’Naked and Afraid: Last One Standing’: [Spoiler] Wins in Nail-Biting Finale
What a finish. The toughest Naked and Afraid challenge yet came to an end on July 16. The nail-biting season finale of the Discovery Channel reality series saw the remaining five survivalists in a brutal race to the final extraction point. The one who finished the competition first would walk away with a perfect 10 PSR rating – and $100,000. So, who emerged victorious?
[Warning: This article contains spoilers for the season finale of Naked and Afraid: Last One Standing.]
Two survivalists tap out in the ‘Naked and Afraid: Last One Standing’ finale
Out of the 12 survivalists who embarked on the Last One Standing challenge more than a month ago, just five remained when the finale began: Jeff Zausch, Dan Link, Waz Addy, Steven Lee Hall Jr., and Gary Golding. All are skilled survivalists with multiple Naked and Afraid challenges under their belts. But each one seriously struggled with the finale’s first elimination challenge, which required them to make a primitive fire and then boil a pot of water. The first three people to complete the challenge would advance to the final stage, while the other two would be eliminated. Anyone who couldn’t complete the challenge after three days would also be eliminated.
On paper, the challenge doesn’t sound that complicated. But making a fire without a firestarter is hard. And it was doubly difficult this time because a series of rainstorms had soaked much of the available wood and tinder.
Initially, Jeff seemed to have an edge. He’d anticipated a fire-starting challenge and had hidden fuel in a dry spot. But despite that prep work, he struggled as much as the other cast. After hours of attempting to coax a spark, Waz finally got his fire going, ensuring he’d advance to the final three. Gary also managed to get an ember, but he couldn’t get his fire to light. Emotional and physical exhaustion eventually got the best of him, and he tearfully decided to tap out.
Minutes after Gary tapped, Dan got his fire going, making him the second person to advance. That left Jeff and Steven fighting for the final spot. After days of attempting to light a fire, both were low on energy and frustrated over their failure to complete the task. As the clock ran down, Steven realized his time in the competition had come to an end and also decided to tap. It was his first tap out in more than 250 days on Naked and Afraid.
Dan Link and Waz Addy fight for the top prize after Jeff Zausch’s elimination
With Steven gone, Jeff was guaranteed to advance to the final three. But first, he had to make his fire. As the minutes ticked away, he desperately tried to get a blaze going. But the sun set before he could do so, and a producer informed him he’d been eliminated.
Jeff had seemed like a frontrunner heading into the finale. But with his elimination, the final challenge became a head-to-head fight between Waz and Dan. They would have to complete a physically taxing three-day journey to extraction, carrying both water and fire with them as they climbed more than 1,000 feet out of the gorge.
At first, they worked together to complete the first stage of the journey. When Waz’s fire went out, Dan even accompanied him back to their campsite to retrieve more embers. But as they got closer to the finish line, they accepted that only one could win. A final challenge on day 45 tasked both to shoot down a bundle containing a map that would direct them to the final extraction point.
Dan succeeded in shooting down his bundle first. But Waz wasn’t far behind. Both raced to the top of the gorge, where they had to light three signal fires that would alert a helicopter to rescue them. The person who got all three fires lit first would win the competition.
Waz Addy is the ‘Naked and Afraid: Last One Standing’ winner
Ultimately, Waz’s fire-starting skills gave him a huge leg up over Dan in this final challenge. He lit all his fires first, becoming the first-ever Naked and Afraid: Last One Standing winner. For Waz, the victor was “ a culmination of everything I’ve done on Naked and Afraid.”
“Being the last one standing and walking away with that prize money, it means more to me than the world,” he said. “It’s an amazing feeling being the first person ever to be able to say last one standing. Being the first person ever to get a PSR of 10. That’s bragging rights forever.”
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