‘Survivor’ made her the Black Widow. How Parvati Shallow defines herself now

SIXTEEN YEARS AGO, Parvati Shallow was one of the leaders of an all-female alliance on “Survivor: Micronesia,” Season 16 of the reality competition show.

“It’s like, the Black Widow Brigade. All the girls are coming together, and we’re spinning the guys around as much as we can, just spinning them and spinning them until they don’t know which way’s up,” Shallow said in a confessional during the season, which aired in 2008. “And then we’re devouring them.”

Responsible for some of the most famous blindsides in the game’s history — including convincing one player to give up his individual immunity necklace — the Black Widow Brigade comprised the final four of “Survivor: Micronesia.”

Shallow ended up on top, winning the season, its $1 million prize and a moniker that has lasted to this day: the Black Widow.

After winning “Survivor’s” 16th season, she went on to place second in the all-returners season “Heroes vs. Villains.” She played again a decade later on Season 40, “Winners at War,” and solidified her status as reality TV royalty in recent years with appearances on “The Traitors” and now, “Deal or No Deal Island.”

Some of the archetypes that have been ascribed to her throughout her time on TV, which started when she was just 23 on “Survivor: Cook Islands,” include: the flirt, a villain, a manipulator and more.

“I think the Black Widow has served me very well. It’s like a persona of its own,” Shallow, now 42, tells TODAY.com. “People see me as the Black Widow, and I think it helps people to characterize me. To kind of lock in and understand me, quote unquote, in a way that simplifies me for people and lets them feel like they know me.”

But, she adds, “It’s not all of me.”

“SURVIVOR: MICRONESIA” ALSO HAPPENS to be the last time Shallow played a reality TV game with newbies to the genre.

Shallow is currently starring in Season 2 of “Deal or No Deal Island,” a tropical twist on the classic “suitcase game,” as Shallow calls it.

The game involves contestants living on a remote destination known simply as the “Banker’s Island.” Through a series of challenges, contestants hunt for cases. Having the highest value cases lets that person pick who has to face the Banker in a traditional game of “Deal or No Deal.” If that person makes an unfavorable deal, they are eliminated. If they make a good deal, they pick who goes home next.

If it sounds confusing, you’re not alone. Shallow describes it as a “game show within a game show” — only with the “goofiest name.”

“Once you get past how silly the name of the show sounds, and you invest yourself in watching it, it’s really fun,” she says. “It’s different to anything I’ve ever done, and I’ve done a lot of these games.”

On the show, she’s competing against 11 reality TV newcomers, plus two veterans: David Genat of “Australian Survivor” and Will Kirby of “Big Brother.”

Shallow describes Genat as her “male foil,” citing their similar gameplay and an “instant connection and respect for each other.” In essence, she and Genat are playing their own game, from opposite ends of the “Deal or No Deal Island” beach.

She’s also formed connections with newbies like Phillip Solomon and Dickson Wong. Unlike past shows, Shallow says she’s functioning like a coach.

“Like, ‘Let’s work together. Let me support you. I’m going to help you see what you’re not seeing and just make some moves that might be harder for you to make emotionally,'” she says. “I have that experience of doing that, and I can see this as a game rather than as like, real life.

“Phillip was like, ‘People’s families. I’m thinking about their families.’ I’m like, ‘No, we’re not doing that right now. Set that aside,'” Shallow adds. “We have 10 minutes to get our hair done and makeup done and come up with a strategy to get someone out of this game who’s not going to take you out or me out.”

SHALLOW COMES BY HER ADVICE honestly. Not only is she a life coach by trade, she had a similar experience after her first few bouts on “Survivor” in her 20s.

“There’s like a pre-show Parvati, a naive Parvati that played the first few seasons of ‘Survivor’ when I was very young,” she says. “Then I had a good chunk of time, maybe a solid decade, where I stepped out of reality television, and I had a whole life.”

She got married, welcomed a daughter, Ama, in 2018, got divorced, and in between, essentially figured out “how to make life work for me,” she says.

Before that, she says got “sucked in.”

“This label that I got as the Black Widow, this man eater… this person who was willing to betray her friends — that stuck with me for a long time and really informed the choices that I made, and I made a big mess of my life from that,” she says.

That experience, and how she “climbed out of it,” is documented in her upcoming memoir, “Nice Girls Don’t Win: How I Burned It All Down to Claim My Power,” which publishes July 8.

Shallow says the book’s alternate title was “Torched,” a play on the “Survivor” torches which, if snuffed, mark elimination from the game. Her editors thought it might be too much. But according to Shallow herself, “the book is intense,” starting from the story of her childhood.

“I grew up in a new age, sort of spiritual commune that was run a powerful and controlling guru,” Shallow says. “That’s why I have a Hindu name, because she was naming the kids.”

From there, it chronicles her reality TV debut and her experience learning to reject expectations.

“The book is really a journey of claiming my power, going from being a people-pleaser, wanting to be liked, adapting myself to whatever I thought other people wanted me to be, to then burning all of that down, all of the ways I was trying to fit into society’s expectations of me as a woman, as a girl, as a wife, as a mother,” she says. “I was like, ‘I don’t need to do that anymore.'”

She cites using different “healing modalities” over a period of about four years, including about two-and-a-half years of writing the memoir.

“I was like, ‘I need to find a way to make healthy choices because I want to have healthy relationships. I want to build a life that I love that works for me,'” she says.

Coming out on the other side, she’s “saying yes to these big adventures,” including more reality TV appearances. She says her season of “The Traitors,” which aired in 2024, was a “test,” to see if she could truly step back into a game setting and not lose herself in the process.

“It was a risk,” she says. “But when I came home, I was like, ‘Oh, yeah. I can do it. I’m OK.'”

Now, she says the Black Widow role is less of an identity and more of a costume.

“I’ll be the Black Widow when it serves me to be the Black Widow. I’ll be the villain when it serves me to be the villain.”

“I can step into it,” she says. “Just like putting on a pearly headband. I now have that power to put on the costume and take off the costume, whereas in the past, people just put it on me, and I didn’t have any control over that.”

“I’ll be the Black Widow when it serves me to be the Black Widow. I’ll be the villain when it serves me to be the villain,” she adds. “And then I’ll also be like a really caretaking mom when it serves me to be that.”

IF “THE TRAITORS” WAS THE TEST, “Deal or No Deal Island” and her upcoming appearance on “Australian Survivor” are the rewards.

In addition to Season 2 of the Peacock show, she’s set to appear on “Australian Survivor” in a special edition of the show titled, “Survivor: Australia v. The World,” premiering in 2025.

She filmed the two shows back-to-back, starting with “Deal.” Then, she had about one month off before heading out to play “Survivor” for the fifth — and allegedly final — time.

“That’s it for me. This book is closed on ‘Survivor,'” she says. “So if people want to see me play ‘Survivor,’ this is your last opportunity.”

She adds that she “wouldn’t do ‘Survivor 50,'” the upcoming landmark 50th season of the show. The milestone season will reportedly feature returning cast members and start filming in the spring of 2025.

“40 (‘Winners at War’) was not the best experience for me as far as like making alliances and being able to play,” Shallow says. “I don’t think the new era of ‘Survivor’ players wants to play with me. So I’m like, ‘I can’t play a game if no one wants to play with me.’ I just don’t even want to put myself in that situation.”

Joining Shallow on “Australian Survivor” are fellow legends Cirie Fields and the first two-time male winner, Tony Vlachos. Shallow and Fields’ reunion is especially sweet.

Fields was also a member of the Black Widow Brigade and came in third after a last-second twist.

“(Cirie) and I were in this tightest alliance in that game. And then there was this twist where we got surprised by it being a final two rather than a final three,” Shallow says. “So it was really interesting to see her there. I was like, ‘Are we going to have the same dynamic as we had in ‘Micronesia,’ or is it going to be different?'”

“It was really fun playing with her,” Shallow says.

With “Deal or No Deal Island” and “Australian Survivor” having already been filmed, now, Shallow gets to watch the final cuts, a process she says is “more fun” compared to the beginning of her reality TV career.

“I have less attachment to how I’m perceived,” Shallow says.

New episodes of “Deal or No Deal Island” air Tuesdays at 9 p.m ET on NBC. Episodes stream the next day on Peacock. (Peacock and TODAY.com are owned by the same parent company, NBCUniversal.)