Survivor 9 cast: where are they now? One of them later ran for Manhattan District Attorney
Survivor: Vanuatu is the 2004 season everyone remembers for the wrong reasons first: battle of the sexes, round two, on a volcanic island chain, with a women's alliance so dominant they made up six of the final seven.
And then Chris Daugherty — the last man standing, a highway worker from Ohio — talked, charmed and immunity-ran his way through all of them to win the whole thing 5-2. It remains one of the great comebacks in the show's history. But the season's real long game happened after the cameras left.
Eliza Orlins: from the jury bench to the actual bench (almost)
The headline answer: Eliza Orlins, the 21-year-old law student with the most expressive eyeballs in franchise history, grew up to spend fifteen years as a public defender with the Legal Aid Society — and in 2021 ran for Manhattan District Attorney. She finished seventh in the Democratic primary that Alvin Bragg ultimately won, but a jury member seeking the DA's office is a career arc no other reality show can touch.
She's always insisted the TV stuff is a footnote, telling an interviewer that the game "taught me how to deal with people who are sometimes very difficult" — a sentence that applies equally to Tribal Council and New York politics. Between the two, she returned for Micronesia (where she famously identified an idol as "just a stick" — it was, in fact, just a stick) and ran The Amazing Race twice. These days she breaks down legal news online for half a million followers.
Chris Daugherty: won a million, kept the day job
Chris took the money, married his fiancée Lorie a few months later, and went right back to road construction for the Ohio Department of Transportation — where he then nearly got fired over a show-related trip he fibbed to his supervisors about. You can take the man out of Vanuatu, but the man will keep lying a little, professionally, forever.
Survivor 7 cast: where are they now? One of them went on to win the whole thing again
Julie Berry: the twist nobody's topped
Julie, the youth mentor from Maine, got voted out in fifth place and then pulled off the most audacious post-game move in Survivor history: she started dating Jeff Probst. The host. Of the show. They were together from 2004 to 2008, and Probst confirmed the split with an all-timer of a eulogy, saying "it was a good love affair." Julie later worked as a producer on Dancing with the Stars, presumably immune to hosts' charms by then.
One castaway ran for DA. One dated the host. One nearly lost his job over the winnings. Vanuatu never aired its best season — it lived it.
The rest of the tribe
- Twila Tanner, the flint-hearted Missouri highway worker who swore on her son's life and made the finals anyway, took the runner-up check and the jury's wrath in equal measure.
- Ami Cusack, the season's early queen bee, came back for Micronesia alongside Eliza.
- Scout Cloud Lee, then 59, remains the spiritual grandmother of the season, all walking sticks and Oklahoma ranch wisdom.
- Chad Crittenden made history as the first amputee to play the game and quietly became one of its most beloved one-timers.
- Lea "Sarge" Masters was, is, and shall remain a drill sergeant in all contexts.
- John Palyok went on to the reality show Solitary, i.e., voluntarily locked himself in a pod. After Vanuatu, honestly, it might have felt like a spa.
Twenty-two years on, the islands of fire are still smoldering. Somebody greenlight the reunion special.
Previously we wrote: How many seasons of Slow Horses will there be? Gary Oldman has named the two things that decide it
