Boston Rob tells why he outed John on TV. But he makes no apologies for an aggressive style that bugged the other players

Survivor: Marquesas type TV Show network CBS genre Reality

Love the guy or hate him, you have to admit ”Boston Rob” Mariano is one of the more entertaining ”Survivor” contestants we’ve seen in a while. By the time he got voted off, the 26-year-old construction worker had offended pretty much every living entity on Marquesas other than the fish. He called us to open his heart about the experience.

Boston Rob! What happened?

I don’t know. I can’t pinpoint one particular thing that I did wrong. I don’t know. I just played the game my way. For some people, that was too loud and too brash. I guess I wasn’t lucky that day.

So you knew you were going?

Yeah, I knew that night after I blew the immunity. I shouldn’t have blown it. Jeff [Probst] definitely provoked me to splash the water. But I did it. It was my choice to do it so I fell.

When you arrived on the island, how confident were you that your game plan would work?

I was there totally with the mentality that I can win this thing. I knew I was going to play straight up and let people know right out in the open what I was doing. I was going to have an allegiance with one person: Sarah. Sarah proved to be more of a liability, though, because I carried her those first three episodes. But it was all a game and everyone’s smart enough to know it.

Is that your way of saying you’re sorry?

Well, I know a lot of things I said came off the wrong way and weren’t as humorous as they were intended to be. I never intended to offend anybody or hurt anybody.

Who was offended?

I talked to John after the show. He was cool about it. I actually talked to him right after I outed him on the show. The reason I asked him if he was gay wasn’t to bring him out on national TV; it was to see if he would be honest with me.

Would you have kept your word to Kathy about the alliance between the two of you?

At that point, yes, I would have. I saw another Sarah in her. Sarah was gone so I thought, Let me try again. Kathy didn’t trust me though. I’m sure Gina played a big part in how Paschal, Neleh, and Kathy felt about me.

After you got kicked off, did you get looks of death from Gina and Hunter?

Maybe Gina and Hunter were a little bitter, but it’s part of the game. Seriously, people, it’s just a game. I didn’t go over there to be on TV or to be famous. I went there for the dough.