Boston Rob Hits Major Milestone with Wife

A major milestone is just around the corner for “Survivor” couple “Boston Rob” Mariano and wife Amber. April 16, the couple will celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary.

The pair met in 2003 as contestants on “Survivor: All-Stars.” The eighth season of the reality series pitted 18 former contestants against each other. What started as a strategic alliance ended with a proposal in the season finale.

Amber first competed on “Survivor: The Australian Outback” in 2001. Rob, better known as “Boston Rob,” gained notoriety for his cut-throat techniques on “Survivor: Marquesas” in 2002. In clips from “Survivor: All-Stars,” Amber admits that flirting with Rob started as a “complete strategy” move.

But as time went on, the alliance solidified into something much more.

“The way our relationship started out is so different than what anybody ever experiences with dating,” Amber told Entertainment Tonight in 2020. “When you’re on Survivor, you can’t even brush your teeth, you can’t even brush your hair, you don’t even change your clothes. So we didn’t have this, like almost fake way to impress each other … it was the most real as it gets.” 

In the end, Amber walked away with not just the proposal, but the $1 million prize money, besting Rob in the final tribal council vote. If you’re wondering, Rob proposed before the vote. “I’ve seen you at your highest high and your lowest low and between it all we work together as a team to accomplish so much,” Rob said during the episode. “And in the end, I ended up falling in love with you. You’re the most amazing person I’ve ever met in my entire life and I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

Survivor Couple Builds a Family

Rob and Amber married on April 16, 2005 at Atlantis Paradise Island in The Bahamas. Their ceremony was later featured in a TV special. Since that time, their family has grown. Amber gave birth to first daughter, Lucia Rose, in 2009, followed by Carina Rose in 2010. Isabetta Rose was born in 2012 and Adelina Rose completed the family in 2014.

Rob and Amber Mariano Have Returned to Reality TV Several Times

“Survivor: All-Stars” wasn’t the couple’s last foray into reality television. In 2005, Rob and Amber competed as a team on the CBS series “The Amazing Race” and came in second. They returned for “Amazing Race: All-Stars” two years later but were eliminated.

The Marianos have also returned to “Survivor” several times. Rob even won “Survivor: Redemption Island” in 2011. And the pair returned together in 2019 to compete in “Survivor: Winners at War.”

In the end, the pair’s experiences with reality television have strengthened their bond. In an interview with People magazine, Rob says, “There’s a lot of lessons from these reality shows that are applicable in relationships, and that’s the biggest one probably. There’s constantly going to be things that are coming up, and it feels like people that are able to adapt and kind of go on the fly are the ones who ultimately end up doing the best. That’s Amber and I for sure.”