Diaz-Twine, Malcolm Freberg, Aubry Bracco, and Michaela Bradshaw were then switched to Nuku. They joined original Nuku member James "J. T." Thomas, Jr., winner of Survivor: Tocantins. At the fifth Tribal Council, Varner joined Diaz-Twine and Bradshaw in blindsiding Thomas. Varner and Diaz-Twine remained on Nuku after the second tribe switch, but were excluded from the alliance of new members Ozzy Lusth, Andrea Boehlke, Tai Trang, Sarah Lacina and Zeke Smith. At Tribal Council, both Varner and Diaz-Twine voted for Trang, but the rest voted against Diaz-Twine, thus sending her out of the game for the first time in her Survivor career. She was replaced on Nuku by the recently-exiled Debbie Wanner. Zeke Smith outing controversy Before the final pre-merge Tribal Council, Varner tried to convince Lacina, Wanner, and Boehlke to vote out Lusth, by saying that Smith was deceiving the tribe about his relationship with Lusth. At Tribal Council, Varner asked Smith, "Why haven't you told anyone you're transgender?" Varner said he thought that Smith had been open about his identity with everyone back home, but was trying to conceal it to his tribemates in the game. However, this backfired as it became evident that Smith had never revealed his being transgender publicly. All of the other tribemates disregarded their alliances for the evening to admonish Varner and support Smith. Many were in tears as the Tribal Council played out, and even Jeff Probst came to Smith's defense. In the end, Probst asked the rest of the tribe if they are set on voting out Varner, and they said yes, thus sending him out of the game without the usual written-vote style of elimination. Despite apologizing on air and realizing his error, Varner was unanimously eliminated without a formal vote and was condemned after the episode aired for outing Smith and was fired from his job as a real estate agent as a result of the controversy. During his exit interview, he stated that no one on Survivor should do what he did. However, he revealed at the reunion that he got hired at a new real estate agency. Journalism career Varner was, until September 2014, main anchor at WNCT-TV, the CBS affiliate in Greenville, North Carolina. Prior, he worked as a general assignment reporter for WPIX-11, the CW's flagship station in New York City. He has worked as an entertainment reporter for KCBS in Los Angeles then E!