Michele Fitzgerald isn’t sure if she wants to return to her “Survivor” roots.
Fitzgerald won Season 32 and came in third place on Season 40 of the CBS competition reality show.
But she’s since appeared on multiple seasons of MTV’s “The Challenge,” including “Battle of the Eras” which premiered this week.
During an exclusive interview with The Post, Fitzgerald admitted she’s hesitant to go back on “Survivor” for Season 50, which is set to film next year with all-returning players.
“I did 40 for survivor. I came in third on that and I’ve never been voted out,” she said.
“And so I’m a little scared to go back and maybe ruin my legacy,” Fitzgerald added. “But how could you say no to any iconic season?”
She continued, “But I’m so ‘The Challenge’ now that it would be hard to pivot back to the ‘Survivor’ mindset. This arm by blood runs ‘Survivor.’ This arm my blood runs ‘The Challenge.’ No pressure.”
Fitzgerald won the $1 million prize on 2016’s “Survivor: Kaoh Rong.” She returned to the show four years later for 2020’s “Survivor: Winners at War,” where made it to the Final Tribal Council again but lost in the jury vote to runner-up Natalie Anderson and winner Tony Vlachos.
In April, host and showrunner Jeff Probst confirmed that the cast of “Survivor” Season 50 (which will film in 2025 and air in early 2026) will be all past players.
“I just got an idea,” said Probst, 62, to the audience at Q&A event in Los Angeles. “’Survivor 50′ is coming down the corner. The truth is, we really do focus on 47 and 48, that’s what we’re heading out to shoot next, and then we have to shoot 49.”
“In the spirit of, sometimes letting the game be in the hands of the fans, I feel like — and there are a couple of people from CBS right now going ‘Oh my God, what is happening?’ — I feel like we should just commit and make this the moment where we decide that ‘Survivor 50’ will be retuning players,” Probst declared. “I don’t know what is going to happen after this, but I’m pretty sure we’re committed.”
Fitzgerald is lukewarm about returning to “Survivor,” but she’s thrilled to be on “The Challenge.” Season 40, which premiered Wednesday night, pits four “Eras” — Fitzgerald being a member of “Era IV” — against each other in the biggest showdown in the show’s history.”
“That’s the interesting part of this season is that we have four eras,” Fitzgerald told The Post. “All of them bring something very different to the table, and all of them change the game in certain ways.”
“The OGs come in and they’re playful and fun, and they kind of created the path for us,” she continued. “And then Era IV comes in and we’re definitely the most rambunctious group. There’s a lot of big personalities in general in every single era. And so it’s definitely a fun dynamic.”
Fitzgerald also said she came into “Battle of the Eras” wanting to make the original stars of the show “proud.”
“We’re the freshmen coming in and we do tip our caps to them. “We really admire the older generations that have have brought us here. And we want them to be proud of us. And they’re like, ‘Not yet. You need a few more years of emotional trauma.’ “
