Where’s Mai From Squid Game: The Challenge Now? The Winner Is Donating Her Winnings To A Great Cause

Lea Veloso
·3 min read
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An emotional end to the reality show. If you just finished watching the Netflix series, you might be wondering where Mai from Squid Game: The Challenge is now.

Squid Game: The Challenge is a spinoff of the hit 2021 South Korean drama Squid Game where 456 financially struggling individuals enter a dangerous competition to win a massive prize of 45.6 billion won (equivalent to 38.7 million US dollars). The reality show has the same premise (without the death) and recreates the classic Korean childhood games that are shown in the fictional show.

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The first episode shows players running through a game of Red Light, Green Light, with the giant Young-hee doll analyzing their every move and the threatening guards shooting them with paint if they move in the slightest. Other games include the dalgona game, where they have to carve out the shapes out of the sugar treat, human war ship, marbles, and glass stepping stones.

Mai was crowned the winner of Season 1 of Squid Game: The Challenge. Mai is a 55-year-old immigration adjudicator who came to the United States as a refugee from Vietnam when she was just 8 years old. She joined the Navy and became a single mom, and she now has a granddaughter that she is very close with. Earlier in the series, she created an alliance with player 286 Chad and she also formed a group with players Figgy (Player 033), Brownie (Player 258), and Cookie (Player 285), with whom they deemed themselves as “The Snack Pack”. She eliminated Roland in the “Circle of Trust” game and became one of the final three players.

In the finale, she opened up about her struggles growing up, “Going to the navy, it’s like going to a pack of wolves where I was bullied. I got pregnant at 19 because I was a virgin up until I joined the navy and I didn’t know anything.” She continued, “To get pregnant at 19 was very hard because I had to tell my family that I got pregnant. And then my family just cut me off and I had no one. It was very hard. I didn’t know anything about motherhood. I didn’t have anyone.”

In an epic rock-paper-scissors showdown between the three finalists, Mai was strategic in her gameplay and it turned out to work in her favor. “People will think it couldn’t possibly be me,” Mai told Netflix Tudum about her win. “I am so glad that I’m a woman, I’m a minority, and able overcome everything at my age,” she says. “So I’m putting it out there, ‘Don’t be afraid. Be who you are and just plow through.’”

So where is Mai from Squid Game: The Challenge now and what is she doing with the $4.56 million prize money?

Where is Mai from Squid Game: The Challenge now?

Where is Mai from Squid Game: The Challenge now?
Where is Mai from Squid Game: The Challenge now?

Where is Mai from Squid Game: The Challenge now? Mai lives comfortably in her home in Fairfax, Virginia. In an interview with Netflix Tudum, she revealed that she spends her time relaxing with her husband and their two dogs, and spending time with her 12-year-old granddaughter. “It was a relief to go back to normal life and not worry about getting eliminated. I needed that after two and a half weeks of intense go, go, go, and emotional ups and downs,” she says. “But the person that came into [the competition] is me. I’m still Mai, and she hasn’t changed — except that I came out stronger.”

As for what she’ll do with the money? She currently has her eye on fixing up her home and adding a dock for a boat. “My heart is with people, animals, and climate change,” she says about her new plans. “If we continue what we’re doing, there won’t be a future for all the little kids growing up right now.”

Squid Game: The Challenge is available to stream on Netflix.

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