Jeff Varner
Jeffrey Keith Varner (born April 16, 1966) is a former American real estate agent and television personality, a news anchor and reporter, a former entertainment reporter, and a contestant on three seasons of the CBS reality television series, Survivor: The Australian Outback, Survivor: Cambodia, and Survivor: Game Changers. Varner is most known for infamously publicly outing fellow Survivor: Game Changers contestant Zeke Smith as transgender. Early life Jeff Varner was raised on a tobacco farm in Greensboro, North Carolina. An extensive genealogical search discovered that Varner and Edward R. Murrow are related by marriage on Murrow's mother's side of the tree. He played right defense for a team in the local youth hockey league, and earned his black belt in Tae Kwon Do at the age of 15. He attended Southern Guilford High School, where he was active in student government and theatre arts and editor of the school's yearbook; he later went on to earn a journalism degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Survivor The Australian Outback Varner was a contestant on Survivor: The Australian Outback, 2001. He was a member of the Kucha tribe, and made it to the merge, but not the core group of nine, as there was a tie between him and Colby Donaldson. At the time, in the event of a tie, previous tribal council votes would be used. Because Keith Famie and Tina Wesson knew this, and Tina had no votes against her before while Keith had several of them (mostly from Jerri Manthey and her allies), Keith's request to Tina when they had both lasted for hours in the Immunity challenge and were the last two players standing (phrased as "I need this") led to Tina ending her run so that Keith was safe, and giving Kucha no one to vote for who had more votes than Varner: Jeff had two but knew only of one, while Colby had zero. It was revealed on the Survivor: Australia DVD, in the special commentary section, that it was Kimmi Kappenberg that inadvertently gave away the vote he had against him during the Episode Two Reward Challenge. This is also mentioned by Varner in the episode in which he was voted off, early in the episode while the Kucha tribe is talking in their shelter at night. During the show, Varner's luxury item was a coloring book and a set of crayons. The castaways colored in the books and signed their autographs in it, and after the show, he sold the pictures on eBay to raise money for charities. Cambodia On May 6, 2015, Varner was revealed to be one of the 16 men who was eligible to be voted by the viewers to return for the 31st season, Survivor: Cambodia. On May 20, the results revealed that both Varner and Kappenberg from The Australian Outback were voted to return. It was revealed that Varner had been part of a pre-game alliance prior to the start of filming, with three other