Tom Westman | |
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Born |
Sayville, New York, U.S. |
January 4, 1964
Television |
Survivor: Palau (winner) Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains |
Tom Westman (born January 4, 1964) is a reality TV personality best known as the winner of the tenth season of the U.S. reality show Survivor.
At the beginning of the game, Westman was not immediately targeted. It was revealed later in the show that when the game began with all 20 castaways on the same island, Westman was in an early alliance with Ian Rosenberger, Katie Gallagher and Stephenie LaGrossa. However, when it came time to pick tribes, LaGrossa ended up on Ulong, whereas Westman, Rosenberger, and Gallagher all ended up on Koror. This three-way alliance stayed strong on Koror. Originally planning to hide behind the younger males of his tribe, Westman soon became known for leadership skills. Koror won every single tribal immunity challenge; but in Episode Five, both tribes faced tribal council regardless of the challenge outcome, and Westman joined the rest of his tribe to vote out Willard Smith.
As Ulong's numbers dwindled until only LaGrossa remained, she joined Koror in Episode Nine in an unofficial merge. Together with LaGrossa, Westman's alliance controlled the game and voted out Coby Archa. At the Final Eight, Westman's allies Gregg Carey and Jennifer Lyon decided to vote out LaGrossa, despite Westman's campaigning for her. But Janu Tornell unexpectedly quit the game at Tribal Council after LaGrossa broke down once. At the next Tribal Council, LaGrossa tried to organize an alliance of women against Westman, but Caryn Groedel would not commit and informed him of the plan, leading to LaGrossa being unanimously voted out.
At the Final Three, heavy arguments took place, especially between Rosenberger and Westman. Rosenberger felt as if he had betrayed his friends, and protested that he did not come to play the role of the villain. In the endurance immunity challenge, after close to 12 hours, Rosenberger agreed to step down and be voted off in a sign of repentance for betraying Westman and Gallagher. Westman accepted and Rosenberger was voted out. This immunity win was Westman's fifth out of only seven individual immunity challenges, matching the record for individual immunity wins set by Colby Donaldson (Survivor: The Australian Outback), and since matched only by Terry Deitz (Survivor: Panama), Ozzy Lusth (Survivor: Cook Islands), and Mike Holloway (Survivor: Worlds Apart).