Who is Dee Valladares? Meet the winner of Survivor 45

In the closing episode, Dee Valladares was proclaimed the winner of Survivor 45. She was a powerful opponent on the CBS show and, together with Drew Basile, Julie Alley, and Austin Lee Coon, was a key member of the Reba alliance. Valladares is a business owner who lives in Florida. She was born in Havana, Cuba, and moved to Florida as a child. According to Hollywood Life, she revealed that her parents had to go to great lengths to relocate and had to “leave everything behind” in Cuba to support her and her brother’s travel. She stated that she hopes to repay her parents’ thanks with the $1 million cash prize she won on Survivor 45.

Valladares credited her phenomenal victory on Survivor 45 to a handful of fortunes that eventually turned in her favour

She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Florida International University in 2018. She eventually changed her career path and decided to work in sales. She worked as a sales development executive at Drata from June 2022 to February 2023, according to her LinkedIn profile. She formerly worked as a sales and marketing professional at Pure Compounding Pharmacy. Valladares credited her phenomenal victory on Survivor 45 to a handful of fortunes that eventually turned in her favour. During the finale Tribal Council, she admitted that without these unexpected turns of fate, she wouldn’t have made it to the winner’s seat. The fact that she insulated herself within the Reba alliance allowed her to count herself among a staunch majority that had the reins to the games post-merges.

As the show came to a close, Dee found herself in a better position than Austin or Basile. She got there by protecting her number one allies because she saw them as having two functions: shields and numbers speaking in her favour. She also holds the distinction of having won the majority of the show’s Immunity Challenges. Dee solidified her place on Survivor 45 in such a way that whenever she wished someone to leave, they did. This was due to her strategic brilliance and penchant for survival in the face of overwhelming odds. As a result, her unusual sense of balance helped her win the show.

Despite winning Survivor 45, Dee faced stiff competition from the other finalists, including Austin, Julie, Drew, and Katurah. Julie was the show’s oldest contestant, and she did her hardest to mask her lawyer image by playing the mother card to the best of her ability. She and Dee were once pals until she played her idol on Emily and sent her home on Dee’s recommendation. Katurah played a calculated strategy and came out on top in every vote. She had no chance against Dee after the latter won the next immunity round. Similarly, Jake tried his best to move through the challenges in good humour, and yet the jury wasn’t impressed with him by the end of the firemaking challenge. Austin made a strong start to the season but finally floundered. His burgeoning romance with Dee didn’t help, and he had lost track of who his foes were. All of these reasons combined to solidify Dee Valladares’ victory on Survivor 45.