Reality Check: Jon Lovett 1st castaway voted off 'Survivor'

Woodbury-raised Syosset High School graduate Jon Lovett, a celebrity podcaster and former speechwriter for President Barack Obama, became the first castaway voted off “Survivor” season 47 last week — despite being what host Jeff Probst called “one of the greatest storytellers that we will ever have on” the show.

“I was really excited about the experience,” Lovett, 42, told Entertainment Weekly after the ouster, “and I thought a lot about different pieces of it,” saying it feels “less like: Oh, I blew the experience, or I let myself down in the experience” and more “that I didn't really fully get the experience. And that disappointment is the part that's important to me. And honestly, in terms of the unimportant public reaction, I've just been genuinely pleasantly surprised. I expected people to be a little bit harsher.”

He added, “I have truly no regrets about doing it. I'm really glad I did it. Even just the short time I had, it was a fascinating and rewarding experience. When you get voted out of ‘Survivor,’ you start figuring out the story you tell yourself about what happened, but that takes a beat.”

Broadway 'Bachelorette'

Joan Vassos, 61, inaugural star of the ABC dating competition “The Golden Bachelorette,” made a Broadway cameo Thursday in the long-running Disney musical “Aladdin” at the New Amsterdam Theatre.

“Congratulations on your one night only, surprise Broadway debut, @joan_vassos!” reads a post on the “Aladdin” Instagram account, posted jointly there and on Vassos’ individual account. She had appeared as the matchmaking Fortune Teller in a scene with Adi Roy (Aladdin) and Sonya Balsara (Jasmine). “May your heart’s wish come true in this season of @thegoldenbacheloretteabc!” the post continued.

An accompanying video of the curtain call shows Michael James Scott (Genie) holding a bouquet and asking Vassos, in Bachelor Nation fashion, if she would “accept these roses.” When she happily did so, Scott turned to the audience and shouted delightedly, “She said yes!”

The role has been played by Keisha Gilles since Jan. 25, 2022. Throughout the production, which opened March 20, 2014, after previews, the actor playing the Fortune Teller also plays the role of Attendant. ABC’s announcement about the cameo made no mention of Vassos in that other role.

Christopher N. Stallworth, a 64-year-old contractor from West Babylon, was not among the six bachelors eliminated on the “Golden Bachelorette” premiere.

Finale

Following last week’s climactic competition performance by the 10 finalists of NBC’s “America’s Got Talent” season 19 — singers Richard Goodall and Dee Dee Simon, dance troupes Airfootworks and Brent Street, comic Learnmore Jonasi, dog act Roni Sagi & Rhythm, synchronized-drone group Sky Elements, aerial act Sebastián & Sonia, illusionist Solange Kardinaly and acrobatic act Hakuna Matata Acrobats — one will be crowned winner in a two-hour episode starting Tuesday at 9 p.m. A recap hour will precede it.

Premieres

Hip-hop star and music industry mogul Snoop Dogg and singer Michael Bublé join returning coaches Reba McEntire and Gwen Stefani on season 26 of the NBC singing competition “The Voice,” Monday at 8 p.m. … Tuesday from 9 to 10:30 p.m. on Food Network, actor Tituss Burgess hosts the new “Last Bite Hotel,” in which eight chefs including New Yorker Aarthi Sampath compete at “a remote hotel” … In another culinary competition, there’s a new bunch of Brits on “The Great British Baking Show” season 12, early Friday on the streaming service Netflix. Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith return as judges and Noel Fielding and Alison Hammond are back as hosts … Sunday from 9 to 10:30 p.m., CBS gives a “sneak peak,” pun intended, of “The Summit,” a new endurance competition set in New Zealand, with 16 people, many of them with no climbing or camping experience, having to band together on a 14-day trek. The show enters its regular Wednesday time slot with a rerun on Oct. 2 and new episodes the following week … and at 10 p.m. on Food Network, it’s all-star star carvers only on season 5 of “Outrageous Pumpkins.”

Recap

Michael Leonard of Team Millennials won Fox’s MasterChef: Generations, the themed 14th season of the Gordon Ramsay home-chef competition.