Survivor's Max has 'copped a lot of hate' over his rivalry with Myles

As a long-time Australian Survivor fan, Max Wills came onto the show with an all-guns-blazing attitude. By the time he was eliminated during Episode 9, he was undoubtedly one of the most polarizing players on Brains v Brawn II so far.

During his time on Australian Survivor, Max engaged in a rivalry with Myles Kuah, which ultimately saw Max — who entered Tribal extremely confident about the outcome — get sent home with an Idol in his pocket.

Max told Chattr in a post-elimination interview that as a long-running fan of the show, he expected to be typecast but wished that viewers saw his softer side, too.

“I am copping a bit of criticism because they’re shown the caricature kind of version of Max,” he explained.

“I think a lot of people who play the game, and who are these big, super fans, we all understand. We’ve seen so many seasons of it, we know [that happens].”

“If you’re watching this show, and you think that this is reality, and you’re buying into these characters, that you see everything that goes on, then you’re an absolute muppet.”

As part of his on-screen rivalry with Myles, Max created the nickname Jungle Rat for Myles during Episode 6.

Max explained to Chattr that, in an unaired scene, he and Myles had agreed to work together, and “thirty seconds later”, he found out from Ally Kettle that Myles was targeting him. He said the nickname was light-hearted and referred to Myles’s sly move of going behind his back.

Some viewers drew derogatory connotations from the nickname Jungle Rat, but shortly after the episode aired, Myles took to Twitter to defend Max and clarify that he happily agreed to the nickname.

Max told Chattr that he was grateful for Myles explaining how the situation went down on the beach and said that the men actually got along well.

“He [Myles] is worried about me. People are calling me a racist and a bully who shouldn’t be a primary school teacher anymore. And he’s just like, ‘Easy tigers, you guys don’t see a lot of what goes on.'”

Max reiterated that he asked Myles for permission to use the nickname and said the name was meant as a badge of Survivor honour.

“I basically asked, ‘Are you alright with me calling you this?’ And he said, ‘Yeah.’ He was enjoying it.

“Every fan of Survivor — any true fan, especially if you get out there and you get the chance to play — knows if you get given a nickname, it’s exciting because we’ve seen so many of our favourite players become icons because they get given a name.”

“Myles and I were actually quite friendly on the island; we were having so much fun with the whole Jungle Rat thing and the war thing; we were loving that.”

“I think people who dislike me miss a big part of that picture, which is that they think that I was bullying Myles. If you were out there on the island, it very much wasn’t like that at all.”

Max told Chattr that he’d received “death messages and hate mail” after his stint on the show, but he’s grateful that the people in his life know the soft side of him.

“I always knew that the teaching community and the parents of kids that I teach, they know who I am. They know that’s just the entertainer side of me, but I also feel like the edit didn’t really show the other side of me, which is a bit more emotional and sensitive.”

Of course, Survivor contestants spend the majority of their time on the beach filming, and each episode can only show one hour of what happened.

“A lot of the bonding is what you guys don’t get to see… talking about our deepest, darkest secrets, that’s things that really bind you together. You get to see a lot of the mayhem and the scrambling, but you miss out on a big chunk of our relationship building.”

Max urged viewers to keep this in mind when sending online vitriol to reality TV show contestants. This sentiment echoes one that the Australian Survivor Instagram recently shared, reminding viewers that they have a “zero tolerance policy” for derogatory and abusive comments about the contestants.