Why was Mike White chosen to return for Survivor 50? Jeff Probst revealed the reason why they ultimately went with him as one of the returning reality contestants.

If you didn’t know, The White Lotus creator was the runner-up on the 37th season of Survivor in 2018. Last year, it was announced that he will be returning as a contestant on the upcoming 50th season of the reality competition show, which debuts tonight.

In an interview, longtime host Jeff revealed that Mike‘s casting on Survivor 50 was due to the producer’s persistence.

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“Mike, after he finished playing, said, ‘I want to play again,’ and that was before White Lotus. Then White Lotus hit and I thought, ‘Well, he’ll never play again.’ But he kept texting and saying, ‘Look, I’m serious, if you ever do anything where you have returning players, I want to play again.’ So we’re happy to have Mike back,” Jeff told CBS.

Mike also weighed in, telling EW , “I feel like Survivor is now a part of my life and I’m friends with Jeff, I’m friends with the production, I’m friends with contestants, and this is a huge milestone for the show for all of them and for the culture. And I feel like it was kind of an exclusive invite that I don’t want to miss. And it happened to just coincide with…. I mean, almost literally any other time in the last five years if this had happened, I would not have been able to do it. And it just happened that this season [of The White Lotus] was over and I don’t start scouting until July. So it just slid in. And so when they mentioned when the dates were, I was like, I actually think maybe I could do that.”

Mike will be back filming The White Lotus season four in just a few weeks.

Find out the other contestants that are participating in Survivor 50.