It’s hard to keep a secret in this age of reality TV, but we’re happy to receive any Australian Survivor gossip the internet would like to serve us.
The hit show, which aired its seventh Australian season earlier this year, has been confirmed to return to Channel 10 next year, and it looks like production will be taking their first stab at a pretty popular theme.
Given that Survivor has been running in the US for decades now, fans of both versions have been keen on a Heroes V Villains season for quite some time, but we needed to build up the hero and villains in the Aussie game before we got our own version of it.
Thankfully, it seems to be going ahead in 2023, if rumours reported by So Dramatic are to be believed!
So, who are the heroes and villains taking to the Australian desert next year?
So Dramatic has reported that 2016 winner Kristie Bennett is on board, likely as a hero.
Other rumoured returnees will include 2019 competitor Shaun Hampson, a retired AFL player best remembered for his intense rivalry with Survivor all-star David Genat, and Survivor superstar Shonee Fairfax, who competed in both the 2018 and 2020 series, making top ten both times.
As for more recent castaways, George Mladenov, who came second in 2021, is also on the list, as well as Jordie Hansen and Nina Twine, who only made their debut this year on Blood V Water.
Jordie has remained in the public eye since starring on the show, beginning a relationship with Australian actress Sam Frost, whose brother competed with Jordie on the 2022 season.
Meanwhile, Nina’s return will be hotly anticipated, given she had to leave the show prematurely due to an injury. Nina is the daughter of Sandra Diaz-Twine, a famous Survivor US player, who has won the series twice.
They came to Australia together to star in Blood V Water.
Nina’s return is not completely unexpected, with eagle-eyed fans noticing a minor detail on the Australian Survivor Instagram that indicated she might be coming back.
They posted a photo of Nina after she left the game, captioning it with the words “This is Nina’s hero origin story.”
“We’re so sad to see the Princess leave this way. Thanks for playing.”
We see what you did there, Channel 10.
While the rumours are just that for now, we could not be more excited to see if these iconic players will make their grand returns (some for a third time) come 2023.
WATCH: Nina Twine leaves Australian Survivor Blood V Water