Boise’s $1 Million Survivor Winner to Compete on Brand New CBS Series

One upon a time, MTV showed more than just repeats of Ridiculousness and Catfish: The TV Show. There were music videos. There was TRL. There was Road Rules. There was The Real World. And of course, there was the Road Rules/Road Rules Challenge! 

Many of us went through a phase where we started watching “The Challenge” and somehow ended up way more invested in the show than we’d thought we would be. (Honestly we think it was the on again, off again relationship CT Tamburello had with fellow contestant Diem Brown, who eventually passed away during her third battle with cancer.) 

Over the years, The Challenge began incorporating people from other MTV shows or people who were total outsiders. It also led to several spinoff series like The Challenge: Champs vs Stars, The Challenge: All Stars and the newly announced The Challenge: Global Championship Series. That’s a working title for the series which will bring together the victors of Challenge shows taking place in the United States, UK, Argentina and Australia. 

CBS introduced the United States version earlier this week. They’re calling it The Challenge: USA and it will pit 28 contestants from CBS’s Survivor, Big Brother, The Amazing Race and Love Island against each other in mentally and physically grueling challenges that takes what you’ve seen on the MTV and Paramount+ versions of the show to the next level. In addition to a spot on the international show, the winner of The Challenge: USA will also score $500,000.

Boise Man to Compete on The Challenge: USA 

When it premieres, Boise will recognize a familiar face in the crowd! Boise’s own Ben Driebergen is part of the cast! Driebergen, a 2001 Capital High grad, served in the Marines. After returning home from Iraq, he felt himself floating from place to place...eventually ending up in Texas for a period of time.  While in Texas he tasked himself with the extremely difficult task of hand delivering one of his friend's dog tags to his mother.  The fellow Marine was killed while he and Driebergen were serving in Iraq and Driebergen felt that it was his duty to make sure the dog tags made it back to the family. 

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Driebergen won Survivor Season 35 and returned for the “winners at war” themed Season 40. He finished fifth during that season. During his first season, he opened about what life was like returning home from Iraq and how his wife, Kelly, helped him through his battle with depression. 

Ben’s a great family man and we can’t wait to watch him compete again! The Challenge: USA’s first episode will air on CBS July 6. Longtime Challenge host, T.J. Lavin, will host the new spin-off. While you wait for the series to start, you can watch some highlights of Ben’s time on Survivor in the video below!