Quick Stats: Jeff Probst Host CBS' "Survivor"
Daily Driver: 2009 Toyota Prius (Jeff's rating: 8 on a scale of 1 to 10)
Favorite road trip: Los Angeles to Arizona
Car he learned to drive in: 1966 Volkswagen Beetle
First car bought: 1980s Mazda RX-7
Despite becoming a household name from "Survivor," host Jeff Probst still considers himself just a guy from Wichita. While he is a car enthusiast, his current tastes reflect his down-to-earth, introspective persona.
If you're one of the millions of viewers of the original reality juggernaut, you know Probst as the guy with the unenviable task of saying, "The tribe has spoken..." before announcing who gets voted off and their torch snuffed out.
While he is the balanced personality that helped debut the show that spawned what has become an entire genre of television, his own life became chaotic as the show catapulted him to another level of celebrity.
When Probst moved to Los Angeles to work on "Access Hollywood" and VH1's "Rock & Roll Jeopardy," he bought the Isuzu Rodeo. Then came a little reality show called "Survivor" in 2000, which became ratings gold. Unprepared to deal with the accompanying fame, the trusty old Rodeo became a life raft of sorts.
"I kept that car for the first four years of 'Survivor' and I kept it because everything else around my life was a little crazy and chaotic," he says. "I'm smarter now. But at the time I was this guy from Wichita, I didn't know anything, I didn't know anybody famous, I didn't have any idea of what I was supposed to be doing. As a result my life was chaotic. There were times when the National Enquirer was parked outside of my house, looking through my trash."
Probst didn't know how to react to his own sudden stardom. "That Rodeo was the worst car I ever had and it always grounded me in terms of, 'You're just still the same guy. Just keep driving this car.' The windows didn't work, it didn't ride very well, it had rust everywhere, the paint was terrible."
At a point in his career when most celebs buy some snazzy dream car to declare they've made it, Probst's Rodeo was its own metaphor for his life. "Instead of becoming what I thought would be the cliche -- to go out and buy a car because I'm in Hollywood and I'm supposed to have a really cool ride, I kept driving that. I would pull up to red carpets in that car and that oddly felt good I wasn't in the expected ride."
Even after a few years of hosting "Survivor," Probst still didn't upgrade. "For the first several years, I was not making a lot of money," he admits. "It was a weird perception because the show was so popular and my friends assumed I was must be making millions, but I was making less than I'd made in any other job."
When he finally bought a new car, he bought a rugged GMC Denali. "I really enjoyed it and I road tripped everywhere in that car and I slept in it. I just loved it."
But a year ago, Probst had an environmental epiphany and the Toyota Prius was the result of that paradigm shift. "It was one of those days when things crystallized and I realized I can't drive this anymore. I just can't," he recalls. "I hated giving it up and I got the Prius. Now, I honestly can't imagine being back in that truck. It's strange. But I really enjoy driving the Prius."
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