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The tension is ratcheting up on Naked and Afraid: Last One Standing. The Discovery Channel survival reality series pits 12 of the top competitors from past seasons of the show against each other. At stake? A $100,000 grand prize. 

With some serious cash at stake and a whole new set of rules governing the game, this is a Naked and Afraid experience like no other. While most players have banded together to increase their odds of survival, at least in the early stages of the game, one participant has enthusiastically embraced the “last one standing” aspect of the contest. Jeff Zausch has made it clear from day one that his goal is to triumph over the other players, whatever it takes. If that means hoarding resources and refusing to share, so be it. 

“The war has officially started!” Jeff wrote in reply to a comment on his Facebook page on June 11. 

Jeff is ostracized by the other players in ‘Naked and Afraid: Last One Standing’ 

'Naked and Afraid: Last One Standing' contestants Stacey, Jeff, Dan, Cheeny, Gwen looking at a map
Stacey, Jeff, Dan, Cheeny, Gwen, and Matt in ‘Naked and Afraid: Last One Standing’ | Discovery Channel

Unsurprisingly, Jeff’s take-no-prisoners strategy hasn’t gone over well with the rest of the cast. Things reached a boiling point in the show’s June 11 episode, when the remaining eight players – who’d previously been working in pairs – split into two teams. Over the next 11 days, the four-person teams will have to work together to complete challenges and survive. Jeff is teamed with Cheeny Plante, Sarah Bartell, and Gary Golding. They don’t bother to hide how not thrilled they are to have work with him. Sarah and Gary also wrestle with whether to stick to the larger group’s decision not to share food with Jeff. To further complicate matters, Jeff suffers not one but two injuries (a cut hand and a burned foot), putting him at a further disadvantage. 

At the end of the episode, both teams come together for a heated meeting with Jeff. He accuses them of bullying him. They respond by calling him a narcissist and pointing out that they’re only playing by the same rules he’s been following himself. 

Jeff admits he might have made a mistake by alienating potential allies early in the game.

“I feel like my strategy has put me in a precarious position,” he says in a confessional segment.  

“I see Jeff thinking he’s playing the long game, but he’s not,” his teammate Gary says. 

Steven Lee Hall, Jr., who was teamed with Jeff on previous Naked and Afraid challenges and counts him as a friend, is disappointed in his behavior. “Last one standing has brought out the worse in him,” he says.

Will Jeff win the $100,000 prize?

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Will Jeff’s injuries and the ill will he’s generated in the group sink his chances of winning the grand prize? We’ll have to wait and see. But it would probably be a mistake to count Jeff out. Being ostracised by the others may only make him more determined to win than ever. His comments on social media suggest there’s plenty of drama to come. 

“The next 2 weeks are fire!” he wrote on Facebook. 

And in a reply to one of his Instagram followers on June 11, Jeff assured his fans he was in it to win it.  

“I promise I am going to fight for it like I haven’t fought for anything in my life,” he wrote.  

New episodes of Naked and Afraid: Last One Standing air Sundays at 8 p.m. ET on Discovery Channel.

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