Reality TV legend Parvati Shallow, known for her numerous appearances across a slew of reality competition series including “Deal or No Deal Island,” “The Traitors” and, most notably, “Survivor,” is hard at work training the next generation of “Survivor” superstars.
Currently competing on “Survivor: Australia vs. the World,” the former series champion has been vocal in recent months, not only about her upbringing in a “cult-like” Florida commune and her “cutthroat” gameplay, but also about her queerness and her family, including her seven-year-old daughter, Ama.
Parvati Says Her ‘Heart Exploded’ After Becoming a Mother
Born in 2018, Parvati welcomed her daughter during her marriage to fellow “Survivor” alum John Fincher. Though the couple have since gone their seperate ways, Shallow previously revealed that her “heart exploded” when she became a mother.
When Ama was just 10 months old, Parvati left home to compete on “Survivor: Winners at War,” later opening up about how she navigated playing the ultimate game of survival while her child was half a world away.
Thankfully for Shallow, she didn’t have to wait long to see her daughter, as “Survivor” host Jeff Probst invited all the contestants’ families to Fiji to celebrate the all-winners season.
CBS/Getty“I have changed a lot from 10 years ago, and being a mom has been the biggest transformation of my life,” said Shallow in a 2020 interview with Entertainment Tonight. “Even before the game started, when we were in pregame and doing press, if someone asked me about my baby, I would break out into tears.”
Parvati has since been open about the ups and downs of motherhood, sharing on Instagram, “Being a mom is the privilege of my life. I LOVE being a mom. It’s also the hardest I’ve ever worked in every way. It’s emotionally, physically, & mentally exhausting.”
“When I got divorced, I knew I would have to create a very different kind of family than I had imagined,” added the “Survivor: Micronesia” champ after her split from Fincher in 2021. “I didn’t know what that would look like, but I just started to build it one brilliant, beautiful, kind, funny person at time. Now, I am the luckiest person in the world to have these incredibly loving supportive people in my big happy growing family.”
The most recent addition to Parvati and Ama’s chosen family comes in the form of comedia Mae Martin, who Shallow started dating in March of 2023, shortly after coming out publicly as a queer woman.
Parvati Says Her Daughter is Already ‘In Training’ To Be the Next ‘Survivor’ Champ
Now, just weeks after Ama celebrated her seventh birthday, Parvati, 42, revealed that her daughter is well aware of her reality TV history, and has since expressed aspirations of her to be a competitor in the future.
“She’s watched some of my challenges from ‘Survivor,’ and she watched the poisoning episode [of Peacock’s ‘The Traitors’] with Ekin-Su,” said Parvati in an interview with People. “She was like ‘Wait a minute. You’re the bad guy? You’re killing people?’ She was horrified.”
Despite assuring her daughter that her performance on “The Traitors” was all for show, and that she didn’t actually hurt anyone, Ama responded in turn: “Oh, you’re kind of bad, but I’m gonna be good.”
Shallow similarly revealed that Ama knew the title of her recently released memoir off by heart. “She knows the name of my book is ‘Nice Girls Don’t Win,’ and she’s like, ‘Mom, that’s not true – nice girls do win!’ And I’m like, ‘You’ll get it later…it’s too soon for you to understand the nuance of what that means.”
Ever the feminist, Parvati is perhaps best remembered for founding the “Black Widow Brigade” alliance on her winning season, an all-female team-up that utilized flirtatious practices to eliminate their male competitors one-by-one. While Ama might not yet understand the gravity of her mother’s game-changing playbook, Parvati added that her daughter is already interested in taking over her mother’s mantle one day.
“[Ama] is definitely in training,” Shallow reported. “She’s fierce, she is very determined. She’s very competitive, she hates losing. If it’s a card game, she will cheat to win. So I’m like, ‘Hmm, do we have a future ‘Survivor’ winner in the fam?’ Probably, if these games keep going. Which, why would they stop? People are obsessed. Yeah, she’ll be doing it.”
Despite her continued appearances on game shows around the world, and her fledgling relationship with Martin, Parvati insists that raising her daughter remains her “No. 1 priority.”
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Parvati Shallow Reveals Her Daughter is ‘In Training’ to Become the Next ‘Survivor’ Champion: ‘She’s Fierce’