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| Ziad and Austin: Where Are Wonka’s The Golden Ticket Contestants Now? |
Ziad and Austin quickly established themselves as one of the more noticeable partnerships in Wonka’s The Golden Ticket. Their friendship gave them a natural advantage, particularly because both understood the importance of building relationships while also keeping their physical abilities ready for the challenges ahead. They were not simply relying on being the athletic duo in the room; they were also trying to work out who could be trusted when the game inevitably became more complicated.
The first challenge put that partnership to the test almost immediately. Austin was trapped inside a gumball machine, leaving Ziad with the job of helping get him out. Ziad secured a coin for himself and then spent the evening working on alliances, eventually getting support from two other coin holders so he could free Austin. It was an early indication that brute strength alone was not going to be enough. Apparently, even in a competition built around Willy Wonka, networking still matters.
Ziad was also willing to put himself directly into the action. When contestants were asked to volunteer for Wonkavision 1.0, he stepped forward, making it clear that he had entered the competition to win life-changing money and was prepared to take risks to get there. That confidence became part of his identity in the game, although it also meant there was nowhere to hide when things started going against him.
The honey-draining challenge created another awkward moment for the pair. Ziad and Austin promised Gabrielle and Sasha that they would help them, giving the two contestants reason to believe the arrangement could benefit them. Once the challenge began, however, Ziad and Austin rescued other contestants first. Their team ultimately won, but the decision came with a cost: an alliance that had looked useful suddenly became considerably less useful. Reality television has a funny way of turning a perfectly reasonable promise into tomorrow’s awkward conversation.
Ziad later found himself vulnerable after Kayla nominated him, something he clearly did not appreciate given the trust he believed they had established. His position became increasingly uncertain as the competition narrowed, particularly when he found himself among the final two men standing. Physical strength had helped him get deep into the game, but the experience also demonstrated the limits of relying on athletic ability when alliances, nominations and individual decisions could change everything.
Outside the show, Ziad Mansour has continued to build his identity around fitness. He began as a professional natural bodybuilder and made his debut in 2023, later trying out for the PNBA in Arizona in October of the same year. Since then, he appears to have shifted his attention away from professional competition and towards coaching, content creation and building his own fitness brand.
Ziad now has a sizeable social media presence, with around 566,000 followers on Instagram and roughly 113,500 on TikTok, alongside his YouTube channel. He continues to describe himself as a Pro Natural Bodybuilder, while much of his content centres on training, consistency and motivation. His online presence has effectively turned the discipline he brought to the competition into a broader fitness business.
A major part of that work is his coaching through the Tack 360 App and his Mansour Method, a training system he says he has followed for seven years. The programme uses an eight-day split combining strength training, hypertrophy, recovery and nutrition, with rest built into the routine every other day. It is a fairly serious approach to fitness, although the basic message behind his content is considerably simpler: keep showing up and do the work.
Ziad has also moved into business alongside Austin. The two have launched Bad Man Athletics, combining their shared interest in training with the social-media audience they have built since the competition. Ziad's career now looks much more like that of a fitness entrepreneur and creator than someone focused solely on bodybuilding competitions, and the shift gives him plenty of room to keep expanding beyond the gym.
Austin Keil's career story is considerably less straightforward. Before appearing on Wonka’s The Golden Ticket, he had built an impressive academic and technical background. He studied Mathematics and Computer Science at Santa Barbara City College between 2015 and 2019, graduating with a 3.97 GPA, before earning a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from UCLA in 2022. Along the way, he worked as a teaching assistant and tutor, became president of the competitive programming club and took part in several university organisations.
His early professional experience was firmly rooted in technology. Austin completed software engineering internships at ONTRAPORT, including work involving React, PHP, APIs and software testing. He also worked as a solar photovoltaic installer in the British Virgin Islands and taught game development using Unity and C# at GEC Academy in Shanghai. He later joined eBay's Trust and Identity team, where his work included security keys and web development.
Then came Meta, where Austin joined as a software engineer in June 2022. His work involved new user experiences for Facebook and Instagram, but the role did not become a long-term destination. He left Meta in December 2023, setting the stage for a career path that would look very different from the one his computer science background seemed to suggest.
Austin has since moved into modelling, sport and entrepreneurship. He has continued volunteering with organisations connected to his university years while also pursuing rugby. He played for UCLA Men's Rugby and represented the British Virgin Islands National Rugby Team, where he was named MVP once. His sporting background also fits neatly with his work in fitness, although his career has now expanded well beyond anything that could comfortably be described as a conventional engineering job.
His modelling work has brought another unexpected milestone. Austin appeared on a Vogue cover with Sharon Stone in June 2025, adding a very different entry to a CV that already includes software engineering, university leadership, rugby and competitive reality television. He is also associated with 1st Phorm and has continued developing Bad Man Athletics with Ziad, giving the pair a business connection that has lasted beyond their time competing together.
There is something oddly entertaining about where Ziad and Austin ended up. Ziad, who entered the competition looking like someone built specifically for physical challenges, has largely doubled down on fitness and turned it into a career. Austin, meanwhile, went from computer science and a job at Meta to rugby, modelling, fitness and entrepreneurship.
That is not exactly the career progression you would expect from a CV starting with a 3.97 GPA and software engineering experience. Their Wonka’s The Golden Ticket appearance now feels less like the defining part of either man's story and more like one particularly strange stop along the way. Ziad's route is relatively easy to follow, while Austin's looks like someone opened several browser tabs and decided to keep all of them.
What makes their post-Wonka careers interesting is that neither appears to have abandoned the qualities they brought into the competition. Ziad has turned his physical discipline into coaching and content, while Austin has combined his academic background, sporting experience and modelling work with a growing interest in business. Their friendship has also evolved into a professional partnership through Bad Man Athletics, meaning the duo's collaboration did not end when the competition did.
For viewers wondering where Ziad and Austin are now, the answer is surprisingly busy. Ziad is focused on fitness coaching, bodybuilding content and his Mansour Method, while Austin is balancing modelling, sport, fitness and business after leaving software engineering behind.
Their paths have certainly taken different turns, but both have found ways to build careers around interests they already displayed during the show. Which career move surprised you more — Austin leaving tech for modelling or Ziad turning his competition strengths into a fitness business? Share your take on the pair and whether you think their post-Wonka careers suit the personalities they showed on screen.