Todd Herzog (born January 29, 1985) is the winner of the 15th season of Survivor, Survivor: China. He is also the youngest male contestant to win the game, at age 22 at time of air. Jenna Morasca was the youngest ever winner at the time of taping. However, Herzog is the youngest winner in terms of absolute age. Todd is also the first openly gay male contestant to win since Richard Hatch's win in Survivor: Borneo. . Herzog's hometown is Pleasant Grove, Utah. Before appearing on the show, he worked as a flight attendant for SkyWest Airlines.

Survivor: China

On Survivor China, Herzog placed on the Fei Long Tribe. The tribe proved to be stronger than their opponent, Zhan Hu, winning immunity in episodes one and two. During those first few days, Herzog made an alliance with Amanda Kimmel and Aaron Reisberger. In episode three, the tribe faced tribal council, where Leslie Nease was voted out. Prior to her elimination, Nease had given Herzog a clue to the hidden immunity idol, which she had received from Jamie Dugan. Fei Long then enjoyed another immunity win in Episode Four. In the subsequent reward challenge, the two tribes learned that each would send two members to the other. Fei Long received Frosti Zernow and Sherea Lloyd. However the swap deprived Herzog and Kimmel of their alliance member Reisberger and strong man James Clement. The Zhan Hu Tribe then threw the following immunity challenge, thus evicting Reisberger.

In the following episode, Herzog and Kimmel had found the immunity idol and Zernow, Denise Martin, and Courtney Yates were informed of the discovery. When the Fei Long Tribe won the reward challenge and kidnapped Clement, Herzog gave Clement the immunity idol, in an attempt to eliminate Dugan. However, the plan backfired when Zhan Hu won immunity and Fei Long was sent to Tribal Council where Lloyd was eliminated. Clement found the second immunity idol at the Zhan-Hu camp later, before the two tribes merged. The original Fei Long members, both old and new, planned to vote out the new arrivals: Peih-Gee Law, Jaime Dugan, and Erik Huffman. They voted as a bloc, and Dugan was sent to the jury.

In Episode Eight, Herzog deviated from the plan to eliminate Law and got his alliance to vote out strategic threat, Jean-Robert Bellande. Law was targeted in the next vote, but her immunity win forced Herzog to eliminate physical competitor Zernow. With seven survivors remaining, Kimmel was able to get Clement and his two immunity idols eliminated from the game. In the final six, the four Fei Long members vowed to stay together and voted out Huffman (since Peih-Gee had immunity), and eventually Law. With four remaining, Martin was eliminated and became the final juror.

At the final Tribal Council, Herzog was confronted for his actions by every jury member. While Kimmel was criticized for apologizing too much and not giving direct answers and Yates for riding on coattails, he was seen as the most deceiving and manipulative of the three. Jean-Robert, in particular, interrogated Herzog on why he betrayed their alliance, to which Todd admitted his fear of being eliminated by him. Although he had lied, the jury felt that he was the most honest about it and was playing the game since day one, unlike Courtney. In a 4-2-1 vote, he defeated allies Yates and Kimmel to win the million dollars.

Subsequent to winning Survivor: China, Todd was on the cover of December 2007's issue of Instinct magazine, advertised as the "Million Dollar Man". According to the interview, when Herzog was fifteen, the first Survivor had just begun to air. "I knew immediately that I wanted to do the show! It was so different than anything I had seen at the time.

References

External links

• Todd Herzog's CBS profile