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Survivor Season 41 welcomes Shantel Smith as one of its contestants on the upcoming CBS show. A pastor by profession, the 34-year-old will live on an island with a group of strangers and strive to win the season.
Apart from being closely connected to connecting with the divine, Smith is also a digital creator who routinely uploads Instagram reels. The Survivor participant keeps her 66.6k followers entertained by posting comedy clips, along with words of wisdom, on social media. The Toronto native currently resides in Washington, DC. She claims to be authentic, passionate, and resilient.
'Survivor' contestant went through chemotherapy
In 2019, Smith posted photos of her going through an MRI procedure. She confessed to being scared, but she also believed that a higher power had more purpose in store for her life.
Last October, the Survivor contestant updated her followers about her auto-immune disease on Instagram, saying she was symptom-free after five months of chemotherapy.
Her post read:
“FIVE MONTHS POST 8 ROUNDS OF CHEMO!!! I am infection-free. Running 2 miles every day. Eating well. No symptoms. No flare ups. No disease activity. All but one of my lesions have disappeared.”
Smith had a “dark and twisted” childhood
According to her bio on the network’s website, Smith revealed a “dark and twisted” childhood. She said that her mother struggled through extreme hardships to provide for her.
She said:
“She [mom] experienced so much pain in her life, and my childhood was dark, twisted and complicated, but she was an extremely hard-working Italian woman. She always made sure I had a roof over my head and lunch money in my pockets.”
She believes she can win 'Survivor' Season 41
Smith has experience handling stressful situations, given the childhood trauma she overcame. This makes her an emotionally resilient person who understands hardships. The constant push to survive in real-life gives her the advantage to win the reality show.
Speaking about the same, Smith said:
“I believe I have what it takes to win. I think living on the streets, developing a strong work ethic, practicing excellence in all that I do and put out into the world, having a high threshold for pain and suffering, endurance, perseverance, knowing that nothing comes easily but everything must be earned and worked for.”
The upcoming season of this Emmy-winning series premieres on CBS at 8:00 pm (ET) on September 22.
