Richard Hatch (Survivor contestant)

In 2000, Hatch competed in Survivor: Borneo, the first edition of the show in the United States. Beginning the game on the Tagi tribe, he quickly assembled a voting alliance with former Navy SEAL Rudy Boesch, Sue Hawk, and Kelly Wiglesworth. Hatch slid into the role of fisherman for his tribe to ensure that he would be too valuable to vote off, despite his nudist tendencies and perceived overconfidence. After six eliminations, Tagi merged with the other tribe, Pagong, to form a new tribe called Rattana.

After the merge, the voting alliance eliminated the leader of the former Pagong tribe, Gretchen, who was unwilling to play the game strategically and therefore did not assemble a voting block to counter Tagi's. They then piggybacked off Sean Kenniff's alphabet voting strategy to pick off the remaining Pagong contestants one by one. Wiglesworth, perceiving this systematic elimination as unethical, began having second thoughts about the alliance and started to bond and vote with the Pagong members. This led to a rift in the relationship between Hawk and Wiglesworth; the former accused the latter of acting cowardly and pandering to the future members of the jury to increase her odds of winning. The core alliance of three decided to target Wiglesworth for her duplicity; however, when she won the next two immunity challenges, they stuck to the original plan and eliminated Kenniff and the last former member of Pagong.

Down to four contestants, Wiglesworth won immunity yet again, ensuring that one of the alliances would be voted out. In a two–two tie, Hatch and Hawk were both in danger of elimination.[5] On a revote, Wiglesworth opted to vote out Hawk. At the final immunity challenge, Hatch eliminated himself early, trusting both Wiglesworth and Boesch to take him to the end regardless, and not wanting the option to go back on his word to Boesch if he himself won the challenge.[5] When Wiglesworth won immunity, she voted out Boesch as she believed she had a stronger chance at defeating Hatch than Boesch in the final two.[5]

In the final tribal council, Hatch was deemed arrogant and was both praised and vilified for his leadership of the voting alliance. Hawk compared Hatch to a snake and Wiglesworth to a rat; she voted for him to win because nature intended for "the snake to eat the rat."[5] Hatch became the first Sole Survivor in a 4–3 vote, earning the votes of Boesch, Hawk, Kenniff, and Greg Buis.

Hatch appeared on Survivor: All-Stars as part of the Mogo Mogo tribe. Knowing that there were secret pre-game alliances against him as well as a conspiracy to eliminate previous Survivor winners, Hatch approached the season with a carefree attitude; he focused on being an entertainer, spending his time fishing for sport and lounging around camp in the nude. Mogo Mogo lost one member when Survivor Amazon winner Jenna Morasca quit the game to attend to her dying mother. When the Saboga tribe was dissolved, Mogo Mogo gained two extra members; when they next lost immunity, they immediately eliminated Hatch, to nobody's surprise. Before he was voted out, he was involved in an incident with his former friend and ally, Sue Hawk. Hawk later claimed, during an immunity challenge, that Hatch's genitals touched her as he passed her by on the course. The next day, Hawk resigned from the game voluntarily as she was too upset to continue.[6]

In 2008, Survivor host Jeff Probst admitted he mistakenly judged Colby Donaldson to have lost a competition with Boston Rob, resulting in Hatch leaving the game before he should have. Probst also mentioned a rumor that Hatch smuggled a canister of matches onto Survivor: All-Stars "in a little container up his bum." Despite the rumor, the Mogo Mogo tribe was not able to make fire. Since this rumor, all contestants are now strip searched.[7]

In 2010, Probst revealed that Hatch was considered a strong candidate to return for the 20th season, Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains, as a villain. However, Hatch was unable to return because prosecutors refused to grant him permission to do so.[8][9] Shortly afterward, Hatch revealed that he was cast to return, alongside Russell Hantz, in Survivor: Redemption Island but his visa was reportedly denied again by a judge.[10] Eventual winner Rob Mariano was put in his place. In another interview by Us Weekly in 2020, Probst revealed Hatch was also considered a candidate to participate in an all-winners 40th season, Survivor: Winners at War, but was cut citing concerns on his conduct in All-Stars as "inappropriate" and the fact that the show was in a different culture and time and hoping to show better conduct for the other castaways by not expecting castaways running naked in the future.[11]