“The White Lotus” creator Mike White really was on “Survivor,” as he mentioned in his acceptance speech after collecting his second Emmy during Monday night’s ceremony.
White, who won a directing and a writing Emmy for the HBO limited series, quipped “On ‘Survivor,’ the way to stay in the game is you lower your threat level, and now I feel like I’ve raised my threat level. … Don’t come for me, don’t vote me off the island, please!”
The actor/writer, who’s also known for playing Ned Schneebly in “School of Rock,” competed during Season 37 of the CBS reality show in 2018.
White also appeared in two seasons of “The Amazing Race” — in 2009 and 2011 — with his father, James Melville “Mel” White. He mentioned in his speech that his dad, who’s now 82, was “struggling,” although he didn’t add any more details.
The father-and-son duo were eliminated from “Amazing Race” in Japan after suffering hypothermia due to a challenge that forced them to spend hours in a pond at night clad only in a fundoshi (Japanese loincloth).
Mel White ghostwrote several books for evangelical figures including Billy Graham, Pat Robertson (and Jerry Falwell, before he came out as gay in 1994). He has since written extensively about the gay Christian community.
