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‘Survivor’ host Jeff Probst spends his downtime watching real-life police interrogation videos

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Each Wednesday, millions of people wind down by watching a group of castaways try to outwit, outplay, and outlast each other on CBS’s “Survivor.” But when “Survivor” host Jeff Probst has free time of his own, he’s watching a different kind of unscripted entertainment.

“If I have 15 minutes, my go-to is going to be a police interrogation, almost always,” Probst told me of his daily routine while filming the show’s landmark fiftieth season.

The host said he’ll watch real interrogation videos on YouTube because he loves studying how detectives work.

“You are watching a human walk into a room wondering, how much do these detectives know? What they don’t know is in most cases, the detective knows a lot more than you think, but they want to see what you’re willing to share,” Probst explained.

“Then you watch a great detective or a team of detectives slowly build this box, and the box gets smaller and smaller and the guilty person starts to realize, ‘I’m never going home. They know what I did,'” Probst continued.

“I love those subtle shifts in power dynamics — watching how people respond, what tells they have, and how they give away their truth.”


Survivor 50 castaways sit on a bench in front of lit torches at Tribal Council.

“Survivor 50” castaways at Tribal Council.

Robert Voets/CBS



After spending 26 years and counting holding court at Tribal Council, Probst has plenty of experience being the interrogator.

Probst said his coworkers can tell when he’s getting in “the zone,” preparing to draw conflict and moving anecdotes out of the castaways at Tribal Council.

“All I’m really thinking about is just reminding myself, ‘These 13 people are still in the game. They voted out seven people; they’re tired, they’re hungry,'” he told Business Insider of his mindset.

Being fully present allows Probst to think on his feet while engaging with the castaways.

“I actively choose to be in the moment,” Probst said, launching into an example.

“I see that you’re sad. I could tell when you walked in, your body language, you’re hunched over. The question is, am I going to bring it up? Are you going to bring it up? Is somebody else going to bring it up? Are we going to talk about it or not? I don’t know. Let’s find out!”




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The woman who says she’s the real-life version of Martha on ‘Baby Reindeer’ just sued Netflix for $170 million

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Fiona Harvey, the woman who says she’s the real version of the semi-fictionalized stalker on Netflix hit “Baby Reindeer,” is suing the streaming giant.

Harvey, a 58-year-old Scot, filed a lawsuit on Thursday in California, seeking more than $170 million and a jury trial. She’s suing over defamation and intentional affliction of emotional distress, among other points.

She did not sue creator and star Richard Gadd, who plays a fictional version of himself called Donny Dunn. “Baby Reindeer” is based on his experiences with being stalked by a woman earlier in his career, when he was trying to make it as a comedian.

In the complaint, Harvey’s lawyers said the show was a “brutal lie” that brought her unwanted attention, including death threats.

“Netflix and Gadd destroyed her reputation, her character and her life,” the attorneys wrote.

On- and off-screen, Netflix has repeatedly said “Baby Reindeer” is a true story.

“We intend to defend this matter vigorously and to stand by Richard Gadd’s right to tell his story,” a Netflix spokesperson told Business Insider.

The company has not yet filed a response to the lawsuit.

The real Martha Scott

As the show picked up viewers, armchair sleuths raced to find the “real” stalker, named Martha Scott in the show, and the man who Gadd said abused him.

In late April, Gadd asked fans not to speculate about who the real people were behind the show’s characters. He told GQ he disguised the stalker’s identity in the show.

“What’s been borrowed is an emotional truth, not a fact-by-fact profile of someone,” Gadd said.

In the lawsuit, Harvey said she was identified days after the show’s April debut. Her attorneys said people found a public 2014 tweet she sent to Gadd that used a phrase repeated in the show.

Harvey’s court filing outlined similarities between the stalker character and herself: a Scottish woman about 20 years older than Gadd living in London, with similar appearance and speaking patterns. Both the character and Harvey were accused of stalking a lawyer. It’s unclear if that reference is to an old colleague of Harvey’s, who told BI on Thursday that Harvey harassed her from 1997 to 2002.

But unlike the fictional Martha Scott, Harvey said she is not a convicted stalker, nor has she pled guilty to any crime. Her complaint said Netflix did not check any facts central to the show, including that the stalker sexually assaulted Gadd. She said she did not have any sexual encounters with the comedian.

In an interview with Piers Morgan in early May, Harvey said that while she may have emailed Gadd, it was nowhere near the 40,000 messages he said the stalker sent him. She denied harassing Gadd and said she knew him from when she was bartending in London.


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