'Survivor' players break down 5 moments they wished aired on the show and 4 they're relieved didn't

"Survivor: Island of the Idols" player Lauren-Ashley Beck recalled spending time with Elaine Stott and laying in the hammock together, laughing and joking about celebrities they didn't know.

She said she wished sweet moments like that made it into the show more often to allow viewers to get to know the players better.

She said people want to see exchanges like Stott "asking me why Cardi B has 'bloody shoes,'" a reference to a lyric in the rapper's hit "Bodak Yellow."

Stott told Insider she also loved hanging out in the hammock with Beck and said they'd laugh until they cried.

She said she and Beck "had a really great bond" that she doesn't feel "got shown a lot."

When "Survivor: Caramoan" aired, three-time competitor Malcolm Freberg was surprised that a memorable prank was cut from the show.

He recalled when Eddie Fox and Reynold Toepfer stirred up trouble back at camp while Phillip Sheppard and other castaways were gone for a few hours after winning a reward.

"Eddie and Reynold decided they were going to make all the rice we had left," Freberg told Insider. "Well, Eddie had never made the rice before. He wasn't aware that you're not supposed to fill the entire pot with rice."

Freberg remembers rounding a corner at camp and seeing Eddie and Reynold struggling with an overflowing pot.

"It's only a few people at camp because half the tribe's away on reward and the rice is growing like a science experiment out of a pot," Freberg said. "And as this is happening and we're all kind of laughing, the boat comes back to bring everyone who was on the reward."

To cover up their friend's mistake, he said, they scrambled to hide the evidence by eating fistfuls of rice or hiding it in the surrounding woods before their fellow castaways returned.

"I think eventually they figured it out since so little rice was left after this incident," Freberg laughed. "No one ever coughed up to it, but we call it the great rice revolt."

Beck said the Vokai tribe bonded by singing throughout their season, and she thought "it was going to air for sure."

"Anytime the original Vokai won a challenge, we would sing," she said. "We were totally obnoxious."

On a day when everyone was expecting a rainstorm, Beck said, her tribe was excited to win a tarp in a challenge.

Beck remembers getting in "a big huddle" with her tribe and singing "it's going to rain on 'Survivor'" while they celebrated their challenge win.

"Every night on original Vokai, we always sang songs and we made original songs and they just never made it to the air," she said.

"I wish the audience could see the scenes off-camera," Stott told Insider. "I was almost bit in the face by a shark."

Beck, who was also on the beach that day, said Stott and Aaron Meredith walked out on the ocean shelf until they were a "football field out" and could fish near the drop-off where sharks were known to swim.

The next thing she knew, Beck said, she heard splashing and saw Meredith running towards her screaming about a shark while leaving Stott "to get eaten alive."

Stott luckily escaped unscathed, but Beck didn't seem surprised that her castmate had such a close call.

"At the end of the day, I feel like Elaine always seeks out the danger," Beck said. "She liked it."

Since they didn't get swimsuits on their season, several players on "'Survivor: Island of the Idols" wore underwear as makeshift swimsuit bottoms.

But Beck told Insider that she kept wearing pants in the water — even when it made challenges more difficult — because she struggled with confidence early on.

She said an inspiring encounter between her and castmate Jamal Shipman made a huge difference for her and she was disappointed when it didn't air.

Beck said she didn't feel "comfortable or confident" competing in just her underwear, but Shipman, who worked as a school-admissions counselor, reminded Beck that a lot of young girls would be watching their season from home and looking to her for inspiration.

"[Shipman] was like, 'There's a lot of young girls who are going to see you on here, who look just like you and are going to look up to you ... and I want you to feel comfortable and wear that for them,'" Beck told Insider. "And so from that day forward, I did."

"I thought they were going to show that, but what do they show? They show me saying that Elaine is not smart enough to have an idol," she added.

For more details on outfits, read 'Survivor' players reveal how the show chooses their only outfit and what it's like wearing it for up to 39 days.

Three-time player Andrea Boehlke said that her third return to the show for "Survivor: Game Changers" was more difficult than she expected, which led to a moment she was "so happy" to see cut.

She said she was struggling to open a coconut with a machete while she was surrounded by cameras. Boehlke said she was suddenly overwhelmed by the pressure of being unable to do something she'd done countless times before.

"I didn't want them to be showing me failing at opening up a coconut," she explained. "So I was starting to have a meltdown inside because I couldn't get this open. At one point I just lost it and I actually sprinted into the jungle."

Boehlke recalled crying while hiding from the cameras and peeking out from the grass to see if anyone had noticed her leaving camp.

"It was this moment where I thought, 'Did I actually lose it completely?" Boehlke told Insider, adding that she thought she might get kicked off the show for hiding from cameras.

When she returned to camp an hour later, she realized no one had seen her emotional exit. Instead, other players instead asked if she had been out looking for a hidden immunity idol.

"People thought I was being devious when really I was losing my mind," Boehlke added.

She said she later discovered that the coconut that had given her so much trouble was "old and hardened" and none of her fellow castaways could crack it either.

Freberg told Insider that he was glad to see one of his low moments cut from a food-auction episode of the show when he paid $100 for a cupcake.

During the auction, players got the chance to buy goodies, advantages, or mystery items that ranged from "a huge buffet" to "one french fry."

He said that he initially considered the cupcake "money well spent" but when he redeemed it he was disappointed by what the on-set chef had prepared.

"She put coconut shavings on my cupcake and all I'd eaten for a month was coconut," Freberg said. He said he didn't handle that well.

"I was actually kind of ashamed that I threw a little fit in front of this very sweet woman who I met later," Freberg said. "I made her feel awful for ruining my $100 cupcake."

Worse, he added, the chef had been on the show for a long time and this was her first time watching a challenge.

When watching his season back, "Survivor: David vs. Goliath" player Davie Rickenbacker was surprised to see how he was edited. Rickenbacker said he wasn't afraid to play up a "villainous type of person" but felt the editors chose a different path for him.

He recalled one day in particular when he and castmate Elizabeth Olson had a fight at camp. When the scene aired on television, he said, the moment was trimmed down to look less intense.

"We were talking about the beds with the bamboo and Elizabeth and I had a little disagreement," Rickenbacker said, adding it was more of an "argument" where they "went back and forth."

He said he wasn't sure if the editors made him and Olson look better because "Survivor" is a "family show" or if they were fine-tuning his character. Either way, he was relieved to see it cut down for television.

"Looking back at it, CBS really did me a favor in a lot of ways compared to some of the other castaways who have gone through this game," Rickenbacker said.

Rickenbacker said he was shocked when "Survivor" didn't air what he said when voting out his "David vs. Goliath" competitor Dan Rengering, who is a cop.

"In my voting confessional, when I voted out Dan, I was like, 'F--- the police,'" Rickenbacker told Insider.

Although he said he doesn't regret saying it now — especially amid recent police-brutality protests — he is glad producers dropped that soundbite from the edit.

"I'm so happy they didn't air that because that might have started a race war back then," said Rickenbacker, who competed on the show in 2018. He said he suspects they did so because they wanted to "paint me as a nice guy."

In the years since, Rickenbacker has used his "Survivor" fame to advocate for equality and raise money for the NAACP through virtual cast reunions.

Representatives for CBS did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

Follow along with our series of interviews to see what else the former players revealed to Insider.