Playing Australian Survivor for the third time, Brooke Jowett had a lot of feelings as she walked out and saw David Genat as host. David had beaten her in a challenge in All Stars, when she was in the final four, and he’d gone on to win the season.
“It was great to actually see a familiar face,” Brooke, 32, tells TV WEEK. “I was leaving a lot behind at home and seeing David, who I’m friends with, was quite soothing – but also a really nice reminder of why I wanted to win and redeem myself.”
One of just four returning players this season, along with Harry, Simon and Mark, Brooke says she felt there was a target on her back from the moment she met her new tribe mates.
“They were all looking at me like they wanted to come for me pretty quickly,” she remembers. “You can’t just fly under the radar because people know how you play, they know how you are in challenges… they know you and you don’t know them.”
Brooke, who’s worked as a personal trainer, gained a reputation as a challenge beast in her previous appearances on the show. But she’s gone through a lot in the past few years. As she’s explained on social media, the birth of her daughter Parker in 2023 had complications, and the recovery has been a long one.
“Going into childbirth, you think, I’m fit, my body’s healthy, everything’s good,” she says. “You don’t really think that things like prolapses happen. It’s not that beautiful to post that you’re peeing your pants while you’re running, but I think it helps people.”
When Brooke arrived in Samoa this time around, she wasn’t nearly as fit as the previous time.
“I was definitely more mentally driven, though,” she adds, “because I was sacrificing a lot more by going this time around.”
Brooke, whose fiancé is former MKR star Chris Cavanagh, plans to watch Survivor with Parker when she’s a little bit older.
“She’s getting to the age when she really soaks everything up and I want to make sure she knows that you can do anything you want to do.”
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