After several weeks and a year-long wait for the contestants, it was officially revealed in the finale episode of "Survivor Kaoh Rong" that Michele Fitzgerald is the season's winner, taking home the $1 million prize. As stated by the Hollywood Reporter, she beat out Aubry Bracco and Tai Trang in a 5-2-0 vote count.
The season started with three separate tribes, labeled "brains," "brawns" and "beauty," with both Fitzgerald and Trang on the beauty tribe, while Bracco started on the brains tribe. Later on the show, the three merged after they had eliminated several of their tribe members.
Cydney Gillon was the third runner-up, originally from the brawn tribe, but was eliminated following a tie with Bracco. To decide which of the two would move forward, a fire-building contest was held, and Bracco came out on top. As stated by the report, it was after this elimination that the top three got their big surprise.
For the first time on the show, the contestants had the option of voting out one of the jury to reduce the amount of influence that would lead to them losing the final vote. Fitzgerald voted Neal Gottlieb out of the jury given that he was a close ally to Bracco, and this tactic may be how she gained more votes than the others.
As per usual, each of the three were interrogated by the jury and another iconic scene in the series took place when Trang was reunited with Mark, the chicken that he spared. During the sequence Trang was allowed to free Mark and release the chicken back to the wild.
Singer Sia arrived during the one-year reunion finale as a surprise guest and rewarded Trang with $50,000 for his dedication to animal rights.
It is also pointed out that "Survivor Kaoh Rong" is labeled as season 32, although it was the thirty-first to be filmed, being shot back-to-back with "Survivor Cambodia" although the latter was aired first.
