[Warning: The following post contains MAJOR spoilers for Deal or No Deal Island Season 2 Episode 11, “Water Under the Bridge.”]
After making a “bad deal” with the banker on Tuesday’s (March 18) episode of Deal or No Deal Island, Parvati Shallow a.k.a. “The Black Widow” is ready to retire from reality television… well, sort of.
The Survivor and The Traitors alum has become one of the biggest names on the small screen scene, and her stint on DONDI did little to change that. Throughout most of Season 2, Shallow has been crushing the competition, earning a seemingly endless spree of safety wins that kept her far away from the bottom two or the temple. Once in the final four (alongside her season-long ally David Genat, her former ally Courtney “CK” Kim, and her biggest competition Alexis Lete), Shallow got to choose whether to go up against the banker. Ultimately, she asked David to send her in and control her own fate instead of letting CK have another turn at the temple.
Shallow soon found herself in a tough spot, though, when the board was whittled down to just two cases: the $100 and the $1,000,000. The banker’s offer was thus $500,001, and after accepting the offer, she learned she had the $1,000,000 case. She wasn’t away from the scene long, though; she returned shortly thereafter alongside several of the other eliminated castmembers to participate in the daily challenge for the final three, where she got an opportunity to give her buddy David a boost to another daily win and a chance to win the whole shebang.
When TV Insider caught up with Shallow to talk about her time on Deal or No Deal Island, she revealed that she’s ready to hang up her competitor cap but has other things in the works that fans will definitely want to stay tuned for. Read on to find out how she’s moving from one phase of her career to the next.
You kept David’s secret all season long even after yours was revealed. What made you so loyal to him, and did you ever consider telling people about his Survivor history?
Parvati Shallow: I knew that if people knew about his history, they would target him immediately. And I needed him to be able to form relationships with other people because I knew he was working on my behalf. I really trusted that he wasn’t going to try to take me out. So I was like, as long as he gets away with playing this dumb big dumb guy, I’m going to feed into that: “Oh, he’s so dumb. He sucks in challenges. He never could have done [Survivor]. He’s not even a threat.” And I really played that up, especially with CK. She was my girl. CK and I were very tight, and CK hated David, but she was also like, “Oh, he’s too dumb. He’s definitely not a threat. It’s fine.” She was more threatened by Lete.
Did you ever have any doubts that he might protect you, especially in the very end, when he had the power to send someone home?
No. ‘Cause David, every time our relationship was tested, he would do the thing that I asked him to do. So I was on the dock. I was like, “You need to jump for Phillip ’cause then Lete will jump for you,” and he would do it. And when we were doing the running up the hill challenge, I was like, “Okay, I can’t take out CK, so you’re the one who has to take out CK. I’ll take out Phillip, but you and Phillip need to [work together].” He’s like, “Okay, I got it.” He would just do the plays that I was offering him. So I needed someone like that who was executing. He was like the quarterback. I was like spiking the ball, and he was a quarterback, and he would run it, and he would throw it, and I would catch it. And we were just working so well together, and I just knew he was smart enough and not threatened by me. I needed someone also who wasn’t threatened by me, who would take me to the end. And I knew that he would do that.
So when you got there, if you were to get to the end, what was your strategy for beating him?
I felt like I could beat him in a challenge. I was better in the challenges than David was. He looks big and threatening, but I kept beating him in the challenges, so I really wasn’t worried about the end game with him. Little did I know they were gonna have kind of a jury twist. I think that would have been hard for me.
Speaking of that, what made you decide to help Lete when you knew that she was going against David?
I helped her but mildly slowed her down. I was like, “Well… I don’t want to not help her.” She gave me a good answer. I liked her answer. I was like, “That’s cool. That’s actually really smart to say, ‘You’re passing the torch. I could be the next Black Widow.’” I love that. I’m a life coach. I want to help these people succeed. I love empowering women. So I was like, “Good answer.” But also, I knew she’s a pageant girl. So she’s used to giving good answers. So I kind of slowed her down a little bit by stalling in the middle of putting the plank down and then asking her another question to get [going], and she just stopped and started answering the questions. It was very different to how I supported David when he came through.
The episode edit made it seem like maybe you hesitated a little bit about whether you’re gonna help David. Did you actually hesitate?
I haven’t watched it, so I don’t know, but no, I definitely didn’t hesitate. I was very clear that I wanted to help him win. He was my number-one ally in the whole game. I barely talked to Lete. CK had betrayed me at the very end. So I was like, “You two, I don’t care about you girls, but David, he worked with me, he tried to help me as best he could.” He did everything I asked him to do. So I was 100% gonna help them out. I don’t know why they would edit it. I never hesitated because that wouldn’t make any sense.
You said you would be a little bit nervous facing a jury situation. Who would you have been most worried about?
Probably Phillip, because Phillip and I had such a close-knit relationship early on, and then we had this big falling out that I felt was based on a misunderstanding, but we never really recovered from that. And Phillip was so insistent that he didn’t want someone who’d already won a million dollars on television to win again. So I heard all of them, all the people who had been eliminated from the game talking about that back at the hotel before we had the challenge, saying they knew who David was at that point, they didn’t want another winner to win again, and they were going to try to slow him down. They wanted to support the people who were new. So yeah, that would have come to bite me if I’d been in the end.
Do you regret the decision to go into the temple?
No, ’cause I think it would have been fifty-fifty regardless. Maybe my odds would have been a tiny bit better if CK had played because she could have lost. It would have been 50/50 for her, but I wasn’t sure that she wasn’t going to take me out. So I didn’t want to sit on the bench and wait to see if my social game was good enough, or if she was gonna want to get rid of me. If I were her, I would have eliminated me if I won. So I was just like, “Let me just take my shot.” And also it’s Deal or No Deal! If you get a chance to play the banker, and you’re gonna go home regardless, you might as well play just to have the experience.
Monty Brinton / NBC
We saw you on The Traitors this season as a kind of mercenary type. What was it like for you to come back to that and watch other people playing?
That was so fun. Getting the invitation from Alan to go back to the castle was a dream. Getting dressed up in that royal queen elevated outfit that was like my Day 1 Traitors game white outfit, but like kicked up to like Academy Award levels. It was a dream. And sitting there and being able to talk sh** with Kate Chastain while we watched them do the challenge, and watching Tom [Sandoval] just constantly be like, “I’m the man. It’s me.” It was so fun. I loved it. I would go back anytime.
Any chance you’ll be maybe returning for one of the upcoming anniversary seasons of Survivor?
No, you’re not gonna see me out there.
I know you’re friends with Rob “Boston Rob” Mariano, who hosts the DONDI aftershow. Have you thought about taking on hosting duties in the future at all?
Hosting? Yeah, I am. I’m developing some shows, and I’m working as an executive producer on some things and will be, I am moving into hosting. So I’m moving out of reality competitor, and I’m moving into host and executive producer roles and creating. … I have a book coming out called Nice Girls Don’t Win. You can pre-order it now, and it kind of tells the origin story of how I became the Black Widow, what led me to this point in my life, and then moving through getting married, a divorce, and the challenges that I went through there, and then coming out, falling in love, going on Traitors and then what’s next. So it’s a very current, up-to-the-moment story that I worked really hard on, and I’m really proud of, and I hope everyone will buy it and read it.
And I started a podcast called Nice Girls Don’t Win with story producer Amy Bean, who was out on Deal or No Deal with me, and we’re interviewing interesting people and having really fun conversations there. So I really, I’ve moved into a whole new arena of creative projects, and I’m really excited about what’s coming next. Oh, also, my course that I did last year after Traitors called “How Villains Are Made,” I’m doing that again with my friend Callie, who’s a somatic experiencing instructor. And we teach people how to overcome people pleasing, how to courageously create success in their lives… And that’s a 6-week course that we’re starting in 2 weeks. So I’m, yeah, totally moving into creative development now.
Deal or No Deal Island, Season 2 finale, March 25, 9/8c, NBC