Over the last 26 years and 49 seasons, as many as 751 castaways have embarked on the adventure of a lifetime after being cast to compete on “Survivor.”
Boston Rob
While each individual contestant has permanently altered the course of the hit reality competition series’ history in one way or another, few have been as influential and prolific as Rob Mariano.
The former “Sole Survivor,” better known to fans as Boston Rob, originally appeared on the cast of 2002’s “Survivor: Marquesas” before celebrating a record-breaking career on the franchise, which included subsequent appearances on installments like “Survivor: All-Stars” (2004), “Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains” (2010), “Survivor: Redemption Island” (2011) – which he won – and “Survivor: Winners at War” (2020).
Ahead of the upcoming premiere of “Survivor 50: In the Hands of the Fans,” however, Mariano revealed that his journey to reality TV stardom nearly slipped through his fingers from the very beginning.
Boston Rob Recalls Disatrous ‘Survivor: Marquesas’ Audition
GettySpeaking to Parade’s Mike Bloom in anticipation of “Survivor”s milestone 50th season – set to air its historic three-hour premiere episode on Wednesday, February 25 – Boston Rob admitted that his chances of appearing on the show’s fourth season nearly imploded after he bombed an in-person interview with one of the series’ casting directors in 2002.
At the time, Mariano, then 26, was working as a construction worker/bartender in Boston, hence the now-legendary nickname. While he’d already managed to impress casting directors with his initial audition tape, they’d requested a final in-person interview before officially offering him a spot on the cast of “Survivor: Marquesas.”
It was then that Mariano’s “Survivor” dreams nearly went up in smoke before they’d even started.
“Throughout the casting process, there were a lot of times where I definitely wasn’t going to be on the show,” Mariano told Parade.
“They came to Boston to do, like, the meet-and-greet interview,” he continued. “And I remember I was up all night the night before, we had a big snowstorm and I was plowing snow, so I went into the interview and I was exhausted and I guess, like, I didn’t have a lot of enthusiasm.”
Boston Rob Travelled from Boston to New York to Secure His ‘Survivor’ Future
Noticing the discrepancy between his audition reel and his in-person interview, Mariano revealed that former “Survivor” casting director Lynne Spillman reached out to see what had gone wrong and to offer Boston Rob one last chance to earn a spot on the show’s fourth season.
“The next day the casting director called me and she’s like, ‘Well, what happened?’” Mariano reported. “And I explained like, ‘I was tired.’ And she was like, ‘Well, can you come to New York tomorrow for an interview?’”
Rob revealed that he nearly turned down the offer for a second interview, which would require him to travel nearly 200 miles.
“I was like, ‘Can you guarantee I’m gonna be on that show if I come to New York?’” he recalled asking Spillman, to which she reportedly replied, “No, I can’t guarantee that, but I can guarantee if you don’t come to New York, you’re not gonna be on the show.”
“So I took my [butt] to New York,” he concluded. The rest, as they say, is “Survivor” history.
While Mariano recently announced his official retirement from the franchise, his reality TV career has since seen him appear on franchises like “The Amazing Race,” “Deal or No Deal Island” and “The Traitors.”
More recently, the legendary castaway as similarly fielded offers to compete on shows like “Big Brother” and “Dancing with the Stars,” though, for the moment, Mariano is more focused on spending time with his wife, fellow “Survivor” champion Amber Brkich, and their four daughters, as well as the launch of his very own YouTube-based competition series, “Everything’s A Competition,” which he hosts alongside his “Traitors” co-star Dylan Efron.
