Surviving a windfall
From abs-cbnnews.com
By TOTEL DE JESUS
TODAY Correspondent
They’ve won against the elements and the unflinching backbiting that have made Survivor the must-see reality TV show in the last nine seasons. But the biggest challenge for its winners waits for them back home: the US tax guys.
Amid all the glitz and glamour that came with winning Survivor, the $1-million grand prize did not come whole to the winners after all.
As a New Yorker, Ethan Zohn, winner of Survivor Africa in 2002, got only 51 percent of the prize money after all the federal and state taxes have been paid.
“That’s how it is, man. I had to pay 49-percent tax to the state of New York. People say am a millionaire but am not,” he told Today in a recent interview organized by ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corp. The network giant, through its UHF channel Studio 23, shows the latest season, Survivor: Vanuatu, prime time, Friday and Sunday.
Zohn, together with fellow grand prize winner Jenna Morasca (Survivor Amazon) and Shii-Ann Huang (Survivor Thailand), visited the Philippines as part of the Survivor Asian promotional tour.
Zohn, a 30-year-old professional soccer player, said he still lives in the same apartment in New York, where he has been staying years before he won Survivor. He said he still takes the subway and the bus.
“It’s practically the same lifestyle, except I am more busy now with endorsements and doing other jobs than being a professional soccer player. I don’t even have a car. Well, part of the price money I used to buy brand-new cars—a BMW and a Ford Ranger—for my brothers Lenard and Lee. With what’s left of it [around $500,000], I invested to charity. I have a finance manager who does all the computations, though. I don’t know actually if there’s still something left with the price money I got from Survivor. What’s in the bank now is the salary I get from doing other things like hosting jobs, product endorsements, etc.”
Zohn’s pre-Survivor years revolved on soccer. After getting a bachelor of arts degree major in biology from Vassar College in New York, he was employed as goalie for the Highlanders Football Club in Zimbabwe, Cape Cod Crusaders and the Hawaii Tsunamis.
Survivor has not changed his love for the game. Zohn founded Grassroots Soccer, a non-profit organization that trains Africa’s professional soccer players and teaches children on HIV/AIDS awareness. It has satellite schools in Ethiopia, Botswana and Zimbabwe, among other African countries.
Zohn is also the national spokesman for American Scores, an organization that helps children in the city to participate in educational soccer programs.
On the side, he had appeared in a Hewlett-Packard commercial and hosted a number of MTV specials.
Morasco is a bit luckier than Zohn. A native of Bridgeville, Pennsylvania, her price money was taxed at only 30 percent. “With what’s left of it [$700,000], my father saved some in the bank, one of those maturing bonds which I can get in full when I’m 45 years old. A part of it he used to buy a small property in a beach, which we are going to rent out in the future. Some he invested also in local stocks in Pennsylvania. As for myself, I started a company called Model Challenge USA,” said the 23-year-old entrepreneur, who had already made a name for herself as a freelance model, even before she won Survivor.
Model Challenge USA is based in Bridgeville. The idea is like the Miss USA pageant in that there are contests in every state. For this endeavor, she teamed up with Jen and Cheryl Clark, who are her friends since seventh grade. The Clarks handle the daily administrative tasks, including marketing.
Morasca is the president and chief executive of Model Challenge USA, which she registered in Pennsylvania as a legitimate company just two months ago. While she hesitated to give exact figure on her personal equity in the company, she hinted that it’s “around 25 percent of what I got from Survivor money.”
Model Challenge USA will earn through advertising, product endorsements, sponsorships and ticket sales during the elimination phase in each state, as well as on the finals, which will be held in October next year.
“The ultimate goal of the company is to help those who want to be a professional model and make it big fast. I am using all my connections in the industry to make things happen,” Morasca said.
The income she gets after being catapulted to fame after Survivor is still overflowing. Morasca had posed for the cover of Playboy magazine last year, with fellow contestant Heidi Strobel. She did an antifur campaign for the animal rights group Peta. She also acted for six weeks in the off-Broadway play Pieces and has done hosting jobs for several VH1 specials.
Unlike her fellow Survivor All-Stars, Huang didn’t win a million dollars after she voted off seventh in Thailand. But her stint still paid off eventually; after appearing on the show, she has become a spokesman for various cause-oriented groups all over the world. Huang, who lives in New York, is now the executive recruiter and creative development partner for Max Curious Productions, a television and film production company.
Survivor has spawned similar prime-time shows on local television with the expected difference: here, the winner usually gets P100,000, just but the right capital to start a fishball and kikiam stall in Quiapo or buy a brand-new tricycle.