Confirming rumors that having been circulating for several months. Survivor host Jeff Probst has admitted that he and 24-year-old Survivor: Vanuatu contestant Julie Berry are seriously dating. "I'm in love. I'm with her. I'm with her family, and there ain't no turning back," the 43-year-old Probst told People magazine this week.
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Julie had denied the rumors of a relationship as recently as last Friday. "That was just harmless fun on the show. There's no truth to that rumor," she told her local Portland Press Herald during a telephone interview that followed last Thursday's broadcast of the episode in which she was voted out of the game.
Less than a week later -- but after Survivor: Vanuatu's Sunday finale had aired -- Jeff finally came clean. "Nobody is more surprised than me that I could find my love affair on a show that I host," he told People. "But the truth is when something like this gets dropped in your lap, you don't look at how it's wrapped, you don't look at how it's being delivered. You just put your arms around it and you hold on because this is my love affair and there's no question in my mind about it."
According to Jeff, the couple's relationship didn't begin until after Vanuatu finished filming in August. "The funny thing was there was this perception we were flirting on the show," he told People, "and that was actually just fun stuff on the show. I didn't really talk to Julie until long after the show was over."
Sometime after the show had ended, Jeff emailed Julie "just to say hello." From there, things quickly took off. "Once we started spending some time together, I didn't have any doubt. I didn't have any doubt and all the questions about how you meet and any potential obstacles, they fade away like an old dry leaf."
"I'm in love. I'm with her. I'm with her family, and there ain't no turning back. When you find it, you know and now I get it," Jeff gushed to the magazine. "The funniest thing is people used to always say, 'you'll know,' and I'd think, 'Oh, shut it! Let me tell ya, I've been around long enough, I don't know.' And then suddenly one day, I knew. Now I am one of those irritating people that is now saying, 'you'll know.'"
Julie is moving to California to pursue her master's degree in family counseling and be closer to Jeff. Jeff resides in Los Angeles when not halfway around the world filming Survivor competitions.
