He had a 1-in-5 shot at $4.56M. KC-area man talks controversial Squid Game exit
Having slogged through days of high-pressure competition and social gaming, Trinity Parriman, Player 398, had $4.56 million within reach.
Just two more children’s games and four other competitors stood between him and the ultimate prize at the end of the second season of Netflix’s reality streaming show Squid Game: The Challenge. Over the course of two-and-a-half weeks of filming on a set in London, Parriman, of Liberty, had navigated his way through a series of brutal eliminations, all under the watchful gaze of an array of cameras and production staff.
The field of competitors had narrowed from 456 to just five. He had made it to the season’s finale.
“It’s gonna be hard winning,” he said in an interview in the episode. “I know that sounds dumb, but it’s going to be really hard winning, because you’re gonna develop these friendships and develop these connections, and you’re gonna want them to win, you know what I mean? So, if I get far in this game, it’s gonna suck because you know I have to take out 455 people so I can be the one to win.”
The penultimate game of the season, designed to eliminate one more player through a chain of one-on-one, 50-50 bluffing exercises, began to churn. Parriman paused for a few beats and wrestled with the moment.
With tears in his eyes, he flipped the game on its head and chose to play his way, to eliminate himself from the game and offer the other players a free path forward.
“I’m doing this because I love each one of your stories,” he told the other players in the episode. “I legit do. And I’d rather one of you guys win it instead of me. I’m not trying to do this for show or anything. I talk about it all the time, I hate having to keep eliminating people. And the closer I got with each one of ya’ll, it just breaks my heart, so I cannot do it.”
He pointed to another of the players, a single mother, and referenced his own youth growing up as a child of a single mother. He had grown close with another player who worked in the fishing industry and hoped to buy a boat.
In an interview with The Star, Parriman, a Christian, said he did what he felt God was calling him to do in that moment. He felt he had to be obedient, he said.
“I know it wasn’t my path for right now,” he said, a year out from filming the show in January 2025. “Things will come, I’m not really worried about it.”
After the finale was released in November, Parriman’s self-elimination split fans. Some hailed the moment: He’d had the chance to share his testimony in front of a large audience. Others slammed the choice.
“Bro just gave the middle finger to 451 players who would’ve loved to be in (his) position,” one viewer wrote on Reddit.
Parriman has laughed off angry messages he has received on social media from disappointed viewers. Sometimes he’ll rib them back.
“The people who are upset, they’re never going to understand,” he said.
“Even now, when I’m living paycheck to paycheck, that’s literally all I got,” he said of his faith. “All I can do is work my hardest, have faith and trust that God will get me through.”
‘A great problem to have’
The show, modeled after the South Korean dystopian drama of the same name, features simple, yet agonizing children’s games designed to force tough decisions, tight competition and emotional eliminations. Players live in a large dormitory, get to know each other and then play to send each other home.
“You see 456 people just walking around, you’re like, ‘There’s no way I’m going to get far,’” Parriman said. “Me, I thought I was going to be out the first day and be back home in three days.”
But gradually, the end goal seemed a little more doable as swaths of players were eliminated. Soon Parriman found himself close to the finish line. Before the end, he had achieved his three goals: sleep in the show’s dormitory, get a confessional-style interview and make it into the top 50.
Parriman has applied to be on several reality shows over the years, including Survivor, Big Brother, American Idol and The Voice. He finally got his chance with the Squid Game show and made his mark.
As he works at a local fast food restaurant, Parriman is seeing what he might do with a newfound social media following and is investing in a local nonprofit he founded, Recharge Missions, which gives underprivileged kids in Kansas City a chance to make music. Parriman hopes to expand the programming his group can offer youths with more experiences in the arts, like painting, photography and videography, and wants to find a building with space for performances and studios.
After someone at Guitar Center saw Parriman’s appearance on the show, the company’s foundation sent $15,000 worth of instruments and equipment for the group to use. His apartment has become a storage space for guitars and pianos, and he now has to scoot around the donated items.
“It’s a great problem to have,” he said.
Parriman looks back fondly on his time on the show and has embraced the connections he made there. His appearance dramatically boosted his following on Instagram (he now has around 25,000 followers) and gave him a platform there, and he hopes to pursue a career in real estate after he made a connection with another player in his season.
“I think it was just a fun thing to do, a fun thing to be a part of,” he said. “It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. When it was coming out, it was like, ‘Wow, I’m about to be on Netflix, that’s so weird to think about.’”
