Danny Jarabek
Rizo Velovic has been watching and talking about Survivor since he was eight years old. The lifelong fan got an opportunity to live his dream on Survivor 49, falling in the final four fire-making challenge. Just shortly after, production pulled him aside for a Zoom call with Jeff Probst, who invited him to join the cast of Survivor 50: In the Hands of the Fans. Rizo had not spoken to a single person from home. He said yes anyway.
“I lost 22 pounds on Survivor 49, and I’m a pretty slight guy,” he says. “I just took the honor of being a part of the biggest season ever.”
Walking into Season 50 presented its own particular challenge. While Colby Donaldson, Ozzy Lusth, Cirie Fields, and other Survivor legends carried decades of lore onto that beach, Rizo arrived as an unknown. The only thing his new castmates had seen was a trailer clip of him calling himself the Riz God.
“Not only do I come out to Survivor 50 with a negative connotation because they don’t know who I am, but add the Riz God persona to it,” he says. “I was also the youngest in the cast, playing with people double my age. I had a lot of negative perception coming in. I realized the best way to combat it was to just try to be as honest as possible.”
That honesty quickly opened doors for his game. A tense early dynamic with Colby eventually gave way to a genuine bond, built on the shared experience of being 25 and playing Survivor, as Colby was on his first season. It led to one of the season’s most talked-about alliances, which Rizo, naturally, got to name.
“They let me name the alliance,” he says. “As the Gen Z-er I am, I’m going to do a silly nickname. So I called it ‘Cirie’s Riz-ard of Oz.’ Cirie and Ozzy are like, alright, whatever. The fact that that’s our iconic name with this iconic group of people is one for the history books.”
The strategic engine of his run in Survivor 49 was a Hidden Immunity Idol wielded more as a psychological weapon than a game piece constantly threatening to use it, but never pulling the trigger at Tribal Council. Marooned at the bottom of the merge with allies Savannah Louie and Sophi Balerdi, he used it to project an aura of invincibility that kept their trio alive far longer than the numbers should have allowed.
“I was so boisterous and so confident. When you’re confident, people want to gravitate toward that,” he says. “Every tribal council I thought of what ways can I be innovative? I’m going to wave it in their face and make them think I’m playing it on me or Savannah.”
Across both seasons, Rizo was never eliminated by a tribal vote. Losing in fire-making twice is a complicated footnote, but he wears the broader record with real pride.
“Nobody can vote me out of this game but myself, essentially,” he says. “I’m only one of four multi-time players to never be voted out by a vote. No matter what, no one’s ever voted me out of the game.”
The record he is most proud of, though, has nothing to do with idols or alliances.
“What I’m most proud of is not only living out my lifelong dream, but representing a group of people that have never been represented in Survivor with my Albanian community,” he says. “The fact that I did it not once but twice, on the biggest season of all time, and did well both times. I fulfilled my purpose.”
And if Jeff Probst ever calls again?
“Not only am I answering, I’m telling him yes to whatever it is, whether it’s a contestant on Survivor 55, whether it’s to be the next Jeff Probst. Whatever Jeff needs, the Riz God will be answering the call.”
You can watch our full conversation with Rizo Velovic below.
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