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Naked and Afraid: Last One Standing is not bare on all-stars. This season Discovery Channel’s hit survival show brings 14 of the best to Africa’s punishing Munzwa Valley for more extreme challenges and cutthroat competition. The last one standing over 45 days wins $100,000 and earns 10.0 PSR (Primitive Survival Rating). The road won’t be easy with some of the most successful alums from the popular franchise challenged like never before. They arrive empty-handed and have to earn tools to use for necessities like food, water, fire, and shelter.
Things heat up right from the start with an unexpected twist where a head-to-head challenge occurs on the first day. This leads to a double elimination before they even get back to camp. As seen in the exclusive clip above, adding to the high-pressure atmosphere is the fact survivalists are not allowed to share any of their tools with their fellow participants.
Among the badasses looking to make it to the end this season is Ky Furneaux, an outdoor guide turned former Hollywood stuntwoman and second-most published survival author in the world. The Aussie has competed in five challenges and logged 91 days survived without tapping out. Here, Furneaux tells us about what motivated her this time around.
Having done so many of these, what was your mindset going in? What was preparation like?
Ky Furneaux: I didn’t have much time to prepare. I had five weeks in between my Naked and Afraid Colombia mentoring challenge and this one. It was more recovery, trying to get weight back on my body and just keep the calluses on my feet. The thing that is different about this one is I did feel there was a lot of pressure. For me personally, I wanted to show what females were capable of in the outdoors. Last season, I think from Day 27 or something, it was all males. In each challenge, I kept saying to myself, “I don’t need to win it. I just need to not come last.” That was my mentality. I wanted to go in and represent myself the best way I possibly could. That was to do my best.
How did you feel about the double elimination right off the bat?
It was a huge shock. I knew when I saw 14 people there that it was strange. The traditional number is 12. From the very first second this challenge started, it was such a different beast than the first one. We were thrown in and there was challenge after challenge after challenge straight off. To know there were two people who were going home straight away was almost sickening. You come all this way, built up all this hype of getting to be out in Africa, trying to prove you deserve to be there, then knowing you might be back in your hotel room before the end of the day…
The challenge was that any step of the way if you chose to go left instead of right, you could go home. It was brains, brawn, endurance. Everything was thrown into every challenge. One misstep meant you were headed off that day. I think the intensity of this one is quite high. The skills required every day challenged everybody to the absolute max.
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What did you make of your competition?
It was a mixed bag. There were some older legends, some new players, people I didn’t know, people who didn’t have a lot of days under their belt, and people who had over 200 days under their belt. The thing with these challenges and survival, in general, is you don’t know what skillset is going to get you through a situation each day. On my [Naked and Afraid XL: Frozen] with Gabby [Gabrielle Balassone], her amazing ability to sew clothes was the thing that saved us out there. She made amazing clothing that kept the heat in. We had an amazing time as a result. You don’t know what the skillset will be challenged and who has that particular skill set. You never know what will happen out there.
Being a Naked and Afraid OG, what do you think of the show’s popularity and longevity?
I’m surprised. I was in the first season. I wanted to do it so I could test myself personally and thought, “This won’t go anywhere.” Here we are just about 12 years later, and it’s one of Discovery’s biggest hit shows. Everyone thinks it’s the nudity that captivates people, but what it really is it shows how amazing people are when everything is taken from them. We all have this expectation that when everything is stripped away, we’d be crying in a corner. People do cry in a corner for a second, but then they can find these strengths within themselves. Watching their journey, I think, is why the show is so popular.
How did you feel about your environment? What can you say about what you’ll encounter?
I was so excited because I never got to go to Africa for my challenges. I always end up in swamps or rainforests in the wet season. I get the mad bugs. I was so excited to go to Africa. I expected the weather to be spectacular, but as you may see in the previews, we ended up with this cold, wet, windy spell at the beginning of the challenge. I think it was something like the coldest, wettest day in this region we’ve ever seen in recorded history.
Is it me? Am I the curse that ends up in these terrible environments? I loved the constant teasing threat of the big five out there. You have to be so aware and alert because at any moment you may find something. Were there leopards prevalent in one region? Do you have to worry about a black rhino charging through your camp or elephants crashing through? It was this constant threat of the larger predators. I will take a charging elephant over a million mosquitos any day.
Coming from the stunt world, how has that helped you in these survival competitions?
It has helped 100 percent. It’s a matter of what you do with fear. The biggest challenge out of these challenges is your mind and where it takes you. To be a stunt performer and a successful one, I had 16 years in Hollywood. You need to know what to do with fear. If you let fear control you, you’re going to end up in a bad situation. You have to make big decisions in moments that are quite scary. I have a really interesting relationship with fear.
Nothing really scares me anymore, except losing my loved ones. That really helps. That means when I’m making decisions, I’m making rational decisions. It means at night, I sleep really well out there because I’m not scared of the noises and sleep really helps you. Just being able to compartmentalize fear, which I learned in stunts, is one of the biggest things I took.
Having worked on all these movies and TV shows, who do you think from Hollywood would do well on Naked and Afraid?
Chris Hemsworth and Hugh Jackman. I know they are Australians, so I might be a little biased there. They were always the guys on set that weren’t complaining. It’s a mindset. You always say survival is about 80 percent mindset, 15 percent skill, and 5 percent luck. I will have someone with no skill but can laugh in the face of a terrible situation or find the positives in a rain storm. I’ve seen Chris and Hugh in winter scenarios and with everything going against them, and not being, “Where’s my dryer? I want a warm towel.” I would say those two. Chris has done the series Limitless where he goes out and pushes his mind and body. So I think he would do well here.
Where would you want to see the show go next?
I would like to say this is my last one, but I’ve been saying that since Louisiana, my first one. I’ve just been really fortunate and gone everywhere. I will always go back to Africa. Any time you get to experience the natural world in such a wild way, I think it’s fantastic. I’d say maybe a nice tropical island would be beautiful. Fiji, I’d go there. It’s a running joke between fans when I say this is my last. I turned 50 this season. So 50, bareassed in Africa, maybe I need to move on. But we’ll see.
Naked and Afraid: Last One Standing, Season Premiere, Sunday, July 14, 8/7c, Discovery Channel