Survivor Contestant Keith Nale, who appeared on Survivor: San Juan del Sur and Survivor: Cambodia, has died.
Family members told ET Online that the Survivor contestant Keith Nale, 62, passed away Tuesday afternoon in Shreveport, Louisiana. His son Wes, who also participated in Survivor: San Juan del Sur, said, “He’d been battling cancer for the past few months and we found out about it in January.”
Firefighter Nale, who became a fan-favorite, was never a core member of a long-term alliance, but did make it all the way to the final four of 2014’s Survivor: San Juan del Sur thanks to his skill in Immunity Challenges, ET noted. He was voted out a day before the Final Tribal Council and later returned for Survivor: Cambodia in 2015.
Following his fourth-place exit from Survivor: San Juan del Sur, Nale told Uproxx, “You”re so close you can see it, you know what I mean. I want to say, ‘Well heck, I’d rather come in 10th than fourth or I’d rather come in 15th than fourth,’ but not really. You just feel like that at the moment.”
He also said his firefighter colleagues had been encouraging and “impressed” given he was 53 at the time. “Now granted that’s not 93, but that’s not 23 either.”
When Nale returned for season 31, he said during an episode, “When do you get a second chance for something crazy like this?”
Jeremy Collins, who won that season, tweeted his condolences:
“My condolences to the Big D, Wes, Austin and entire Nale family. You will be missed Keith but your legacy will live on. Rest in power my firefighter/survivor brother. #RIPOtis“
Another former contestant, Kelley Wentworth, shared a video of Nale driving she and others across the beach and called it her “favorite Survivor reward challenge… Keith Nale took us all away from the game for a short time, and this brief moment of ‘normal’ was unforgettable.”
She called Nale “a man with the purest heart, who brought humor into moments where it was needed most.”