Survivor 42’s Jonathan Young Addresses Criticisms Regarding How He Treated Other Contestants

He was known colloquially (and perhaps enviously at times) as “Goliath” on Survivor 42 by his competitors. And he almost took the moniker all the way to the bank when he made it to the Final 5 – an impressive feat given that most physical players historically don’t last long post-merge. However, Jonathan Young also came under fire for how he was coming across to some of the others on the show regarding race and gender. Following his fire-challenge elimination, Young later had his own perspective when he addressed those criticisms.

The first major snafu for him was amidst the surprising post-merge double tribal night. Rocksroy Bailey was the first to be voted out, which didn’t sit well with Drea Wheeler and Maryanne Oketch when they saw him sitting on the jury next to another Black player in Chanelle Howard. Wheeler and Oketch believed they might soon follow Bailey (which was indeed the plan at the time), given they were the only remaining Black players themselves in the game. They decided to call out what they viewed as a systemic racial issue in Survivor history (of Black players not making it far). Notably, the “Goliath” got into a tense dispute with the two over it, as he interpreted them to be calling him a “racist,” much to the frustration of Wheeler who eventually broke down in tears.