Tony Vlachos

Anthony Vlachos (born September 10, 1973) is an American police officer, best known for competing on the reality television competition series Survivor. He was voted the winner on the show's 28th season, Survivor: Cagayan and later returned for the 34th season, Survivor: Game Changers, where he was the second person voted out. In 2020, he competed on the show's 40th season, Survivor: Winners at War, where he was ultimately named Sole Survivor and the winner of the $2 million prize, becoming the second person to win Survivor twice (the first being Sandra Diaz-Twine, who won Survivor: Pearl Islands, and Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains).He is known for his fast-paced meticulous game-play, tireless work ethic, and challenge skills, which led to his two victories. He is also one of the most successful hidden immunity idol finders, having found 5 between his 3 seasons. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest Survivor players of all time.

Vlachos was born on September 10, 1973, the son of Greek immigrants. He grew up in Jersey City, New Jersey, idolizing law enforcement officers, and dreamed of one day becoming one. He graduated high school in 1992 and spent several years working in various different jobs while "partying" with his friends and working on his automobiles. He states that despite this recreational period in his life, he did not smoke, drink alcohol, or do drugs.

He began bodybuilding when he was 20, an activity with which he says he was "obsessed". He began working out in his basement with plastic weights filled with sand, and graduated to iron weights in about a year.

In 2000, Vlachos became a Jersey City police officer. On February 5, 2014, he saved a 69-year-old man who had a massive heart attack on his lawn in nine inches of snow.

In 2007, Vlachos began dating a fellow police officer named Marissa Ann. They dated for approximately three years before he proposed to her on July 24, 2010. They married on June 2, 2012, and their daughter, Anastasia Marie, was born on February 16, 2013, five months before Vlachos left to film Survivor: Cagayan. Two months after arriving home, Vlachos and Marissa discovered she was two months pregnant with their second child, a son they named Constantine Anthony, who was born on June 9, 2014.

Vlachos has been a resident of Allendale, New Jersey.

Cagayan

Vlachos was cast on the 28th season of the CBS reality television show Survivor. The theme of the season was Brawn vs. Brains vs. Beauty. Vlachos was cast as a "brawn" and started out on the Aparri tribe. Before the first tribal swap, Aparri dominated the immunity challenges and did not go to tribal council. During this time, Vlachos formed an alliance, dubbed "Cops-R-Us", with fellow police officer Sarah Lacina. Despite this alliance, Vlachos lied to Lacina about his profession, claiming he was a construction worker. Vlachos also became close with Trish Hegarty and was wary of the popularity of former NBA All-Star Cliff Robinson. Vlachos was able to find the Aparri tribe's hidden immunity idol with help of the clue he found in the reward they received after winning their reward challenge.

With 14 contestants remaining in the game, the three tribes were dissolved into two. The entire Aparri tribe, sans Lacina, was placed on the Solana tribe, along with "beauty" tribe members LJ McKanas and Jefra Bland. Solana lost the immunity challenge to Aparri, sending Vlachos to tribal council for the first time in the game. Although it would have been easy for old "brawn" members to vote off either LJ or Jefra, Hegarty bonded with McKanas and wanted to target Robinson. Vlachos, as the swing vote, chose to eliminate Cliff, which also caused one of Cliff's followers, Lindsey Ogle, to quit. With 11 contestants left, the two tribes formed the merged tribe, Solarrion. Vlachos' alliance of five (Vlachos, Hegarty, Yung "Woo" Hwang, McKanas, and Bland) was, at first, at a disadvantage to the six-member alliance of the old Aparri tribe (Kassandra "Kass" McQuillen, Spencer Bledsoe, Latasha "Tasha" Fox, Jeremiah Wood, Morgan McLeod, and Lacina). However, McQuillen flipped on her six-member alliance, giving Vlachos' alliance the number advantage and allowing them to eliminate Lacina. Vlachos' alliance then alternated between taking out the remaining members of the opposing alliance (McLeod, Wood, Fox, and Bledsoe), and then switching over to blindside one of Vlachos' own allies whom he perceived as threats (McKanas, Bland, and Hegarty).

After making it to the Final 3, Woo won the challenge, and Vlachos had to convince Woo to take him to the final 2 rather than McQuillen. Vlachos argued that, in order for Woo to maintain the integrity he claimed to play with, he needed to take his long-time ally and more worthy opponent with him. Woo ultimately agreed and voted out McQuillen, allowing Vlachos to advance to the final 2. At the final tribal council, Vlachos received much criticism from the jury members (especially Hegarty) for his aggressive gameplay and constantly breaking his promises, while Woo was criticized for riding Vlachos' coattails and choosing to take him to the end over McQuillen. However, after Bledsoe gave a long speech in favor of Vlachos, the jury ultimately chose him as the winner with 8 of the 9 jury votes (while only Fox voted for Woo to win), thus tying with Rob Mariano's win in Survivor: Redemption Island for the largest non-unanimous Final Tribal Council win in Survivor history.

Aftermath

Survivor: Cagayan has since been acclaimed by many to be one of the most entertaining seasons of Survivor. In a 2015 interview, host Jeff Probst listed Vlachos as one of his top 10 favorite Survivor winners ever, and one of his top 6 favorite male winners, commenting, "I like Tony because he's unlike any winner we've ever had. He's the Tasmanian Devil. He played an incredibly reckless game, but he was so gifted that he could make a mistake and recover because he was lapping you so that he was able to actually catch back up and fix his mistake. It's almost like he had his own time machine. I've never seen anyone play with that much energy and juggle that many balls at once, and pull it all off." In 2016, Vlachos became a part of the Survivor Hall of Fame, along with Tina Wesson and Rupert Boneham. Due to Xfinity TV's discontinuation of the award in 2017, he is the newest Survivor player (by season recency) to be inducted.

Game Changers

At the end of the reunion show for the 33rd season, Survivor: Millennials vs. Gen X, Vlachos was confirmed to be a participant in the 34th season: Survivor: Game Changers. He started on the Mana tribe. On day 1, Tony publicly announced he would be looking for a hidden immunity idol which worried the others. Mana lost the immunity challenge. At the tribal council, Tony joined the majority in voting out Ciera Eastin. The next day Tony and Sandra discussed how no one else would let a former winner win this season, and agreed to align. However, Tony later overheard Sandra talking with Troyzan, and believed she was targeting him. He then confronted her which she denied. Sandra was angry that Tony was getting in her face so she decided to target him. On Day 6, Mana lost their second immunity challenge. Back at camp, Tony and Sandra targeted each other. At tribal council, Tony was voted out by a 7–2 vote. Tony and Sandra voted for Aubry Bracco.

Winners at War

During the promotional trailer for the season during the reunion show for the 39th season, Survivor: Island of the Idols, Vlachos was confirmed to be a participant in the 40th season: Survivor: Winners at War. He started on the Dakal tribe. In a confessional, Vlachos announced that he was on "probation" and that he would be playing a calm season until the others let their guards down, then he would strike. Early on, Vlachos patched things up with fellow Survivor: Game Changers contestants Sandra Diaz-Twine and Sarah Lacina, aligning with the pair. Early on, he made a flimsy ladder to retrieve coconuts for the tribe, astonishing his tribemates who were concerned that he may be medically evacuated due to this stunt. Later that day, Tony and fellow Survivor: Cagayan contestant Lacina reformed their famed 'Cops-R-Us' alliance from Season 28. This alliance was later called into action on Day 8 when Lacina received a note from Natalie Anderson, who was on the Edge of Extinction, stating that there was a Steal-a-Vote advantage hidden at the other tribe's camp inside one of their torches. The note gave her the power to sneak into the Sele Tribe's camp that night to attempt to retrieve it. Lacina, knowing how impactful this advantage might be in the future, recruited Vlachos to help her prepare. Vlachos smeared ashes from the fire on her face before she departed in an attempt to mask her face when she arrived at Sele camp.

On Day 12, a tribe swap occurred, sending Lacina to the newly formed Yara Tribe, while Vlachos stayed as a member of Dakal Tribe. On Day 16, Vlachos began to slowly extricate himself from his self-induced probation period and constructed a 'spy shack' in an attempt to gather information about who the tribe was planning on voting out that night, but his new tribemates correctly surmised what he was up to. Despite this seemingly fatal blunder, Vlachos did not receive a single vote that night at Tribal Council, the tribe instead attempting to vote out Denise Stapley, who played a hidden immunity idol to send Sandra to the Edge of Extinction.

On Day 19, the tribes merged into the new Koru tribe, upon which Vlachos reunited with Lacina. On Day 23, Vlachos decided to gather together those he considered the biggest threats into an alliance, including himself, Lacina, Tyson Apostol (who won the Edge of Extinction challenge to re-enter the game), and Ben Driebergen. On Day 24, the loved ones visit was held, and for the first time in his Survivor career, his wife, Marissa, was able to visit him, along with the couple's two children, Anastasia and Constantine. On Day 25, Vlachos won individual immunity for the first time in all three of his seasons. At Tribal Council that evening, Sophie Clarke drew him, Lacina, Nick Wilson, and Driebergen aside to create a plan for the vote after Jeremy Collins left tribal using his "Safety Without Power" advantage.

In the early morning hours of Day 26, Vlachos searched for, and found, his first hidden immunity idol of the season. On Day 28, Vlachos received a note in his bag from Parvati Shallow and Anderson extorting him for six fire tokens, the new in-game currency introduced this season. If he didn't pay the six Fire Tokens by the immunity challenge, he would be unable to participate in it and would lose his vote at Tribal Council. Since Vlachos only had three Fire Tokens, he explained the situation to some of his allies and those on the opposing alliance (including Michele Fitzgerald, Collins, Wilson, and Driebergen), asking them for a loan that he would pay back later. Fitzgerald didn't have any tokens left, but Jeremy, Nick, and Ben did and each donated one token to Vlachos. Vlachos won the immunity challenge (which also netted him two tokens) and was able to pay back two of the three tokens he owed his allies. This time, instead of letting people come to him with a plan for the vote at Tribal Council, Vlachos came up with the plan. He decided that since Sophie was getting too close to his ally Sarah, that he wanted Sophie voted out. The plan worked flawlessly, sending Sophie to the Edge of Extinction in a 4-3-2 vote split.

Almost as soon as the remaining castaways got back to camp, Lacina blew up at Vlachos, yelling at him for leaving her out of the vote and sinking her game. On Day 29, Driebergen found another idol in front of Vlachos, further securing Vlachos's position in the game. Later that day, Vlachos won his third consecutive individual immunity challenge this season. As Vlachos would discover before he won immunity, Kim Spradlin had formed a plan to target him. Vlachos, as a result, decided to flip the script on her and voted her off at Tribal Council that night. Afterwards, Vlachos's immunity run was cut short by Wilson, and Collins was voted out next. Fitzgerald won the following immunity challenge, and Vlachos, who had evolved his spy shack into a "spy nest" in the trees, listened in on a conversation between Stapley, Lacina, and Driebergen, giving him leverage to make a move against Stapley. However, at Tribal Council, he and Lacina (the swing votes), joined Driebergen and Stapley in voting out Wilson.

Anderson, the first person voted out of the season, won the second Edge challenge, and immediately worked on convincing the other players that Vlachos was the biggest threat to win. Anderson had an idol, which she revealed to Fitzgerald (who had won her second straight immunity challenge). Driebergen and Lacina refused to believe Anderson had an advantage, but Vlachos's concern led to him proposing a split-vote between Anderson and Stapley, so that he and Driebergen wouldn't have to waste their idols in that scenario. At Tribal Council, Anderson indeed played her idol, causing Vlachos and Driebergen to do the same, leading to a tied 0-0 vote. The re-vote could only go against Stapley or Lacina, and the other 4 unanimously sent Stapley to the jury. Vlachos won his fourth immunity challenge the next day, and Driebergen gave Lacina permission to vote him out so she could use that as a resume booster. She ultimately joined Fitzgerald and Anderson to send Driebergen to the jury, shocking Vlachos. At the final immunity challenge, Anderson emerged victorious and chose to take Fitzgerald to the end with her, leaving longtime friends and allies Vlachos and Lacina to battle it out in a fire-making competition, which Vlachos won. A visibly emotional Vlachos bid farewell to Lacina, who became the final jury member. The 'Cops R Us' alliance has since been recognized as one of the most storied alliances in the show's 20 year history.

Survivor: Winners at War featured the first final tribal council in the show's 20 year history to be composed of three castaways all from the same state (New Jersey). Tony Vlachos ultimately won the season in a 12-4-0 jury vote over Anderson and Fitzgerald, respectively.