Maryanne Oketch has a lot to celebrate!
After being crowned the winner of season 42 of last year, the 25-year-old reality TV star has even more happy news to share: Oketch announced on Friday that she is engaged to boyfriend Konner Howell.
In posts on both X (formerly known as Twitter) and Instagram, the Canadian seminary student shared photos of the big moment, including one snap capturing Howell down on one knee to propose. She also included a close-up look at her ring as well as a picture of the couple posing together outside.
“Goals in life: ✅ Win Survivor 👑 ✅ Get a man 💍,” Oketch joked in her caption.
“I am beyond THRILLED to enter this next chapter of life with you!” she added, addressing her fiancé, who shared Oketch’s post on his own X account, writing, “Love you.”
In an interview after the finale episode of her Survivor season aired in May 2022, Oketch revealed the surprising way she and Howell met. A big fan of the show, Howell messaged Oketch on social media not once but twice — and his persistence paid off.
“After the episode aired, there was someone who reached out to me. He reached out before kind of, but nothing happened. And after I confessed my love for skinny white guys, he reached out again,” Oketch recalled to Entertainment Weekly.
“He was more personable, so we got to chatting and then, you know, we basically started talking and we never stopped and he actually was here for the finale party. So he got to experience that with me,” she continued.
In a nod to their shared love of the show, Oketch posted a carousel of photos of her and Howell last year alongside a quote from Survivor: Cook Islands contestant Billy Garcia, who famously said he fell in love at first sight with fellow contestant Candice Cody.
“But my prize isn’t even the million dollars. My prize is… I fell in love in this game,” Oketch wrote, quoting Garcia.
Oketch also recounted to EW how it felt being the last one standing among her Survivor competitors. “There was pizza being shoved in my face, people were talking, and I just realized that I won, and honestly, coming to the game, I didn’t think I was gonna win,” she said. “So this was just a surreal thing. I wasn’t in the moment. It was just screaming in my head, [host] Jeff [Probst] was talking, people were talking. Like, I couldn’t tell you.”
She admitted she felt super emotional and a bit adrift after filming the show, especially since she had to keep her win under wraps until the season finished airing.
“At first it was hard because I’m like, ‘I just wanna tell everyone how I did! This is amazing.’ But the thing that I’m really actually thankful for is because I had to sit on it for 11 months. I really had time to go and reflect,” she explained.
“Like, when I came back from Survivor, I was an emotional wreck crying every day, just sleeping on the floor, just a mess having that time to reintegrate into regular life, and then also to see what’s next?” she continued. “Like, I finished this dream. This dream’s now done. What do I figure out in my life? And figuring out that there’s more in life than just Survivor was very helpful.”
As much as she loved her experience doing the show, Oketch said she’s not sure she’d be up for another round of it.
“I think that Survivor is something that’s so addicting. You always wanna play it. But I think right now for me, I don’t want Survivor to just be something cool, like a high in my life right now that I always look back onto because there’s so much,” she told EW. “I’m 24, I’m super young, and there are so many more highs that you can find in life.”
However, Oketch knows never to say never. “You know, five years, 10 years when there’s enough all-winners and Jeff kind of rings his phone. I’ll be like, ‘Jeff, yes. I’ll go to Fiji! Please, like put me in,’” she joked.
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