"Boston" Rob Mariano | Contractor, TV Personality

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For important information, visit principle.com disclosures. Boston Rob Mariano is the home improvement contractor, the TV personality himself, part of Secret Celebrity Renovation, and I had a chance to catch up with him a few hours ago. I've watched most of this episode with DeMar, but I purposely stopped before the end, Rob, because I wanted to talk to you first and get your reaction. What stands out about this particular ep with DeMar himself?

Yeah, I mean, so you've seen more than me because I haven't seen the episode yet. But DeMar was just, you know, everything you'd expect him to be. He was so gracious in his entire approach to this whole thing.

You know, the premise of the show, the point of it is for different celebrities and athletes and, you know, television and music stars to see them in a different light. And, you know, DeMar is not a contractor. He's not a home improvement specialist. But what he is is someone that loves his grandma and wanted to do something special for her. So it was so cool just to see him jump in with both feet and do everything to make this a really successful and awesome project. I'm not sure the majority of the sports world even knew the name DeMar Hamlin before January. There were so many people praying for him and pulling for him. And now here he is.

He's on the Bills active roster. What do you remember about that moment and that week when DeMar suffered cardiac arrest on the field? Yeah, it's like one of those things that stands out in time for me. Like I remember where I was on 9-11. I remember exactly where I was when DeMar went down, because I was at the Patriots game that day with my family in Boston. And I came home and I watched it happen.

And I got on my knees and I prayed for him, which I think like everybody that saw it happen did. It's amazing, like his comeback. He's playing now again and everything and the way everything worked out. And even as a football fan and just a fan in general, to see the story unfold the way it did, and then to meet him and to see, you know, just how awesome of a person he is, is really special. Yeah, that's what I keep coming back to every time I hear him speak or see him interact and even watching the parts of the show that I did. He's so gracious. He's so humble. He's so determined to inspire, to take his second chance and to share that life and that inspiration with other people.

Yeah, and I think you just hit the nail on the head. It's inspirational. It is to watch him, to see him, you know, and we did this renovation a few months ago and you could tell it was still fresh, you know, everything. And he wasn't sure whether or not it was anything going to be able to play again, but now seeing him back on the field with his teammates and interacting and, you know, out there actually competing again.

I mean, that's where he belongs. He loves it. And it's just a great story all around. The episode is Damar Hamlin and Secret Celebrity Renovation.

It airs on CBS and Paramount Plus coming up on Friday night, eight o'clock Eastern time. And we're spending a few minutes with the contractor. You may know him as Boston Rob from Reality TV, Rob Mariano. Why do you do this? Why is this a project that matters to you?

You know, I love it. Like, uh, well, the one thing I've stayed true to the entire time is like who I am. And I grew up in construction. That was my background. Obviously the Survivor stuff, the Amazing Race stuff, all the television stuff came after almost by accident. You know, I sent in an application to be on a show. The whole reason this started was because originally in the very first season, we did a renovation for my parents and they asked me to participate.

And then when they found out my background was in construction, they asked me to come on and join the design team full time. And it's been awesome. You know, it's so cool because I love, I love working in construction, but also being able to give back and be a part of these inspirational stories each and every week has been really, really cool. How emotional does it get or how emotional do you get when you're watching the reactions from family members? In real time, it's definitely emotional. I've been choked up on more than one occasion. I remember in particular last season, the finale with Nicole Scherzinger in Hawaii, she had her grandparents and, and I might've shed a tear there, but it's a special story. It's, it's nice to see, you know, these people that we put on a pedestal all the time, just come down to our level and notice that like, you know, they have mom and dads and grandparents too, and people that matter in their lives, even though we see them as our heroes each and every week on the field or on the stage or on the television, they're regular people too.

And it just restores faith that there's a lot of good people in this world. I love the part where you give him the sledgehammer, let him pick one, and he gets to start knocking down cupboards in his grandmother's kitchen. That was incredible. Notoriously every, every season, we always do a few episodes with athletes. And I got to tell you, I make my job as a contractor, as far as the demolition part goes a lot easier because they're not going to let their buddies on the field, see them not giving it their all.

And tomorrow was no, was no slouch. That's for sure. Boston Rob of secret celebrity renovation on CBS is with us here after hours, CBS sports radio. If you don't mind, I'd love to hear a little about the logistics. What kind of effort goes into a renovation project like this in two weeks? Yeah, it's a large undertaking. We have a large team, you know, there's a planning process. I'm part of the design team, which is myself and Sabrina Soto does the design.

Michelle is obviously the host. And then we have a lot of, we have a large team behind the scenes logistically to make it happen. You know, this pre-planning with the construction, the permitting, all of that. And obviously we have to figure out work with the celebrity schedule. I'm a small piece of a huge team that that really works all together seamlessly to make it happen. But behind the scenes, a lot goes into it for sure.

Yeah. So seamlessly when we see the final, the finished project, have you ever, have you ever had something go horribly wrong? I mean, look like, just like on the island and survivor and construction, you have to adapt to your situation, especially when you're working on these older houses, you know, in particular in Damar's episode, it was an older house and the stairway going up the stairs was, was coming apart from the wall and we didn't expect it. We had no idea that it was such a huge issue, but structurally we needed to address it and we needed to repair it. So it definitely added time and of course money to the renovation that we hadn't originally planned for. But the number one thing is, you know, aside from cosmetically making it look great, we want the renovation to be sound structurally and be what the people want, you know?

So it has to be safe first and foremost. Without giving anything away, what do you remember about grandma's reaction? I wasn't in the house, but we were outside.

Michelle, Michelle walks through with them, but we heard, we heard her reaction and she was pretty happy. I can say the least. There was definitely, it was a joyful moment for sure. You have four daughters, you and your wife, Amber, do they enjoy watching you on TV in these different types of projects? Yeah, they absolutely love it for sure. I mean, I remember in particular last episode, we did an episode with Nathan, last season with Nathan Chen, where I actually got on the ice and figure skated with him and they were beside themselves laughing. But it's also emotional for them too to watch them see it. And you know, it's tough because it's a sacrifice to be away from them sometimes, but when they see what daddy's doing, you know, and the difference it makes in a lot of people's lives, I think ultimately they're proud.

All right, so you can find him on Twitter at Boston Rob and there's links there to secret celebrity renovation, but it airs Friday on CBS 8 Eastern Time with Damar Hamlin also streaming on Paramount Plus. It's great to catch up with you for a couple of minutes. Thanks so much for squeezing us in. Absolutely. Thank you for having me.

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