after her four attempts at clinching the title of Sole Survivor on the once ubiquitous, now-cult series Survivor. Now, in a twist that nobody — except for a bunch of folks on Twitter — saw coming, she’s making the leap from one reality competition juggernaut to another, competing on the current season of Big Brother alongside her son, Jared Fields.
You’d think with a “best to never win” title, she’d have become a reality television fixture, but besides an appearance on The Price Is Right, Fields’s only television foray was on the islands of Panama, Palau, Samoa and Fiji — until now. After a five-year absence from our screens, Fields first made a ripple during her return to television last summer competing on an episode of the difficult-to-get-through series Snake in the Grass. She competed alongside her former Heroes vs. Villains tribemate, Stephenie LaGrossa Kendrick, and ended up winning one-third of the $100K prize. It wasn’t enough, but we accepted our good fortune.
And then came the embarrassment of riches December 2022 announcement that Fields would be competing on the US version of the popular Dutch series The Traitors alongside a slew of other reality alumni, including The Bachelor’s Arie Luyendyk Jr. and Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’s Brandi Glanville. Fields dominated the competition, walking away as the sole winner in possession of the title and a $250,000 cash prize. The “best to never win” was suddenly two-for-two on her return to the reality genre.
Then, confirming the Cirie-aissance wasn’t a passing moment, came the reveal at the end of the Big Brother S25 premiere that Fields would be joining the houseguests as the 17th contestant on the show, becoming the first former Survivor castaway to compete on Big Brother.
“I know that face! That’s Cirie from Survivor,” fellow Big Brother contestant Felicia revealed in the diary room. “I’m a huge fan of Survivor, and seeing Cirie in the house is crazy,” another contestant, Reilly, disclosed in her diary room. Despite her legend status, only two other contestants — her son Jared, as well as Cory, whose brother Zach competed on Survivor 42 — recognized her.
So what makes Fields so good at the game? Cirie has played a total of 121 days of Survivor across four seasons, bested only by Rob Mariano (152 days), Parvati Shallow (149) and Ozzy Lusth (128). She’s the first woman and one of only seven players to play the game four times (Mariano has played five). She’s also recognized for the distinction of going out of the game in a different way each time; Panama: fire making. Micronesia: surprise final two. Heroes vs. Villains: hidden immunity idol. Game Changers: Advantagegeddon.
But why is Fields considered such a good strategist and such a great TV presence? “She is perhaps the only contestant who can straddle the line of being both an avatar for the audience and being one of the greatest socially strategic players to ever appear on competition reality TV,” says my Drop Your Buffs co-host Sean Ross.
Every memorable player on Survivor has a story; the legendary ones have arcs. We first meet Cirie as a 35-year-old nurse who immediately endears herself to the audience by declaring, with her signature smile-and-a-laugh, that she’s on the wrong team. See, Cirie had the misfortune of being assigned to the “older woman tribe,” all of whom (except her) are not long for the game. That seems like it might also be Cirie’s fate when she declares she’s scared of leaves, an unavoidable staple of island life, in Episode 1 of her original season. “Did anyone tell her what show she was going on?” her fellow tribemate Tina asked in a confessional. With her back against the wall after her tribe loses the first immunity competition, Cirie grabs the machete and starts deskinning a fish as a way to show her tribe that she’s valuable. It works! At Tribal, Cirie delivers a line that will remain a part of her brand forever: “For the people at home that are like me, on the couch: Stay on the couch.” Cirie scrapes by during some of the early votes, eventually making strong bonds that take her all the way to the final four.
She returned four seasons later on what is considered one of the best seasons of the show: Micronesia – Fans vs. Favorites. It’s here that she links up with fellow legendary alums Parvati Shallow and Amanda Kimmel to commandeer their way to the final three. Though the season was likely designed to have a final three, which theoretically could have resulted in Cirie securing the win, three people going home early is believed to have caused producers to scramble to elongate the season, and thus a final immunity challenge knocked Cirie out prematurely. Whereas some players come back and give you more of the same (Tony) or torpedo their legacy (JT), Cirie evolved during her second go, proving she could be as manipulative as she was charming and a compelling narrator (a quality she’s already bringing to this season of Big Brother).
“Cirie has this magical blend of authority plus real maternal care,” explains Micronesia winner Parvati Shallow. “She genuinely cares about people even while she’s competing with them. She makes people want to be liked by her, and they are so taken by the feeling of being under her wing that they miss out on her strategy and killer instinct.”
Cirie’s third go at the game on Heroes vs. Villains, four seasons later, was short-lived. She was blind-sided on Day 11 when a minority alliance within her tribe deployed an immunity idol, voiding the majority of the votes and making Cirie collateral damage.
She returned once again, 14 seasons later, to compete on an all-stars season of the show titled Game Changers, announcing herself as a “bonafide ex-couch potato” in Episode 1. Things seemed precarious when she was once again placed on a tribe with Ozzy, whose demise she’d helped orchestrate during Micronesia. “I think it’s good to say you can put the past aside, but I knew it was a problem when I saw Ozzy on the same tribe as me. What the hell!”
According to Ozzy, his biggest regret from his four times playing is not going all-in with Cirie. “She’s blessed with razor sharp wit, a shining personality and more layers than those rainbow pastries that are famous on TikTok,” Ozzy declares. “You’d be hard pressed to find a competitor with more social awareness than Cirie. She can sense a lie better than Peter at the pearly gates and knows how to tell just enough truth to get what she wants. A wellspring of one-liners and always pure entertainment, Cirie brings the real to reality TV.”
Her most memorable moment from Game Changers, and perhaps the moment most burned into fans’ brains, occurred during an immunity challenge where Cirie, out of gas, was unable to complete the challenge. “Cirie, you are the woman who over a decade ago got up off the couch to come try this game, Survivor,” host Jeff Probst told her. “These are the moments that you were looking for. This challenge is over, but we will stay here with you if you want to try and conquer this.” With the help of her castmates, she was able to make it across the balance beam and finish the challenge in what Probst called, in the moment, “one of the most powerful moments on Survivor.” In a bizarre and maddening twist during that same episode, Cirie was the only castaway able to receive votes due to a number of advantages that had been doled out throughout the season.
“You’ve played it four times now,” Probst said to her moments before her torch was snuffed. “You famously got up off the couch to see what you were made of. If this is the end of your Survivor run, what is the story?”
“This has been one of the most grand experiences of my life,” she responded. “It changed me. I would have never done any of this stuff if I didn’t get off that couch 11 years ago. I would have never met so many different people. I would have never had so many amazing experiences. So it’s bittersweet. However, I’m going out in grand style. It’s never happened before, and it just makes this experience that much more special for me.” The castaways clapped, and in a Survivor first, they even gave her a standing ovation as she headed out.
Was that the end of Cirie’s Survivor story? Who’s to say just yet. What we do know is this: Her casting on the show gives us a rare glimpse into how she strategizes in real-time, without any manipulation from editors, and showcased the exactness of how she plays the game (a different game from Big Brother, of course, but one with many similarities). “And for us dreamers,” adds Ross (Sean Ross, not Evan Ross), “it also feels like the warm-up for Cirie’s inevitable return to Survivor.”
Parvati summed it up best: “If Cirie goes to the end on Big Brother, she’ll win.”