Survivor: Nicaragua

Two quits on Day 28, and both still voted for the winner

NaOnka Mixon and Kelly Shinn both quit Survivor: Nicaragua on Day 28, in the episode "You Started, You're Finishing," which aired 1 December 2010. Both cited relentless rain and cold. Both remained on the jury and voted for the winner, and their snuffed torches were left standing in the Tribal Council area.

Confirmed The quits, the jury votes and the torches are documented in contemporaneous CBS News reporting and a next-day cast interview. What followed was a stated policy of producer discretion, not a written rule, and this page does not call it one.

NaOnka Mixon NaOnka Mixon Kelly Shinn Kelly Shinn

What the record shows

  • Confirmed NaOnka Mixon and Kelly Shinn both asked to leave on Day 28 of Survivor: Nicaragua, in the episode "You Started, You're Finishing," which aired 1 December 2010. Both gave the same reason: relentless rain and cold.
  • Confirmed At Tribal Council Shinn said she felt like she was breaking down. Jeff Probst snuffed her torch with the words "Get out."
  • Confirmed Both remained on the jury and voted for the winner. Their snuffed torches were left standing in the Tribal Council area, marking that they had quit rather than been voted out.
  • Confirmed In an interview published 2 December 2010, Shinn described "endless nights without being dry," roughly two weeks of wet hair, dizziness and blacking out. She was wearing a light yellow dress and sandals.
  • Confirmed No rule barring a quitter from the jury existed at the time. At the season finale Probst said producers would have discretion over whether a quitter could vote, and Mark Burnett told TV Guide on 7 January 2011 that it was "very unlikely any quitter will be on the jury again."
  • Unverified No published CBS rule document, rule book entry or network statement codifying a quitter jury ban has been located. What sits on the record is Probst's finale remark and Burnett's comment to a magazine.

What happened on Day 28

Survivor: Nicaragua reached Day 28 with two players who had decided they were done. NaOnka Mixon and Kelly Shinn both asked to leave, and both left in the same episode, "You Started, You're Finishing," which aired on CBS on 1 December 2010. Two quits inside one Tribal Council had not happened on the American show before.

The reason both gave was the weather. Nicaragua filmed through heavy rain, and the cold that came with being permanently wet is what both women pointed to. At Tribal Council Shinn said she felt like she was breaking down. Probst snuffed her torch and told her to get out.

What Shinn described afterwards

The day after the episode aired, Shinn and Mixon sat for a joint exit interview. Shinn's account of the conditions was specific. She described "endless nights without being dry," roughly two weeks in which her hair never dried out, and episodes of dizziness and blacking out. She was in a light yellow dress and sandals.

That is her own account of why she left, given on the record within a day of the episode. It is worth separating from the theories that grew around her afterwards, because those theories are not sourced and this page does not carry them.

They quit, and they still voted

This is the part that keeps getting searched. Both women stayed on the jury. Both voted for the winner. Quitting on Day 28 did not remove either of them from the final vote, because nothing in the game at that point said it should.

The staging did change, though. Their torches were snuffed and then left standing in the Tribal Council area rather than cleared away. It functioned as a marker: these two were out, and they were out because they had asked to be, not because anyone voted them out.

Producer discretion, not a rule change

There was no rule at the time about quitters and juries, and no rule was written afterwards on the record located here. What happened is narrower. At the season finale Probst said producers would have discretion over whether a quitter could sit on a jury. A month later, on 7 January 2011, Mark Burnett told TV Guide it was "very unlikely any quitter will be on the jury again," and framed it as something a cast would be told before filming so that the position was clear from the start.

So the accurate description is a stated policy of producer discretion. Saying that CBS changed the rules over these two quits asserts a document nobody has produced, and saying either woman was stripped of a vote gets the outcome backwards. Neither lost her vote. Both used it.

People in this story

Questions people ask

Why did Purple Kelly quit Survivor: Nicaragua?
The cold and the rain. In an interview published 2 December 2010 she described endless nights without being dry, roughly two weeks of wet hair, and episodes of dizziness and blacking out.
When did NaOnka and Purple Kelly quit?
Day 28, in the episode "You Started, You're Finishing," which aired on 1 December 2010. Both asked to leave at the same Tribal Council.
Can quitters be on the Survivor jury?
Mixon and Shinn both were. No rule barred it at the time. At the finale Probst said producers would decide case by case, and Mark Burnett later said it was very unlikely a quitter would sit on a jury again.
Did NaOnka and Purple Kelly vote for the winner?
Yes. Both stayed on the jury after quitting and both cast a vote for the winner of Survivor: Nicaragua.
Why were their torches left standing at Tribal Council?
As a marker that they had quit. The torches were snuffed and then left in place rather than cleared away, distinguishing the two exits from an ordinary vote-out.
Did CBS change the rules because of them?
No rule document has been located. Probst described producer discretion at the finale and Burnett described an expectation set with future casts. That is a stated policy, not a codified rule.

Sources

Checked on 2026-07-26. If something here is wrong or out of date, we want to know: get in touch.