Survivor season 49 contestant Jake Latimer missed out on the birth of his firstborn son to stay on the show.
“I gave [my wife] the option for me to bow out,” Latimer, 36, told Entertainment Weekly in an interview conducted in April but published on Tuesday, September 9. “I said, ‘This is our child. You’re here alone.’ She’s Australian, so she doesn’t have anyone up in Canada.”
Latimer’s wife apparently had no issues with him continuing to compete on the new season, which is set to premiere later this month.
“She says, ‘No, you go out. This is your dream, go do it, and whatever money you make is mine,’” he recalled.
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Survivor host Jeff Probst was aware of Latimer’s predicament but told EW that no special treatment was given because of the contestant’s impending role as a father.
“The rules on Survivor are really pretty clear,” Probst, 63, said in the same April interview. “Which is no news at all about anything that’s happening in the world, including in your own family. Unless it is an emergency situation. Then, of course, we would tell you and present you with the option that if you want [to] leave the game and go home, you can.”
Latimer seemed unbothered by the show’s rules.
“Of course, I would love to hear if my baby’s born healthy and stuff like that, but at the same time, they can’t favor me and then not tell other people what’s happening with their families back [at] home,” he said. “I’m just going into it as no news is good news.”
Latimer explained that his wife had “no luck” getting pregnant for more than four years. They “gave up” after finding no answers to their fertility challenges, so he applied for Survivor.
“While I was in the process, she got pregnant and now our firstborn child is going to be born while I’m here on the island,” he said.
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The baby’s due date was May 11, but Latimer’s son, Jax Paul Kenneth Latimer, came a few days early. Latimer announced in a May 16 Instagram post that the baby was born on May 2.
According to Probst, Latimer had a “very emotional” reason for wanting to go on the show.
“He watched Survivor with his dad, and his dad was losing his eyesight very fast,” Probst explained. “They thought this would be the last season of Survivor he would be able to watch. So for Jake, there was this tug on both ends: I have a new child coming into the world, but I have my dad who won’t be able to ever see me play again.”
Survivor season 25 premieres on CBS Wednesday, September 24, at 8 p.m. ET.
