Cody Assenmacher: 5 Things About The ‘Survivor’ Player Who Has An Idol Going Into The Merge

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• Cody Assenmacher is a contestant on Survivor 43.
• Cody found an idol on the Vesi tribe and he’s still in the game heading into the merge.
• He lives in Hawaii and works in elevator sales.
• His favorite Survivor player is Malcolm Freberg.

Survivor 43 contestant Cody Assenmacher kept us entertained all through the pre-merge of this season, but now everything is about to change. The final 13 castaways are about to begin the individual portion of the game, where there’s always a galore of shocking blindsides. But Cody’s in a good spot since he found the Hidden Immunity Idol on the Vesi tribe and only told his ally Jesse Lopez. Now, Cody has to outwit, outplay, and outlast the 12 other contestants to win the $1 million grand prize.

But who is Cody Assenmacher? We’ve rounded up everything you need to know about the standout Survivor 43 contestant below!

Cody lives in Hawaii.

Cody is from Preston, Iowa, but decided to give island life a shot and moved to Honolulu, Hawaii a few years ago. “Moving to Hawaii put me really out of my element,” he told Parade magazine in a pre-game interview. “I never lived by the ocean, never been in a tropical environment, never had the cuisine that they eat there.” Interestingly, Cody and fellow Survivor 43 contestant Geo Bustamante are the first contestants on the show to reside in Hawaii at the time of filming, according to SurvivorWiki.

He works in elevator sales.

Cody’s occupation is in elevator sales and he works as an account manager at KONE, according to his LinkedIn. A storyline in the pre-merge of Survivor 43 was Cody’s distrust of tribemate Justine Brennan because of her job in sales. Cody ended up orchestrating Justine being the second person voted out of the season.

He’s one of the oldest contestants on ‘Survivor 43’.

At 35 years old, Cody is one of the older contestants of the season. Of the castaways that are still in the game heading into the merge, only James Jones, 37, and Mike Gabler, 52, are older than Cody. But that hasn’t been a problem for Cody considering he’s been great at the challenges and super strategic so far.

He binged the show during the pandemic.

Cody watched Survivor when the show debuted in 2000, but like many other people, he stopped watching because life got busy. “But during the pandemic, I became a binge watcher and watched multiple episodes,” he revealed to Parade. “And through watching it, I was like, ‘I have the skills to participate and win this game.’ ”

His favorite ‘Survivor’ player is Malcolm.

Cody gushed over three-time Survivor player Malcolm Freberg during his pre-game interview. “Malcom and I share multiple character, personality physical skill sets,” Cody explained. “The ability to sit back and sometimes play the role of a fool to fool the fool who thinks they’re fooling you is critical in this game.”