Ozzy Lusth’s Job Now: What the 'Survivor' Star Does for a Living Today

Most fans know Oscar “Ozzy” Lusth from Survivor, but these days, he is cooking with a whole new set of tools. Ozzy first appeared on Survivor: Cook Islands in 2006 and came close to claiming the win. He reached the final three with Yul Kwon and Becky Lee, but Yul secured the win in a 5-4-0 jury vote.

He returned for Survivor: Micronesia — Fans vs. Favorites, where he became the victim of one of the biggest blindsides in the show’s history. Ozzy was voted out early in the merge and became the second member of the jury after Parvati Shallow’s alliance turned on him. He later told TV Guide, “I got played, basically. I got stabbed in the back by my friends.”

Since then, Ozzy has completely switched lanes.

Ozzy now owns Xolazul, a Guanajuato restaurant that blends cocktails, food, live music, and special events. In an interview with Parade, he said that after 20 years in Venice Beach, he packed up and returned to Guanajuato to build something of his own.

“I moved on to Mexico and opened a restaurant with my little brother. In the town that I was born in, called Guanajuato, I opened a vinyl bar,” he said. “It’s basically, once I finish competing, I have one more phase of construction. But it’s a vinyl bar, music venue, restaurant.”

That career move came with a deeper reset. Ozzy told Entertainment Weekly that he hit a low point and knew he needed to change his life. “That was kind of my rock bottom of my life, I would say,” he admitted. “I went to a dark place and realized that I had to make a huge change. So that's one of the reasons why I left Los Angeles, to go do and build something that I could be proud of.”

Long before Xolazul became his focus, Ozzy already had experience in the business. In EW’s 2021 questionnaire, he said he built and operated a small-batch brewery, an event space, and an art studio in Los Angeles. He also helped open a Venice Beach izakaya as its general manager.

Ozzy has become a Survivor fan favorite, and he continues to show up across different versions of the series. He also competed on South Pacific and Game Changers, which only made him more popular amongst viewers.

Host Jeff Probst told TIME that Ozzy’s South Pacific strategy — asking his tribe to vote him out so he could return through Redemption Island — was “one of the biggest moves in Survivor history.”

Ozzy later told EW that his biggest regret was the final South Pacific puzzle because he felt he had the game won if he could finish it. “Typically, puzzles are a strong suit for me, and I knew I had the game won if only I could win that puzzle,” he said. “My mind raced and was blank all at once. I second-guessed my tile placements and lost the lead and then it was just too much.”

Ozzy also returned for Survivor 50, which premiered on Feb. 25.