Survivor contestant Jonny Fairplay announced Saturday that his grandmother has died… really. Over two decades after Fairplay used his grandma’s (fake) death as a means to avoid elimination — one of the most infamous moments in reality TV history — the longtime Survivor villain revealed Ellen Jean Hauser’s actual death at the age of 90.
“I’ll miss her every day,” Fairplay told Entertainment Weekly. “It’s easy to think she was just part of one of the biggest lies in TV history, which made me famous, but I look at her place in my life as a loving grandparent who only wanted the best for me in my life and would do anything to help me get it. Which she did.”
In 2003, on an episode of Survivor: Pearl Islands, Fairplay was reunited with a friend who (falsely, and as planned) informed him that his grandmother had died; the ruse — which was revealed to viewers soon after — allowed Fairplay to win the challenge and spend 24 hours with his friend at the campsite.
“My grandmother’s sitting home watching Jerry Springer right now,” Fairplay admitted on the episode; his fellow contestants wouldn’t find out about the lie until after filming on the season concluded.
The incident made Fairplay an instant reality TV star: He’s since appeared on Survivor All-Stars seasons, House of Villains, The Traitors and many more reality competitions.
“Her dying words were something like, ‘Jonny, I want to see you on Survivor 50, The Traitors, and Deal or No Deal Island,'” Fairplay added to EW. “I had no idea she had so many streaming services.”
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