When the Reality Television Hall of Fame is built, there’s one competition show legend who will most certainly find herself inducted: Parvati Shallow. Known as the Black Widow, thanks to her exceptional gameplay on multiple seasons of Survivor, the legend brought her prowess to the Banker’s Private Island to compete on the second season of Deal or No Deal Island. Following in the footsteps of Boston Rob Mariano on Season 1, Parvati believed she was the only reality star out there. But she was wrong. Did it affect her game?
With years of reality competition experience, Parvati brought it to DONDI, where she came just shy of the final excursion. After weeks of being safe and free from elimination, it was one bad deal with the banker that knocked her out of the game. Having added Deal or No Deal Island to her extensive resume, which also includes The Traitors, Parvati proved that no one can keep her down. Noting how this game was different, she said, “I looked at this game as this isn’t a game that you can control. This is a game that’s more based on being really present and accepting whatever is happening in the moment and working with the things that happen in the moment as they come.”
Parvati Brought a Different Strategy to ‘Deal Or No Deal Island’

COLLIDER:  You can never crush the Black Widow. It’s Parvati. How are you doing?
PARVATI SHALLOW: I’m great. How are you?
COLLIDER: I’m doing great. It is an honor speaking to you. I’m a big, big fan. So it’s been a pleasure watching you on this show. So, let’s start simple. If you could describe your experience in three words, what would they be?
PARVATI: Hmm. I would say luxury, silly, and sexy.
COLLIDER: Oh, I love that. You’ve done a lot of reality TV. What inspired you to go out on this adventure for Deal or No Deal Island?
PARVATI: I was talked into it by Sharon Vuong at NBC. She talked me into Traitors. She talked me into DONDI. I also watched Rob play, and I was like, “Oh, that looks pretty fun.” The thing about DONDI is it’s more of a fun game than a suffer fest. So I was like, yeah, I could play a fun game and potentially make millions of dollars. Sign me up.
COLLIDER: Did you have a particular strategy in mind when you first stepped foot out there?
PARVATI: Yes. I looked at this game as this isn’t a game that you can control. This is a game that’s more based on being really present and accepting whatever is happening in the moment and working with the things that happen in the moment as they come. The challenges weigh so much in this game. The challenges are the most important thing, I think, in DONDI, even more so than Traitors or even Survivor, because multiple people can be safe, multiple people can be unsafe. Some people are playing the banker, and it’s like, “Oh gosh, who’s going to do what?” I knew I just needed to every time win safety, and that was the only way that I would be okay no matter what. So, I really surrendered to what was happening in the moment because the challenges would change every single time, too. I couldn’t wrap my head around preparing or planning ahead of time before a challenge. So it was all based on surrender and use all of my experience game playing for the past 20 years and my life experience and my relationship-building experience. An my yogic mindset of presence and attunement, too. there was something really cool happening on the Banker’s Island where it felt very spiritual. And it felt like I could connect with something beyond what I could see. And that was supporting me, especially in the challenges and inside the relationship building that I was working on. So that was very different to any game I’ve played.
Parvati Shallow Discusses Her Expert Social Game

COLLIDER: Nine straight weeks of safety. In any other game, you probably would be voted out because you’re Parvati. Do you think that the structure of this game also helped your ability to stay safe?
PARVATI: Yeah, because there were multiple paths to safety. It wasn’t just one direct path of who’s the strongest, who’s the fastest, who can grit through the most pain. Every challenge offered a different path to safety. My favorite one was the ring challenge. Before the ring challenge, I looked across the jungle path that we were on, and I saw the cases and I saw the ones that were the question mark mystery, like the two that were the risky ones. And I was like, “I bet it’s that one on the right. That was the safe one.” And I was like, I’m just going to take a risk in this challenge because the other ones I got safety because I was always working with Phillip [Soloman]. At this point, I wasn’t working with Phillip anymore. And I was like, okay, I’m kind of on my own, but I had David [Genet], I had CK, I had Dickson [Wong]. So I was like, okay, if either of them are at the bottom, I’m probably okay. So I’m just thinking on multiple different levels of how can I be safe? I can either be safe from winning, or I can be safe from somebody who’s in my alliance or working with me plays the Banker. And so that was kind of where my head was at every single challenge.
COLLIDER: What is the secret to having one of the best social games across any reality franchise?
PARVATI: I write about it in my book. I have a book out for pre-order right now called Nice Girls Don’t Win.
COLLIDER: Congratulations.
PARVATI: Thank you! It’ll be published in July. I go into detail in the book about my origin story. How I became the Black Widow and became this kind of winning game player strategist, and stepped away from that for a long time. But then I’ve been asked to return. So coming back for Traitors, coming back for DONDI, Australian Survivor Versus the World, that’ll come out in late July. There are many things that happened in my life to give me this kind of social skillset that I have and the strategic mind that I have. But I will say, I feel very blessed and fortunate to have found reality television competition. And now I’m moving into more producing, creating, developing my own content, shows, workshops. I’m teaching a class called “How Villains Are Made.” We’re bringing it back.
COLLIDER: I love that.
PARVATI: With my friend Kallie [Klug]. We’re actually starting it in a week. So if you want to learn how to develop this social skill set, how to empower yourself, assert yourself, lead your life with your own kind of badass-tery, I teach that course with Kallie, so you can sign up for it.
Parvati Breaks Down Decision To Play the Banker

COLLIDER: So David. Had the rest of the cast known he was a Survivor winner, do you think it would have helped or hurt your game?
PARVATI: I think it would have, I don’t think it would have impacted my game that much. I think it would have hurt because I think if people knew that he was who he was, he wouldn’t have been able to make the relationships that he made that were kind of keeping people feeling safe with him. So I just think people would have been gunning for both of us, and that would have made it harder for us to maneuver around the game. I trusted him. I was like, “He’s good.” Anytime I saw him talking to Philip or talking to Alexis [Lete] or La Shell [Wooten], I was like, “He’s got my back.” And that’s very rare to have in any of these kind of games, to have someone who you can trust 100%. I only had it with Amanda [Kimmel] and Cirie [Fields] in Micronesia and a very few number of times beyond that. I didn’t even have it with Russell [Hantz] in Heroes vs Villains, even though he was my closest ally. So it’s so rare. And when you have that, oh my God, it’s like this treasure. Oh, it makes it so much easier to navigate these worlds because they’re so intense and so full of distrust that it’s just this little layer of safety where you can just calm your body down for a moment and think in a more expansive, strategic way. If you feel like you have a safety net or someone you can trust who’s working on your behalf when you’re not around. So I was grateful for that and that’s why I wasn’t going to blow his cover. Because I was like, ‘I need him to be able to maneuver. Work for me and then feed me information later.”
COLLIDER: So you decided you wanted to play the Banker. Do you stand by the decision?
PARVATI: Yeah. I mean, I think it would have been 50-50 either way. So it’s kind of, it’s tricky. It’s not like you can just get the numbers and vote someone out. If it had been a numbers game, I think I could have gotten the numbers, and we would have voted Lete or Phillip. Yeah, we would have voted Lete if I had the numbers, if it was like that. But because it’s the banker, I didn’t know what CK was going to do. I had been working very closely with CK. I’d been “very mad at her” after she told me she was going to take Lete to the end. I was like, “oh, you’re going to compete with Lete in a challenge.” So I think I was really kind of laying it on thick with the like, “I’m mad at you. You’re going to have to do something to redeem yourself” kind of thing. I don’t know if it would have been enough to get her to keep me in the game had she won against the banker. She says yes, in her revisionist history, since we’re friends outside the game. She’s like, “I would have looked at your blue eyes, and I wouldn’t have been able to take you out.” And I was like, “I don’t know about that. CK.” She was gaming hard.
COLLIDER: She sure was.
PARVATI: I give her a lot of credit for that. I thought she was great out there. She made it really fun to play.
COLLIDER: What was really exciting about this final excursion was this jury element where your fate kind of relied on the people who were eliminated from the game. If you had beaten the Banker, do you think the eliminated players would have assisted you to get to the top?
PARVATI: I don’t think so because they were so concerned with me having won a million dollars on television before. And I underestimated that I didn’t think that that was going to be such a big deal, but it was with this group of people. They thought that like, “Oh she’s already rich. She already won a million dollars on tv. We don’t want anyone who’s won before to win again,” because when I got to the hotel after I lost to the Banker, people were talking and they were saying they’d already Googled David. They knew who he was. And they were like, “Oh, he’s won Australian Survivor. He’s rich too. He won all this money on TV. We don’t want to let him win again.” So I was like, “Oh, that would happen to me.”
COLLIDER: When we finally get a Reality Television Hall of Fame, and they erect a statue of you outside of it, do you want it to be in gold, bronze, marble? What’s it going to be?
PARVATI: Diamonds. Diamonds, darling.
COLLIDER: What does it mean to you being a bonafide legend of reality television?
PARVATI: It’s so funny. I never could have planned this in my life. I’m just an adventure seeker. And I like challenges. I like overcoming challenges. I like learning new things. I love having fun and playing games. I think that’s what makes life really interesting. I just learned I’m an Enneagram Seven for my podcast. I have a podcast also, Nice Girls Don’t Win. It’s very fun, and I’m doing it with my friend, Amy Bean, who was a producer on Deal or No Deal Island. We interviewed this Enneagram expert, and she’s like, “Number sevens are the enthusiasts, and they are adventurous, and they love, they’re afraid of boredom and feeling trapped.” And I’m like, ‘Hmm, that sounds, I relate.” I think this is in my blood. It’s in my nature. It’s woven into my personality to play these games, to have these kinds of experiences and how lucky am I to have found this world to play in?

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Parvati Discusses ‘The Traitors’ and ‘Survivor’

Image via Peacock

COLLIDER: We got to see you return to The Traitors in fabulous fashion with Kate Chastain. What was it like returning to Scotland, and what did you think of season three?
PARVATI: I loved season three of The Traitors. Gabby Windey is my spirit animal. She’s so funny. She should be a very famous stand-up comedian. I find her so entertaining. Carolyn [Wiger] was incredible. Rob was amazing at the round table. Dylan [Efron] was so cute. I loved Bob the Drag Queen. There were some iconic characters who really made that season so fun to watch. Returning to Traitors was epic. I didn’t know what I was getting myself into when I said yes, but when they showed me my outfit, I was like, “Oh my God, I am so happy.” And to just sit there and talk sh- with Kate Chastain for the challenge. I was like, “This is all we have to do? We’d just be fed grapes by Fergus and drink wine and talk shit? We don’t have to engage with bugs or worms.” Sounds great, I’ll come back anytime. Also, adore Alan [Cumming]. Anytime Alan invites me to the castle, I’m going to say yes.
COLLIDER: Survivor is about to hit season 50. What is it about this show that has such longevity?
PARVATI: I think people are drawn to this specific kind of adventure. I think it’s mythic. And there’s something that’s so compelling to think about being stranded on an island. And viewers always imagine what they would do if that happened to them. So it is like you can play it as a viewer. You feel like you can, their are the casting is so relatable. There’s someone that you can hook into and be like, “I’m kind of like that one.” So it’s sort of like football. It’s like American football. That will never go away because it’s larger than life. It’s this mythic arena, coliseum, gladiator-style adventure, but with real people.
COLLIDER: My final question, to tie it all together. We need a legacy from Survivor on Deal or No Deal Island. Who should play next?
PARVATI: Cirie.
COLLIDER: I’m here for it.
PARVATI: Yeah!
COLLIDER: Let’s get her that win.
PARVATI: Get Cirie on the island. I think she would be great. She has this way about her that I think that she would do better than me where people would be less threatened by her and like, “Oh, she hasn’t won a million dollars on television yet.” So, that wouldn’t be an issue for the people that she’s with.
COLLIDER: Well, congratulations. I can’t wait for the book. Congratulations on the podcast. It is truly an honor speaking to you.
PARVATI: Thank you! You too. Thanks, Michael.

Deal or No Deal Island

Release Date

January 13, 2024

Showrunner

Matt Kunitz

Directors

Joe Guidry

Franchise(s)

Deal or No Deal