Julio Rodriguez

**Julio Rodriguez** is a contestant from *Survivor: South Africa*.

Julio is known for his bromance with Marco Singh. Julio managed to attend only one tribal council before the merge. At the merge, his bromance with Marco became very obvious. Julio's bromance mixed with his bossy personality made him a quick target and he became the first merge boot in a large 11-2 vote after using his own idol on Marco. He became the first member of the jury.

## Profile

Julio has been a fan of Survivor for years and watches daily with his partner. After being the owner of a successful market, he hopes to become successful in the game of Survivor. He believes his knowledge of the game and strong social skills will help him a lot and thinks he has a good shot at winning the whole thing.

**If You Could Bring 3 Things With You To The Island What Would They Be:** My pets, an unlimited supply of street corn, and my own personal spa.

**What Past Player Will You Be Most Like:** I plan on playing hard and winning so that means I will have to play like Kevin Jacobson if I want to win.

**Why Will You Be Sole Survivor:** I grew up with almost nothing and a family that was more on the poorer side. Now I have everything I ever wanted. You need to be able to overcome hardship to become the Sole Survivor and I have already done that throughout my entire life. That is why I think I have the ability to become the Sole Survivor and win this million bucks.

## Survivor

Julio started on the Zulu tribe. Very quickly into the game, he became a part of the majority alliance which consisted of himself, Natalie Steinbeck, Antonio Hernandez, Lisa Mathieson, Cody Singalay, Daniel Jimenez, and Josh Sinclair. On Day 3, Zulu won immunity. A few tribe members started to become annoyed with Julio due to his bossy personality. On Day 6, Zulu won immunity once again. Julio decided that he needed to control himself so that he wouldn't keep rubbing people the wrong way. On Day 9, Zulu lost their first immunity challenge. Back at camp, Julio and his alliance decided to take a shot at one of the minority alliance members. Julio built a good personal relationship with Celeste Go even though they weren't working together. This made him not want to vote for Celeste. All this left was Gigi Ramirez and Lori Christopher. Julio's alliance felt like Lori was the weakest in challenges and decided to target her. At tribal, Lori was sent home in a 7-3 vote. Julio was shocked when he received 3 votes, one of them coming from Celeste. Back at camp, he asked Celeste why she voted for him. He felt betrayed by her since they bonded earlier. She stated that she still cared for him as a person, but needed to vote alongside her closest allies. This caused Julio to not fully trust her. On Day 12, Zulu won immunity for the third time.

On Day 13, a tribe swap occurred. Julio became a part of the newly added Limpopo tribe. He became annoyed that his tribe needed to start from scratch and build a new shelter. At the new Limpopo camp, Julio quickly realized that his old Zulu tribe was in the majority on this new tribe. He was joined with Lisa, Celeste, and Josh. This left former Tsonga tribe mates Marco Singh and Mason Jefferson on the bottom. Julio quickly rebuilt his relationship with Celeste once he realized they needed to work together. On Day 14, Limpopo won immunity. The next day, Julio started to bond a lot with Marco. They had a long conversation about their personal lives. Julio felt like he could fully trust Marco and they decided to form a Final 2 with each other. On Day 17, Julio decided to search for the Hidden Immunity Idol. After 30 minutes of searching, he found the Limpopo idol. He quickly told Marco and they felt like they could run the tribe. Later that day, Limpopo won immunity once again. On Day 19, Limpopo won their third straight immunity challenge. Julio started to hope that the merge was near.

The next morning, the merge occurred and Limpopo, Zulu, and Tsonga merged. Everyone bonded and participated in the huge merge feast. Julio immediately started drinking a little too much, which began to irritate some other players. Back at the new merged camp, many people started to notice how close Julio and Marco were. This made Julio a target right away. At the immunity challenge, Julio lost to Antonio. Back at camp, Julio pitched an idea to many people to target Irene Chen for her good strategic mind and gameplay. At tribal, Julio felt like he wasn't going to be receiving many votes after all after it seemed like the majority of people were going to target Marco. He decided to play his idol on Marco. This ended up being Julio's dumbest move when he was voted out in an almost unanimous 11-2 vote. He finished in 13th place and became the first member of the jury.

At Final Tribal Council, Julio praised all 3 finalists for their great gameplay. He believed that Josh and Lindsay Richards played similar games. He felt like Josh mostly relied on winning immunity challenges towards the end of the game and that Lindsay was sometimes all over the place. He felt like Marco was underrated and wasn't given enough credit by the other jury members and players in the game. He ended up voting for Marco to win due to their strong bond, but Marco ended up placing 3rd behind Lindsay and Josh in a 5-3-2 vote.