Danté De Villiers

Danté De Villiers is a castaway from Survivor South Africa: Island of Secrets.

Profile

Retrieved from m-net.dstv.com

Surname: De Villiers
Age: 31
Occupation: Coffee shop owner
From: Dwarskersbos, Cape West Coast

With his long flowing hair, muscled body and love for the ocean, Danté is Survivor SA's dreamy Aquaman! His passion for the outdoors has taken this soft-spoken athletic loner to many places across the world. After living in Thailand and spending the last seven years in the South of Israel next to the Red Sea, Danté has returned to South Africa to run a coffee shop – in a small coastal town of course! Danté certainly doesn't conform to the norm. "I do my own thing, on my own terms," he says of himself. "There are too many followers in this world." Case in point: Even though he sees himself as a "real surfer", decent hygiene is very high on his priority list.^[1]

Survivor South Africa

Danté immediately stood out as the biggest physical asset of the Ta'alo tribe. His hair and his prowess in the water earned him the nickname "Aquaman". He was part of the majority of the tribe that planned to vote out Tania Copeland at their first Tribal Council, but was stunned to learn that Tania would be sent to the Island of Secrets and exempt from the vote. He pushed for Ting Ting Wong to go as she was considered the next weakest, though Jacques planned to save her with his idol. A late stroke of paranoia got the better of Jacques Burger though and he wasted his idol on himself, which annoyed Danté.

In the first tribe swap, Danté and his closest ally, Meryl Szolkeiwicz remained on Ta'alo in a 2-2-2 split of original tribe members. At a reward, Danté helped Meryl find a clue to a Hidden Immunity Idol, which turned out to be at the next Immunity Challenge. When Meryl reached for and obtained it, Danté alerted her that the rest of the tribe saw her, forcing Meryl to come clean about the idol and making the pair a target in Rob Bentele's eyes. Danté stole the flint to unnerve Rob, which appeared to work, but Rob used this situation to intentionally put the target on his back so that he could use the Sa'ula idol to blindside Danté. Fortunately for him, the strength of this iteration of Ta'alo and the weakness of Laumei prevented them from attending Tribal Council.

A second swap put Danté and Meryl on a tribe with two original Sa'ula and three original Laumei, where he started to play even more aggressively. Annoyed as Geoffrey's "emphasis on social game", Danté attempted to paint him as a snake and target Geoffrey. However, Geoffrey was able to form a majority alliance with Mmaba, Nicole Capper, and Durão Mariano where they pretended they were splitting the votes between Meryl and Danté but instead targeted Nathan Castle, which successfully flushed Meryl's idol.

This move put Meryl and Danté clearly in the bottom of the tribe once merge hit, despite his attempts to realign with Cobus Hugo and Jacques. The social and strategic threats that Meryl, Geoffrey Cooke-Tonneson, and Seipei Mashugane posed as well as a timely Immunity Challenge win on Day 26 kept Dante in the game. During this time, Danté's several attempts to counter the Spitshake Seven and original Sa'ula core alliances (both led by Rob) failed as he had burned too many bridges previously. Danté had one last chance when he won reward on Day 27 and pitched an alliance to Mike Venter, Mmaba Molefe, and Laetitia Le Roux with the hopes of pulling in Durão. Ultimately his efforts failed, and after four post merge Tribal Councils of not voting with the majority, Danté was voted out 5-3-1 (due to Durão losing his vote as part of an Island of Secrets twist) on Day 28 and became the 4th member of the jury.

Voting History

Danté's Voting History
Episode	Danté's Votes	Voted Against Danté
1	Ta'alo Tribe Immune
2	Ta'alo Tribe Immune
3	Ting Ting	-
4	Ta'alo Tribe Immune
5	Ta'alo Tribe Immune
6	Ta'alo Tribe Immune
7	Sa'ula Tribe Immune
8	Geoffrey	-
9	Geoffrey	-
10	Nicole	Geoffrey, Mmaba
11	Rob	Individual Immunity
12	Cobus	Cobus, Jacques, Nicole, Rob, Steffi
Voted Out, Day 28
Voted for Sole Survivor	Rob