The newly crowned champions reveal everything that went into that big (game- winning?) decision.

Outlast: The Jungle winners explain controversial finale move

The newly crowned champions reveal everything that went into that big (game- winning?) decision.

By Dalton Ross

Dalton Ross is a writer and editor with over 25 years experience covering TV and the entertainment industry. *Survivor* is kind of his thing.

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June 18, 2026 7:00 a.m. ET

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'Outlast: The Jungle' cast. Credit:

- *Outlast: The Jungle* winners Nikki Hru and Maddy Jones delve into their winning game, and the last-minute decision to drop Leiya Pilliterri from the team.

- Nikki and Maddy explain why they have not spoken with Leiya since filming.

- The dynamic duo also answer if they would have also voted Ben Orndorff off of Alpha had he not been removed by another team.

They made a suspect decision just minutes into the game, choosing hunting equipment over fire, but it was a final painful decision made just hours before the game’s end that may have turned Nikki Hru and Maddy Jones from *Outlast: The Jungle* contestants into *Outlast: The Jungle* champions.

Halfway through a two-day hike to determine the million-dollar winners, Nikki and Maddy decided to kick Leiya Pilliterri — who has having trouble keeping up with the pair, costing the group valuable time — off of team Alpha. That meant Leiya — who also struggled making fire in part one of the final competition — would not share in the million-dollar prize, which Nikki and Maddy then proceeded to win when they outraced team Bravo to the final buried chest.

It was the end to a topsy-turvy season, in which the winning pair had watched two Alpha teammates (Dave Cecchii and Halle Cooley) quit, and another one (Ben Orndorff) be forced out of the game by team Charlie. Meanwhile, Leiya had defected from Charlie *onto *their team, bringing her previous group’s boat with her.

How were Nikki and Maddy able to outlast the competition? Do they think they would have won had they kept Leiya on the team? And have they heard from her since? We asked the winning pair all that and much more.

Ben Orndorff, Maddy Jones, and Nikki Hru on 'Outlast: The Jungle'.

** First off, do you have your money yet?**

**MADDY JONES:** No. [Laughs]

**NIKKI HRU:** No. The whole show has to come out first. Incentive for us not to spoil anything. [Laughs]

**Tell me about the big decision to cut Leiya loose the night before you won a million dollars.**

**NIKKI:** I felt a lot of loyalty to Maddy, and there was a lot in me that was like: Maddy's my teammate, Maddy has sat and suffered through all of this with me. We never had a solid roof over our heads. We sat through rainstorms and protected our fire together.

It was this constant battle where she had my back the entire time, and it wasn't a question of whether or not I was willing to split a million dollars with Leiya. It was a question of whether or not I was willing to lose it for Maddy. I didn't feel like Leiya could keep up, and I wasn't willing to make that sacrifice for myself or for Maddy after everything we'd gone through.

**MADDY: **For me, it was a big hit when we asked Leiya if she thinks she can do this again tomorrow after we see how much she has struggled on day one, and she can't tell me yes. Nikki and I have kind of been both very dominant women on team Alpha, and we have a mutual respect for each other and I feel like I owed it to myself and I owed it to Nikki to just make the best decision for a team as a whole.

There was never any greed or selfishness in it. I would rather be on a winning team of three than a losing team of two. It wasn't about, "Oh, if we kick her off, we can get more money." I mean, does everybody want more money? Sure. Is that a driving factor for a lot of people? Sure. But that was not what made our decision. And I think that's why we were both really struggling to make the decision: because we didn't want it to look like we were just, like, "Okay, thanks for helping us get this for Leiya. Beat it.” Ultimately, I truly just believed that she didn't have it in her to make it the last trek, and I wasn't willing to make it this far just to make it this far if I didn't feel like she was on the same playing field as us.

Leiya Pillitteri, Nikki Hru, Maddy Jones on 'Outlast: The Jungle'.

**Have you had any communication with Leiya since filming?**

**MADDY:** I have not. Have you, Nikki?

**NIKKI**: I have not. I would love to.

**MADDY:** I would love to, because there's no hard feelings, but I truly feel like if the roles had been reversed, I probably would feel slighted by us, I'm just trying to give her space. If she wants to reach out, I hope she knows there's no hard feelings, and I wish her the best, and I have the utmost respect for her and the game, because she did make it that far and to make it that far without giving up says a lot.

But I think Nikki and I had really prepared to make it that far. And so when the time came to kick into our last energy reserve and really light a fire under your ass… like, we were ready to do it. And I don't think Leiya was ready for that. I just felt like she was running out of energy, and this this wasn't the time.

**NIKKI:** I completely agree. And I think that there is this deep-rooted respect for everyone who made it. I mean, anyone who did it, period. I respect Mary, right? Anyone who is willing to put themselves in a position where you are going to get hurt, you're going to starve, you're going to be malnourished, blah, blah, blah, blah.

But to make it as far as we all did, especially with the social conditions that Leiya made it in, I have so much respect for her. I think that she is such a cool, incredibly competent person. I just think it hit a wall that she wasn't able to climb over with us, and I wasn't gonna get stuck on the other side of the wall.

**You guys were operating at a different speed than she was. You all were just driving in different gears.**

**NIKKI:** Yeah, she called us intense, and I was like, "Well, I wanna win!"

Leiya Pillitteri, Nikki Hru on 'Outlast: The Jungle'.

**Had she not gotten her shoes back before the hike, would you have cut her right then and there?**

**MADDY:** That was never the plan. I remember Nikki was cutting up a foam buoy to try to make her shoes. I don't like to be backed up against a wall, like with Bravo, how Morgan and Abby were like, "Give us what we want, or we're taking the shoes." At that point, I'd already made up my mind: "I don't care about the shoes. You're not gonna hold that over my head. We'll figure it out."

It never crossed our mind, like, "Oh, if she doesn't have shoes, she can't do this. " Looking back at it now, she could have *never* done it without shoes. We struggled to do it *with* shoes. So I don't really know what I was thinking in that moment. I just had so much faith that we were gonna do it together regardless, and we were gonna do whatever it takes, but we weren't thinking in terms of, *We'll have to cut her without shoes.* We were just gonna figure it out one way or another.

**NIKKI:** I don't know if you remember this, Maddy, but when they tried to hold the shoes over our head and be like, "Okay, well, give us this, and we'll give you that" — you were like “We will carry her. We will put her on our back." And I really do think that was our mentality.

In hindsight, we're not gonna carry her, but I don't think either of us were willing to knock someone down for something that wasn't in their control. And it's not in her control that someone else tried to screw her over and steal her shoes. If she can dig into herself and push through, we were completely on board with her finishing with us and going through this race and doing everything.

We were giving her our extra socks. We were trying to stuff them with things to try and make it so she can walk without getting anything stuck in her. We were really dedicated to the idea of figuring it out. We really saw her as a part of the team pretty immediately. It was just when it's in your control whether or not you find what's in you, right? Whether or not you can dig deep and drive forward. She wasn't driving.

Nikki Hru on 'Outlast: The Jungle'.

**Here’s the million-dollar question: You saw what the time difference was between you and Bravo at the end. If Leiya was with you on day 2 of that race, do you still finish first?**

**NIKKI:** That's so hard.

**MADDY:** I don't know. I'd say it would have been a lot closer had we had continued to wait on Leiya. But I don't know for sure, because Nikki and I were screaming at her for a lot of it and dragging her for a walk. So we may have eventually just been like, "Let's just carry her.” I don't know.

**NIKKI:** Especially once we get to the boat and the untying of the knots and everything, I can't see what she would be doing. She would just be sitting there.

**MADDY:** And that was kind of a two-man job.

**NIKKI:** Yeah. Like in the boat, three paddles doesn't really make sense. She maybe would be a coxswain just saying “Row!” but I think she would just add weight to the boat and then stand there as we untied knots. So I don't know how she would have increased our time in any way.

Nikki Hru on 'Outlast: The Jungle'.

**You all looked pretty disappointed in terms of how she performed in the fire in the first part of that competition.**

**NIKKI:** That's the first time I started questioning the things she was saying.

**MADDY:** I sensed a lack of confidence from her and a need to prove herself. In Alpha Camp, I felt like everybody in our camp really carried their weight. We were taking turns foraging every day, we were fishing, we were doing everything we could. I was like, "I have a team here, and this is what a team is for. One of us will be able to bring this to the table, and the others will be able to bring other things to the table."

I don't discount her at all for struggling with that, because I can't say that I wouldn't struggle with that either, but I definitely felt like she sold herself on, "This is what I'm gonna bring to the table." And so when you do that, people look to you for, like, "Okay, you're our guy." And I think that's where we would just start to doubt her, and and you can tell she's already doubting herself.

It's a mental game just as much as it is a physical game. And if you came to me and said, "Hey, I have no idea how to make a fire, and this is not my strong suit," I would be like, "Okay, we're all gonna figure this out together." But when you come to us saying, "I've had months of training on this, I can do this, this is my thing, let me take over this portion,” and we give it to you, we're looking to you for results."

**NIKKI:** Yeah, I think we would've prepared differently if she had been more realistic about her level of skills with fire-starting. And I think that was what was disappointing was our experience was everyone showing up, and it was exchanging of skills. It was working until we got it right. It's this very can-do attitude that I think turned out to be missing, and she presented herself as having it. And I think that's what was disappointing.

Nikki Hru, Halle Cooley, Maddy Jones on 'Outlast: The Jungle'.

**Nikki, you're sitting there during the fire-making and you're having to calm her down and tell her to breathe and stop looking at the other team.**

**MADDY:** I think the mental strength to keep it together under pressure was crushing her. And Nikki and I were very much like, "We gotta win this. We gotta do this." And when you see one person on your team starting to crack, that self-doubt can be contagious, you know?

**NIKKI:** I definitely felt it after the fire and bow and arrow. Even though we didn't lose, it felt like a loss. It felt way too close for comfort, and I don't think it was because we weren't first. I think it was because of how it happened. Having this breakdown of confidence and self-belief, I think it did permeate into self-doubt in the team. And that was difficult because I do remember Maddy and I needing to talk about it a little bit and being like, "We got this.”

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**How much panic set in when you lost the key at the very end?**

**MADDY:** My husband is super ADHD and always losing my keys, so I'm the type of person where I'm like, "Do you have your wallet? Do you have your phone? Do you have your keys?" And I remember all night that night when we had to sleep on the ground in the jungle, I clenched the key all night because I was like, "A monkey is gonna come down here and steal this box from us." [Laughs]

So I was like, "I'm gonna do whatever I have to do. I'm gonna swallow it!" And so then when the key left my sight, I just had a wave of anxiety because you put a little bit of sand over it, you'll never find it. And so that was the all-time high of my anxiety on the game, I think.

**NIKKI: **I think something turned off in my brain in terms of anxiety, because I immediately went into Florida-mode because growing up on the beach, we lose stuff in the sand all the time. I immediately was just like, "Okay, I'm gonna spread out and swim through this.” And then it was just under the thing.

**MADDY:** Had five more minutes went by and we wouldn't have found the key, we were gonna pick up the chest and just smash it on a tree. We were we're getting in there somehow.

**NIKKI:** We were like, "We'll just smash it. It's fine." It's not an option at this point to not get in there.

Maddy Jones on 'Outlast: The Jungle'.

**Had Ben not been forced to leave your team, do you think you would have at some point voted him off?**

**MADDY:** Personally, I think it was a matter of time. Was it crossing my mind in that moment? No. Being a team of two is vulnerable. But I think with Ben, you can see him starting to give up. Like, when he does the boat race and Halle's out there busting her ass trying and barely getting through the waves, wasting all her energy, and Ben's not doing anything?

And so I think that that energy, I know it was driving Nikki insane, because at no point did she ever lose her grit, and when everybody else would get tired, she would fire them back up.  And I think Ben, he was starting to lose his grit, and he was slowly kind of just like, "Whatever happens, happens. If we lose, we lose."

His negative energy was starting to take over. So I don't think in that moment we were ever thinking, *Oh, we need to vote Ben off*, because being a team of three feels a lot safer than being a team of two. But it was gonna come to a point where Nikki and I... I don't think we would have won with Ben on our team. I'll say that.

**NIKKI:** I experienced pretty early that I would give ideas or thoughts that we should do and Ben would shut them down. And we were trying to be a very unanimous team. We wanted to make moves that everyone agreed on, but when you wait for the entire group to agree, then you become victim to whoever is the most disagreeable, and that was wearing on me pretty early.

I think one of the breaking points for me where I first thought about voting him off was the boat situation with Leiya. When we were like all like, "Let's bring Leiya  on. Let's get this boat," he was, "No." And then there's a boat challenge! [Laughs]

None of us wanted to vote anyone off. We all had talked about it at the beginning that we all wanted to get through to the end together. We wanted to be a team that stuck it through and tried to be a family as much as we could, especially in those circumstances. I know we all wanted to have each other's backs, but that was the first time it slipped into my head that I was like, *This doesn't feel like the right energy to have for the wellbeing of the team.* And I think exactly what Maddy said: It was a matter of time before we got worn down to that point.

Maddy Jones, Nikki Hru, Dave Cecchini, Halle Cooley, and Ben Orndorff on 'Outlast: The Jungle'.

**What have you learned about the other teams watching the season play back on TV, since you didn't have eyes on them out there?**

**MADDY:** They were chaotic! [Laughs] They don't show much from the day-to-day activities in Alpha camp. And I think it's because we were all so chill. We were not as entertaining as everybody else. We were just surviving. We would just go check our shrimp trap, we were giving each other foot massages, we were doing yoga, we were out there sunbathing. It wasn't as entertaining.

But when I look at these other teams, I really had no idea how dysfunctional everybody else was, and that would have wrecked me. I truly felt really bad for Leiya because the survival aspect of it is so hard. It’s the epitome of the limits you could push yourself to, right? And to do all that and then also have the mental and emotional draining of people who you're not vibing with, that would wear you down really fast. And so I was like: *Wow, I have no idea how she made it this long in an environment like that.*

Dave Cecchini, Ben Orndorff, Nikki Hru, Maddy Jones, and Halle Cooley on 'Outlast: The Jungle'.

**What are you guys gonna do with the money once you finally *do* get it?**

**NIKKI:** This is gonna sound so silly, but the first thing I'm buying is a really good mermaid tail, because it has been on my wish list since I was five, and I want one that I can swim in so I can free dive with a mermaid tail. I think that, otherwise, I will be responsible with it. I am happy my life can kind of be settled and I can be back to the trajectory I was on prior to some hardships. So that's great. But the fun answer is a mermaid tail.

**MADDY:**  I don't have anything that exciting, but I have always said I really have everything I could ever want in life. I live on a farm. My husband and I travel for work. We do what we love. I really couldn't ask for a whole lot else. So, I'll probably buy some nice things for myself. I'll upgrade my house or maybe my car or some nice things.

But something that was really important to my husband and I is to help some of his family and friends in the Philippines. His mother has extended efforts to have a water treatment facility in the Philippines to help supply safe and healthy drinking water for them. So my goal is to start a nonprofit to help fund that project.

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