varner was a contestant on "", 2001. he was a member of the kucha tribe, and made it to the merge, but not the core group of nine, as there was a tie between him and colby donaldson. at the time, in the event of a tie, previous tribal council votes would be used. because keith famie and tina wesson knew this, and tina had no votes against her before while keith had several of them (mostly from jerri manthey and her allies), keith's request to tina when they had both lasted for hours in the immunity challenge and were the last two players standing (phrased as "i need this") led to tina ending her run so that keith was safe, and giving kucha no one to vote for who had more votes than varner: jeff had two but knew only of one, while colby had zero. it was revealed on the "survivor: australia" dvd, in the special commentary section, that it was kimmi kappenberg that inadvertently gave away the vote he had against him during the episode two reward challenge. this is also mentioned by varner in the episode in which he was voted off, early in the episode while the kucha tribe is talking in their shelter at night.