You haven’t seen the last of the “Riz God.”
“Survivor 49” fourth-place finisher Rizo Velovic exclusively told The Post how he got the invite to compete on “Survivor 50,” the upcoming milestone season featuring 24 all-star players.
“It was unreal because as a ‘Survivor’ fan, like a true student of the game, only less than ten people have ever done what I’m going to do — go back to back,” Velovic, 26, said. “And the fact that I got back to back for ‘Survivor 50,’ arguably what’s going to be the biggest season of all time. They saw potential in me. It was game-changing.”
Velovic explained that the offer came the morning after the “Survivor 49” final tribal council.
“So it was the next day at Ponderosa. Production’s like, ‘Rizo, we need to talk to you,’” the tech salesman recalled. “I walk into a room, there’s a computer, and Jeff Probst is on it. He’s like looking at me, so I’m like, ‘Oh my God, Jeff!’ I thought he just did this with everybody in the finale. I was like, ‘So good to see you! You just called me Riz God. It’s like we’re best friends. I’ve seen you for 25 days at this point.’”
“And then Jeff very seriously goes into this monologue. ‘Rizo — Survivor 50.’ And in my mind, I’m like, ‘Is he about to ask me if I’m gonna be on Survivor 50?” Velovic said. “And then he asks me and I lose my marbles. I go ballistic. I start crying. I’m like, ‘Absolutely. Yes. Signed, sealed, delivered. Don’t even have to worry. I don’t even have to leave Fiji. Just keep me here. Whatever.’”
Velovic didn’t even ask his parents what he should do — he simply gave CBS an “automatic yes” and was on a return trip to Fiji before he knew it.
“It was unreal. It was crazy,” he said. “And I got to play with the legends that I grew up idolizing.”
Before he even got home from Season 49, Velovic learned that his closest ally and the season’s winner, Savannah Louie, was also going on “Survivor 50.”
“It was very funny because the way that they did it, they pulled both Savannah and I together like at different intervals,” Velovic explained. “So at Ponderosa as we were going home, flying back home, Savannah goes, ‘Congratulations.’ And I’m like, ‘Why?’ She’s like, ‘I know.’ And I was like, ‘What?’ Because they swore me to secrecy. She’s like, ‘They asked me too.’ And I was like, ‘What are you talking about?’ She’s like, ‘Rizo, Survivor 50!’ I was like, ‘What the f–k? They asked you? You just won!’”
“She deduced it because she went in the same room I went in. So it was crazy,” Velovic said. “I was so happy. I was like, oh my God, we just ran this game together in 49 and now we get to run the tables back on 50. So I was super excited.”
As for the Season 50 cast, Velovic was excited to play with so many legends of the game — but four stood out to him the most.
“New era, it was definitely Q [Burdette] and Genevieve [Mushaluk], and then old era, Cirie [Fields] and Coach [Wade],” he said.
“Survivor 50” premieres Feb. 25.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
