Luke Toki, the man who – lets face it – should have won ‘Survivor’, has asked the organiser of a GoFundMe created to raise money for his family to disable the page after it raised $550,000.
“I feel like I have had a lot of emotions about this whole journey,” Toki told The Daily Telegraph. “My emotions have gone from super sad, to happy for what I did, and now I am excited for the future.”
“The last two days hasn’t just affected me, my wife is also struggling to comprehend what it means for us.”
“The whole trajectory of our life is changing and it is a weird one to process.”
Holy shit.
We did it.
$508K and rising. #survivorauhttps://t.co/DawgsHVT9W— Osher Günsberg (@oshergunsberg) September 18, 2019
Toki said he and his wife had asked for the fundraiser to be closed because they didn’t think it was fair to keep it going. The father of three also confirmed money that was over the $500,000 mark would be going back into the community.
For all of Toki’s time on ‘Survivor’ the mining technician was clear that he was entering the competition for his family. With two sons on the autism spectrum and a young daughter with cystic fibrosis, Toki never shied away from acknowledging how much winning the competition’s $500,000 prize would help his kids.
Never easy snuffing someone’s torch particularly @luketoki who I know really needed the money. You may not have won the title of Sole Survivor but you won our hearts. The People’s Champ, you are still The King Of The Jungle baby! 🤙 #kingofthejungle … https://t.co/iluf4eyrju pic.twitter.com/QKANom6bzh
— Jonathan LaPaglia (@JLa_Paglia) September 16, 2019
The self-professed “King of the jungle” Toki bowed out of the competition in fourth place. While an audience favourite, Toki’s magnetic personality and family backstory also created a conundrum for him on the show, as other contestants became united in the belief that none of them would be able to beat him if he was who they were up against in the Final 2.
Shortly after he was eliminated a GoFundMe was created to gather donations that would go towards helping Toki’s family. Only three hours after the episode over $35,000 had been raised. By the end of the week, that figure was well over half a million dollars.
“Us having less debt is going to help the kids,” he said. “I am not going to stop working, we won’t be flying to Fiji to live on a beach somewhere drinking Pina Colada’s. It is going to the future of my kids and the mortgage will be taking a massive hit.”
“It means we will be able to cover therapy for the kids and keep up with the medicine and just enrich their lives is the overall idea of it.”
