All About Boston Rob's Career When He's Not on Reality TV
The game show legend has appeared on both Deal of No Deal Island and The Traitors in the last year — but what about when he's not on TV?
Boston Rob Mariano has been a reality TV staple for nearly 25 years. From competing on his first season of Survivor in 2002 to competing on both The Traitors and Deal or No Deal Island in the past year, the 49-year-old has proven to be a cunning — if not polarizing — strategist in the reality TV universe.
But what was Boston Rob doing before he first stepped on the Marquesas Islands of French Polynesia two and a half decades ago — and what's he get up to when he's not on our screens?
Where did Boston Rob go to college?
Boston Rob attended Boston University from 1995 to 1999, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology.
As longtime fans could tell, he used that psychology degree to scheme, strategize, and otherwise get into the heads of any adversary in his path during his many reality TV appearances!
The star played on his college's inline ice hockey team while an undergrad, and in 2001, joined the team as a coach, leading the Terriers to a national championship! The squad's final game was as thrilling as it gets, as his Terriers beat defending champion Michigan State in overtime. (Not a bad thing for a first-time coach to have on his resume.)
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He filmed his first of many seasons of Survivor just two years after he graduated college and hasn't looked back — he's still a reality TV fixture all this time later.
What is Boston Rob's career and what does he do for a living?
When he's not appearing on shows like The Traitors or DONDI, Boston Rob is an entrepreneur and focuses on his home renovation business alongside Amber, his wife of 20 years.
The couple, who fell in love while competing on Survivor: All-Stars, share four adorable children: Lucia Rose, Carina Rose, Isabetta Rose, and Adelina Rose.
Boston Rob is also an avid golfer and judging by a recent Instagram post, it looks like his oldest daughter, Lucia, is following in his footsteps! On March 18, he shared a photo featuring himself, his daughter, and fellow Traitors star Dylan Efron at a recent golf outing:
Despite being on seemingly every reality competition series ever made, being a dad and husband has always been Boston Rob's number-one priority.
"We spend a lot of time together as a family. We spend so much time together because we want to," he explained on the First Class Fatherhood podcast. "I think that family aspect is the most important part of what I'm teaching my kids. I always tell them no one is going to be there for you like your family is."
What was Boston Rob's job before Survivor?
The same year he coached his school's hockey team, Boston Rob worked as a foreman for a construction company; that experience eventually led him to own his own home renovation business more than two decades later! (But more on that below.)
And like many recent graduates, Boston Rob also gained some essential experience as a bartender during that impressionable time of his life! If you lived near the TD Garden in Boston in the early 2000s, there's a very good chance one of the most prolific reality TV stars ever made you a drink.
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In 2023, Boston Rob returned to his old bar, where a former boss hilariously called him out.
"The last time I saw you, you were going off to do some reality show," said Billy Fairweather. "Whatever happened to that thing anyway?"
"It worked out OK," Mariano jokingly replied.
Is Boston Rob a professional poker player?
While he's not technically a pro, Boston Rob loves playing poker — and he's gotten pretty good at it, too.
He got bit by the poker bug in 2004 when he and his wife were invited to a charity poker game in Hawaii. Although he didn't play in the event, Boston Rob was hooked.
Since then, he's been active in countless big-time poker tournaments, often appearing in televised events. He's even been known to occasionally compete in the legendary World Series of Poker! Today, Boston Rob still plays as much as he can.
Did Boston Rob really write a book?
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Yes! He penned The Boston Rob Rulebook in May 2013. It's a collection of serious and not-so-serious rules Boston Rob lives his life by, amassed over decades of being, well, unabashedly himself.
"The rules and strategies included in The Boston Rob Rulebook are ones I've compiled throughout my life thus far, growing up in a strong, loving, Italian family, in a no-nonsense, straightforward, loyal city like Boston," he wrote on his website. "For the most part these guidelines have helped me achieve many of my life's goals and find creative ways out of tricky situations. And I'm confident they can do the same for you."
