PARVATI SHALLOW All She Does Is Win

Once upon a time, Parvati Shallow was the reality star everyone loved to hate. After her first appearance on Survivor in 2006, she was slut-shamed for the way she played the game. “I was unapologetically using flirtation as a strategy, and that was not OK in the early 2000s,” she says.

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That didn’t stop her: Shallow, 42, went on to win season 16, compete in two additional seasons (along with Traitors and Deal or No Deal Island), and she'll appear on Australian Survivor later this year. Oh, and she became a fan favorite along the way. Ahead of the July 8 release of her new memoir, Nice Girls Don’t Win: How I Burned It All Down to Claim My Power, she shares her origin story with Us.

You write about how being raised in a cult-like commune in Florida prepared you for competition shows.

My early childhood set me up for success on