Australian Survivor: Former contestant reveals how much they get paid per day

Australian Survivor’s the toughest reality show to appear on, and you don’t get paid much for your efforts, a contestant’s revealed.

A former Australian Survivor star has revealed how much the reality contestants get paid per day, and it’s not a lot.

Whereas Married At First Sight stars pocket $150 a day to go on dates and attend dinner parties, Survivor contestants get much less to battle it out in the harsh conditions.

“We only get paid $90 a day,” season 3 competitor Lee Carseldine told Mamamia.

“So apart from trying to win it (and take home $500,000) you aren’t doing it for the money. It’s a whole lot of hurt for not a lot gained if you don’t win.”

Elena Rowland and Lee Carseldine on Australian Survivor Australia. Picture: Nigel Wright. Ten

Make no mistake, appearing on Survivor is no picnic. According to Carseldine, it’s almost impossible to get a decent night’s sleep during filming, which can last for up to 50 days if you don’t get voted out.

“The nights … they’re long, uncomfortable, cold, wet and miserable,” he told Mamamia. “Spooning is very important.”

Not only are the contestants sleep-deprived, but they’re also starving

“We are given rations of rice and beans which equates to two small bowls of rice a day (so you don’t die), but the rest you catch or gather yourself,” Carseldine said.

The current season of Australian Survivor was filmed in Fiji, and contestant Janine

Allis recently told 10 Daily they lived on a diet of coconut that had some nasty ramifications.

Survivor contestant Janine Allis.

“I mean, look, coconut gives you diarrhoea if you eat too much of it, so I think all of us dealt with that the whole time,” she said.

Food is so scarce that model Sam Schoers, who was booted from the show in Monday night’s episode, lost 8kg during her 16 days on the show.

“The starvation was real,” she told news.com.au. “It’s such a unique place to be in where you just don’t have access to food.”

So the contestants are sleep-deprived, starving, and they all smell, according to Carseldine.

“Yeah, no toothbrush, no hygiene, they don’t really give you anything for hygiene, you just stink,” he told Mamamia.

The smell isn’t helped by the fact the contestants don’t get to wash their clothes at all, and they’re forced to wear the same outfit for the first few days.

“You arrive with your day one outfit and after four or five days you have another five approved pieces of clothing that are given to you,” Carseldine said.

Model Sam Schoers raised eyebrows earlier this season with her choice of outfit — a very skimpy bikini. But as she explained to news.com.au, there was a “method to the madness”.

“Firstly, I don’t know why there was ‘uproar’; they were actually just bathers. There were plenty of other people in bathers … some of the boys were in their underwear!” she said.

Sam Schoers on Australian Survivor.

“But I got those bathers in particular on purpose. The sides were adjustable on the bottom, so I could tighten them up, and I took the top to be altered and got it completely reinforced. And it helped, because I lost eight kilos throughout my experience and I needed them to be extra tight; I needed them to be comfortable,” Schoers revealed.

Australian Survivor: Champions V Contenders continues Sunday at 7.30pm on Channel 10