Shirin Oskooi Took Months To Recover After Being Bullied On Survivor

Summary

• Shirin Oskooi believes Survivor needs players with big personalities to improve the show's entertainment value.
• Shirin underwent a year-long mental health recovery after her Survivor seasons due to negative experiences.
• Survivor fans and Shirin agree that the show needs to cast risk-takers and more dynamic players for better gameplay.

When Survivor fans rank every season ever, they rarely agree on how exactly to list them. However, once a new fan has moved on from figuring out which seasons to watch first, they will typically know what can ruin a season.

On top of hating it when players are medically evacuated, Survivor fans can't stand it when a player like Shirin Oskooi gets bullied on the show. Despite being treated terribly, Shirin still loves the show and agrees with fans of Jeff Probst's show who think Survivor needs to cast players with big personalities.

Survivor's Shirin Oskooi Believes The Show Needs More Players With Big Personalities

In 2015, Survivor fans got to watch Shirin Oskooi play the game twice. After that, Shirin mostly disappeared from the Survivor ecosystem, so there was no way to know how she felt about what was going on with the show.

At least, that was the case until Entertainment Weekly interviewed Shirin in 2020. During her lengthy conversation with the outlet, Shirin revealed that she was still a big Survivor fan who continued to watch the show.

Since Shirin was still a viewer, EW asked her how she thought the show should be improved. Without missing a beat, Shirin called out Survivor's casting department because she felt the show needed to rethink who was allowed to play the game.

Over the last several seasons, there haven't been many Survivor players who seem like they will become legends of the show. In fact, it could be argued that Dee Valladares, Yam Yam Arocho, Carolyn Wiger are the only Survivor players from the new era who have big personalities.

How successful was Shirin Oskooi during Survivor?

At the very least, it was clear in 2020 that Shirin felt that Survivor was casting too many boring players. As Shirin explained to EW, she wanted the show's casting department to find players who would be more interesting to watch.

"Survivor needs more risk-takers and unpredictability."

From there, Shirin went on to explain the kind of players she wanted Survivor's casting department to find.

"Branch out from the same old archetypes and cast some fresh takes. Get daring with it: make them multi-dimensional."

Of course, saying that Survivor's casting department needed to find more interesting players is easy. Actually, coming up with a plan to accomplish that is more difficult. However, Shirin brought up how another show is cast as an example of the kind of thing that Survivor should do.

"The Korean game show The Genius only cast people with a proven track record of success at something, regardless of what that 'something' was, resulting in more novel strategies and, pound for pound, better game play."

Unfortunately, there is no doubt that Shirin's Survivor tenure wasn't easy for her. With that in mind, it is amazing that she would want Survivor to cast more players with big personalities. After all, Shirin revealed that she needed months to recover from how someone with a big personality treated her.

Shirin Oskooi Revealed It Took Her Months To Recover From How Cruelly She Was Treated During Survivor: Worlds Apart

During Shirin Oskooi's aforementioned Entertainment Weekly interview, she was asked about what happened after she played Survivor the second time. In response, Shirin revealed that she underwent a recovery process from what she went through.

When Shirin played her two seasons of Survivor, she played back-to-back. That meant that, aside from a brief period in between filming the two seasons, Shirin spent months away from home.

With that in mind, it makes sense that EW asked Shirin what it was like for her after she finally got home to stay. As Shirin explained to the outlet, she spent roughly a year working on her mental health to become the person she was before she first played Survivor.

"I spent a lot of time focusing on my mental health after my second season in order to heal from the negativity I encountered on my first season. It took about a year to become an exuberant weirdo again."

During the finale of Survivor: Worlds Apart, Will Sims II claimed that he'd repeatedly apologized to Shirin Oskooi for what he said to her. However, Shirin denied he ever apologized to her before the reunion. In a post-reunion interview, Will continued to maintain he apologized to Shirin, while also making it clear he still didn't like her.

For anyone who doesn't remember, Will Sims II brutally called Shirin out in extremely personal ways. In fact, it is hard to overstate how personal the insults Will threw at Shirin were.

"Guarantee you, there's nobody home at the United States right now that is missing you. We all have loved ones that love and care for us. You have nothing. You have nothing. You have no family. You have nothing."

It is worth noting that Shirin had long been open about how profoundly she was affected by Will's brutal comments about her. For example, Shirin discussed that topic roughly five years before her EW interview when she spoke to People in October 2014.

While talking to People after she was voted out of Survivor: Cambodia, Shirin stated that she'd realized she wasn't emotionally ready to play her second season. As Shirin explained, she realized days into playing Survivor: Cambodia that the brutal way she'd been treated during Survivor: Worlds Apart left her feeling numb.

"In my first season, I probably had the emotionally toughest time of all the back-to-back contestants. A big part was that I didn’t have time to process my season, and I don’t think I was emotionally ready to return. That became very evident to me on Day 4. I was so emotionally drained, and I just didn’t know what was wrong with me. That was part of why I got caught up in my own head and went into overdrive."

Perhaps that quote explains part of the reason why Shirin didn't get involved when Peih-Gee Law and Abi-Maria Gomes got into an argument during Survivor: Cambodia.

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