HE WILL SURVIVE

After talent scouts discovered him in a dim Uptown bar, Jonathan Libby’s rapid rise to fame led to swift betrayal, a fake identity and an amazing vacation. A few years after graduating from Lake Highlands High School — for one brief, shining moment — he starred on America’s longest-running network reality TV show, “Survivor.”

In an alternate universe somewhere, Libby parlayed the gig into a megastar existence.

“My friends like to remind me of it every day,” Libby says. “They imagine themselves being the cast of ‘Entourage.’”

Instead, he turned down work on the soap opera “Guiding Light” as well as requests to return as a “Survivor” contestant.

“‘Survivor’ is a three-month commitment. Not something there’s time for when you have a family,” says Libby, who, a decade later, remains the charismatic showman.

The 33-year-old data solution salesman lives a relatively quiet existence with wife Kimberly and their two children.

He was satisfied with his 15 minutes of fame back in 2004.

That year, “Survivor” — the show that maroons a group of strangers on an island to duke it out for a cool million — had been on the air four years.

Libby was drinking at the Candleroom bar when two guys approached him and asked if he wanted in. He joked that theirs was “a terrible pickup line,” and they replied, “You are exactly what we need.”

He met producers at a Dallas hotel. Show creator Mark Burnett loved him, recalls Libby, who, in the previous year, had been treated for testicular cancer.

“I think it made my storyline all the more appealing,” he says. “[Burnett] was just what you’d think. Very sure of himself. Rather than complimenting me, he congratulated himself. He was like, ‘I am so smart to have found you.’”

Then there was the battery of psych tests.

“I had to spend a day taking all sorts of personality and psychological exams. Within eight hours they know everything about you. They know who to put you around — who you’ll fight with.”

The first part of Libby’s journey to the Pacific island of Palau involved a layover in Honolulu. He and the other contestants were isolated both from each other and the outside world. A knock on his hotel door one night revealed an intern with a stack of DVDs. “It was a crash course on ‘Survivor.’ They gave me seasons one through nine. I made it through six.”

On Palau, Libby and the others lived five days in tents before the game began. They spent those days doing entertainment magazine interviews.

“On the last day, it’s 2 a.m., they wake us up and put us on a banana boat in the water some 6 or 7 miles off the shore. Then Jeff Probst, the host, comes out, and announces that the game has started.”

Libby was eliminated in the first round, which he attributes chiefly to his naiveté. Despite his valiant effort, he says, the other contestants were far savvier at playing the game.

In the first episode, Libby built a shelter that the others used throughout the competition.

“I’m working my butt off and they are plotting to get rid of me,” he recalls.

He wasn’t that surprised when they voted him off the island.

“One guy said I looked like a bully who used to pick on him. Another person was convinced I was a mole, an actor who was planted to stir things up.”

After elimination, Libby trekked the walk of shame to the show’s psychiatrist.

“They want to make sure you are OK, not freaked out.”

Then the show —whose budget, according to a New York Times article, is about $1 million per episode —flew him to Guam for a two-and-a-half month vacation at a luxurious beachside villa.

Not a terrible consolation prize. He also earned $60,000 for his troubles.

As spoiler prevention, “Survivor” secludes its rejected contestants until the end of the season. Under threat of a $10 million fine, Libby was not allowed to speak of the show during his stay in the small coastal town. He was there so long, frequenting neighborhood hangouts, locals began to question his identity.

“So I started making up stuff about who I was.”

His most persistent and flamboyant fabrication was that he was the heir to the Heinz ketchup fortune.

“I told people I was a spoiled brat who spent his time traveling and partying.”

After the show aired, Jonathan enjoyed a brief period as a “D-list celebrity,” he says.

Libby returns to “Survivor” get-togethers from time to time, and he might consider competing on “Survivor” again, once his children are more independent.

There is a popular radio show in Sydney, Australia whose hosts have been trying to land a Jonathan Libby interview for years. “I’ve become sort of famous there for being a pain in the ass. They have interviewed every ‘Survivor’ contestant from every season. Except me.”

He says he has accidentally missed multiple opportunities to connect with the show, “Survivor Oz.” But Libby seems to enjoy his role as the sole “Survivor” holdout. “No it’s not about money. They’ve even offered to fly me there. I will do it eventually. But it is funny. It’s this whole thing now.”