Tony Vlachos

Personal life

Tony Vlachos was born on September 10, 1973, the son of Greek parents who emigrated from Greece. 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.

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

After his win, Aaron W. Fraser, a New Jersey congressional candidate, tried to get Vlachos fired from his job for showing himself to be a "trickster, liar, backstabber and dealer" on the program, although the effort ultimately failed.

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."

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 (as well as Sandra) voted for Aubry Bracco.