Survivor castaway Ben Katzman has opened up about the night terrors fans watched him suffer through most nights of filming the show's 46th season and how they've returned post-game.

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"I had a tough time at the end of August. A lot of the jury didn't talk to me. I did have my friends from pre-merge," Ben, 31, told Us Weekly following the Survivor 46 finale.

"I did have [Liz Wilcox,] I did have [Charlie Davis,] but it was really hard to go through and feel like nobody gave me a chance to tell my story after suffering so hard."

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Survivor 46's third-place finisher was candid about his panic attacks, most of which appeared to happen in the middle of the night and early morning hours, while he played Survivor in Fiji.

Survivor footage caught winner Kenzie Petty comforting and supporting Ben in the dark during difficult times, and Charlie often stepped in to help his best buddy. Liz, who memorably had an emotional meltdown over missing out on an Applebee's Reward, was also there to lend a helping hand.

While Ben certainly wasn't alone on the beach, he told the magazine that he sometimes tried to conquer his mental health issues on his own.

"I went to the beach by myself so I wouldn't be a burden on people," Ben explained.

Ben shared how thinking about his family and friends back home gave him the strength to forge on and continue competing for the title of "Sole Survivor" and the $1 million prize.

"And I would sit there and sing my songs to myself and sing some Oasis lyrics, 'Got to be yourself, can't be no one else,'" he added. "And I was just proud of myself."

However, Ben revealed that his night terrors didn't subside once he returned home from filming in Fall 2023.

"My night terrors started coming back at the end of August [2023] for a couple months while [Season] 45 was airing," Ben confessed.

"And I was like, 'Here's another test. How am I going to manage whatever this is going to look like?' And in that time, that's when some real friendships came together."

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During that time, Ben said his bandmates would "sleep over" his place to make sure that he'd get through any episode or attack.

"People would check on me and it was like, they loved me," Ben recalled. "And it was like, I really felt it."

Ben also said his friendships with fellow Survivor 46 castaways became stronger after the show.

Ben gushed about how he grew "super close" to Jess Chong, Jem Hussain-Adams, David Jelinsky, and Venus Vafa. Ben and Q Burdette, who feuded on the island, also bonded in the real world.

"It's helped heal some of that stuff. I'm always down to try and have a hard convo and move past things," he told the magazine. "I'm in a good place now. But it was really rough for a minute."

In a separate interview with Entertainment Weekly, Ben admitted he had his "worst night terror" on Day 25 of the game, right before the Final Tribal Council.

"I went down to the beach to be by myself and Charlie said something like, 'Frodo carried the ring to the top of Mount Doom, but he couldn't make it all the way. So Sam carried Frodo, and I'm going to carry Ben.' And he threw me on his shoulder and marched me back up the stairs," Ben recalled.

"Me and him talk about that moment all the time. And that's no disrespect -- Kenzie too, she was also there for me. We vibed super-hard, but that bromance was really downplayed [on the show]."

As for what's next for Ben, he said he's "touring all the time" and is "working very hard" to get his driver's license.

During Survivor 46's Final Tribal Council on Night 26 of the game, five jury members voted for Kenzie to win the game, and three jury members voted for Charlie to be crowned the "Sole Survivor."

Maria Shrime Gonzalez shockingly voted for Kenzie over Charlie, who had been her closest ally throughout the entire game. Maria has since defended her controversial jury vote.

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Ben received zero jury votes to win, and he admitted to EW that he thought the jury was very "bitter" and didn't care to hear what he had to say during the jury questioning.


About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski

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