A chicken named Mark was the real hero of 'Survivor' Kaôh Rōng (2024)

He stuck around until the very end. He ate meals with everyone else. He even has his own Twitter account.

Mark the Chicken -- not a scared human, but an actualchicken -- is the unsung hero ofSurvivor: Kaôh Rōng.

"He's an endearing chicken," Tai Trang, original Beauty tribe member and one of the final four competitors, told Mashable after the show's 32nd season concluded. "Everybody loves Mark."

Chickens aren't an unusual sight on Survivor. In past seasons they'vebeen offered up as a potential -- and highly desirable -- reward during the show's introductory challenges. But while past Survivorchickens eventually became a meal, Mark quickly became just one of the group, thanks to TaiTrang, a 52-year-old San Francisco native who went on to be one of the final four.

"At the beginning we tied him up," Tai, who has a respect for all living things, said. "Very soon, maybe a week later, we untied him and he became attached to us. So he was walking around like one of us. Whenever we eat, he eats. So I think he became a pet."

Tai's lovable personality helped keep hungry tribemates at bay, but that was only part of it. The real key to ensuring Mark's survival for Tai was ensuring that everyone had a full belly.

"I worked really hard. Every day, I [would] go look for food. I found a mango tree for the tribe. I found a bunch of clams, I shucked clams. I go fishing every day," he said."I spent a couple hours a day going to get the food so people don't get hungry. So people don't see Mark as food."

Hard as Tai tried, however, there were at times a few rumblings from some in the cast about eventually eating Mark, Cydney Gillon admitted.

"We would talk about it and whisper about it," she said."It helped that they had so much food on Beauty's tribe, so it didn't really make me as angry not to eat him. If there wasn't another option I would have been pushing to kill Mark -- sorry."

"We all joked, 'Oh my god, he's going to make it further than us.'"

Ultimately, she says, the relative abundance of other food made everyone forget about Mark as a food source. More than that, even, the majority came to feel eating him would be wrong.

"As soon as the rope came off his little ankle, I knew that Mark was gonna be around for a while,"Michele Fitzgerald, the winner of Kaôh Rōng, told Mashable."We all joked, 'Oh my god, he's going to make it further than us.' He became a pet. He was just clucking around and doing his own thing. We love Mark."

Runner-up Aubry Bracco sees Mark's relationship with the tribe not unlike the one shared between a family and their dog -- "if you kill the family dog, you're not being invited to Christmas dinner -- which was basically Tai making coconut and pea greens in the wok for us."

All the love aside, Mark wasn't aperfect tribemate. Pet or not, he's still a chicken, and chickens aren't known for being cuddly creatures.

"You'd be in the bamboo [shelter] and he'd just be poking up as you're trying to sleep," Aubry said. "So he'd make noise and he'd creepily stalk you while you were sleeping. And then he'd come up between the bamboo slats as you're laying down, and you're like, 'I didn't sign up for this bizarre massage from a chicken.'"

Mark made it all the way to the final Tribal Council. He fielded no questions from the jury and received zero votes, but he received his final stay of execution when host Jeff Probst invited Tai to release his avian friend.

"It was tough [to let him go], but I can't bring him home," Tai said."But I also know that he's gonna have a good home. I believe that Jeff will bring it to some local Cambodian family that will take care of it." (Probst later confirmed that is indeed what happened, in a chat with Entertainment Weekly.)

Tai's generous, chicken-saving spirit and, as Aubry puts it, "infectious love of all life" was a powerful presence throughout the season -- so much so that it motivated one of the most unexpected moments of the season's reunion show. Or really, any moment from all the reunion shows we've seen to date.

During Thursday night's finale, Australian singer/songwriter (and Survivorsuper-fan)Sia, who attended the finale, stormed the stage to bestow Tai with a generous gift: $50,000 for him and $50,000 more for the animal welfare charity of his choosing.

Whether or not the moment was truly unscripted or not, it certainly appeared to be. Just as Probst started the Mark-focused segment of the reunion show, a woman from the audience began shouting. Normally, such a move would earn an audience member a security-escorted exit, but this was no ordinary viewer.

"This is an un--, an un-- this is not a moment," Probst sputtered. "But I know who this is."

Probst interrupted the scripted material as he invited Sia to the stage to say her piece.

"I could not let Tai go home without saying that ... your authenticity and your care for animals really inspired me," she said. "I just want to say thank you for showing America how to be kind to animals."

Tai had no idea this was coming and no prior communication with Sia, he later told Mashable. "My god, it was shocking," he said.

"I cannot believe it. I am so thankful."

Thankful to Sia, no doubt -- and Mark.

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