Richard Hatch

Richard Holman Hatch, Jr. is the very first Survivor winner, earning the title of Sole Survivor in. He also competed on.

While known for his arrogance, nudity, superb fishing skills and unlikely friendship with Rudy Boesch, Hatch is best known for creating the series' first ever alliance, known as the Tagi Alliance, a voting bloc that controlled the game and helped define Survivor game play, as his strategy became a template for how the game will be played in subsequent years.

After winning Survivor, Hatch became infamous for his incarceration after being accused of not paying his taxes over his Survivor winnings, which prevented him from coming back for a third season for several years.

Profile
Retrieved from CBS.com

Borneo
Richard Hatch competed in the inaugural season of Survivor, which would later come to be known as . He was placed on the orange Tagi tribe, where his outspoken and somewhat arrogant nature rubbed his tribemates the wrong way. Rich's arrogance became clear over the next few days, such as claiming on Day One that he had already won the game and being unhelpful around camp. After losing the first Immunity Challenge, Rich speculated that he was in danger of being voted out due to his arrogance. He decided to target Stacey Stillman for being the weakest, however the tribe vote out Sonja Christopher instead as she had cost the tribe the challenge the day before. Richard attempted to catch fish with Kelly Wiglesworth and Susan Hawk, however they were unsuccessful. In a confessional Richard expressed his desire to get to know Stacey better, as he voted for her at the last Tribal Council and revealed that Stacey believed Rudy Boesch was the one who voted for her. After revealing he was gay to the rest of the tribe, he was scared to tell Rudy, as Rich thought he was homophobic. However after telling him, Rich was surprised to learn that Rudy was comfortable around him and even referred to Rich as one of the nicest people he had ever met. During an unaired Reward Challenge Richard was the designated weight bearer for Tagi. He lost the challenge to Joel Klug of Pagong. However, they managed to win the Immunity Challenge.

Rich had a small conflict with Dirk Been due to the latter's despise of homosexual people. After winning fishing gear at the Reward Challenge Richard revealed his proficiency at fishing, catching a stingray and fish for his tribe, causing some envy from Sean Kenniff. Richard's fishing ability increased his position in the tribe, with many of his tribemates praising his ability. Tagi once again lost the Immunity Challenge, sending them back to Tribal Council. Richard again targeted Stacey for her weakness. This time he got his way, as Stacey was voted out in a 5-2 vote. Richard formed Survivor ' s first alliance on Day 10 between himself, Rudy, Sue, and Kelly. Although acknowledging having an alliance was sneaky, Richard deemed it necessary to ensure his survival for the next few rounds. Richard expressed confidence about this alliance, saying that if they stuck together they would be unstoppable. Things began well for the alliance as Tagi was able to win the next Immunity Challenge.

The tribe became annoyed at Sean and Dirk's failed attempts at catching fish as they were wasting time instead of working. Rich revealed another skill of his by performing better than anyone else with the slingshot the tribe needed for the next challenge. Despite his accuracy though, Tagi was unable to win the Reward Challenge. At camp Richard found a snake, and despite knowing its lethal consequences, decided to play with it. After losing the Immunity Challenge Rich planned with his alliance about whether they should vote out Sean or Dirk. Although they initially decided on voting for Sean, after seeing how weak Dirk had become they changed their votes and Dirk became the alliances first victim. After successfully ousting Dirk Rich became confident that he was in control of the game. The tribe started thinking about the merge and decided that winning the next Immunity Challenge was crucial in order to go into the merge with even numbers. Around camp Richard decided to start walking around naked, which both amused and irked his tribe. The Tagi tribe managed to win immunity, which meant they would go into the merge against Pagong tied with 5 members each.

After merging into Rattana, Rich's alliance had a decision to make: either vote out the former Pagong members or Sean, the only Tagi member not in the alliance. Rich expressed his surprise at Sean and Gretchen Cordy's unwillingness to form an alliance, calling it sheer stupidity. Rich bonded well with his new tribemates, learning how to play cards from Gervase Peterson and bonding with Greg Buis. Rich was excited when he learned that he was still the only person on the tribe who knew how to fish. At the first Tribal Council of the merged tribe Rich's alliance decided to target Gretchen, as she was seen as the leader of Pagong. After an unexpected 4-1-1-1-1-1-1 vote, Gretchen was voted out.

The tribe began to realize how good of a position Rich had put himself in. As he was the only person able to fish, if the tribe voted him out they would not eat anything other than rice. Rich and Greg continued to get to know each other, with both thinking the other one was overconfident and neither knowing whether they should trust the other one. The Tagi Alliance noticed how threatening Greg could become if he stuck around and voted him out at their next Tribal Council. Richard and Sue celebrated their position in the game, but became weary of Kelly's wavering trust in the alliance. After Rudy accidentally overcooked Richard's fish, he decided to stop fishing for a few days so the tribe would appreciate it when he did fish. This backfired slightly as Colleen Haskell became annoyed at Rich's attitude. This was further made worse when the women of the tribe managed to catch fish by themselves, rendering Rich useless. The former Pagong members became aware of Rich's alliance and formed their own counter alliance. Richard celebrated his 39th birthday by walking around naked. This annoyed several members of the tribe which caused Rich to put his clothes back on. Rich continued to notice Kelly distancing herself from the alliance and began to wonder if she would flip on him if she got the chance. Although the counter alliance targeted Rich, his own alliance stuck together and Richard barely made it through Tribal Council.

After surviving the last Tribal Council, Richard became delighted and considered stopping catching fish until all of the ex-Pagong members were voted out. Rich compares his catching fish to voting people out of the tribe. Sue and Kelly planned on eliminating Rich at the final three and reveal that they never truly trusted Rich. Rich won the Immunity Challenge, keeping him safe going into an uncertain Tribal Council. Kelly officially left the alliance and considered joining the ex-Pagong members. Sean also became uncertain with the Tagi tribe. However the Tagi tribe stayed strong once again to vote out Gervase. Rich joined Sean on a reward and got to eat breakfast on a yacht. Sean's father, Jim, was also on the yacht and gave all of the remaining contestants a care package from their loved ones back home. At the Immunity Challenge, Richard annoyed his tribemates by singing "99 Bottles of Beer", in hopes of throwing his tribemates off balance. He didn't even make it half way through his song before falling off the plank. Back at the beach the alliance minus Kelly discussed voting out Kelly due to her untrustworthiness. However, Kelly managed to win immunity forcing them to vote out the last Pagong member remaining, Colleen. After Colleen left, Richard commented on Colleen saying she was "A wonderful person".

Rudy and Rich further solidified their alliance, saying that they would never vote against each other and planned on voting out Kelly next. Kelly managed to win immunity again, forcing them to vote out Sean, the only person left to never be part of the alliance. Now with nowhere left to turn the alliance was finally forced to turn on itself. The final four reflect on how far they have come, commenting on how much weight they have all lost and the effect the game has had on their bodies. Kelly continued her immunity streak which put Rich in hot water. Although Rudy and Rich voted against Sue, Kelly joined Sue in voting against Rich. After both Rich and Sue pleaded their case on why they should stay Kelly changed her vote, eliminating Sue and saving Rich. Jeff Probst woke the remaining three castaways up early the next day to partake in their Rites of Passage and Final Immunity Challenge. After reflecting on all of the castaways who had been voted out before them, Rich, Rudy and Kelly began their Final Immunity Challenge. After two and a half hours Rich came to the conclusion that both Kelly and Rudy would take him to the Final Two. Because of this Richard stepped down, eliminating him from the challenge. Rich's prediction proved right as Kelly voted out Rudy, bring Rich to the Final Tribal Council. On Day 39 the two finalists reflected on how far they had come. Both Rich and Kelly prepared for the questions they would be asked by the jury. After burning down their camp the finalists headed to their Final Tribal Council.

During his opening speech, Richard argued that he has played the best game. After being questioned by Gervase, Rich admitted that if he could change one thing about his game he would put less trust in the other contestants. Jenna Lewis asked the finalists who they would want to see in the Final Two instead of them. Richard chose Greg and Rudy. Colleen asked Rich what character traits got him to the end. Rich answered "observation" which confused Colleen as he had not got to know anyone very well. Greg asked the two finalists to pick a number between one and ten. Richard chose seven. However Greg later revealed that the numbers has no impact on his vote and that he had already made up his mind about who to vote for. Sean admitted that he loved Richard's "Fat Naked Fag" strategy. During Sue's speech she called Rich whiny and a loser in life. However she also compared him to a snake and Kelly to a rat. She finished her speech by lamenting that the jury should let the game end the way nature intended, for the snake to eat the rat. In the end Richard received the votes of all of the ex-Tagi members and Greg, granting him the title of Sole Survivor in a 4-3 vote.

Voting History
In The Final Four, the vote ended with a 2-2 tie between Richard and Susan, forcing a revote. On the revote, Richard did not receive any votes to be eliminated.

Survivor: All-Stars
Hatch's appearance on  was a very short but eventful one. He according to Jeff Probst, "smuggled a canister of matches up his bum", earning his tribe fire. In every Immunity Challenge, he'd compete naked. As part of the original Mogo Mogo tribe, they lost one member on Day 9 when winner Jenna Morasca quit to be with her dying mother. On the same episode, while he went fishing, he got bitten by a shark (which his tribe would eat). When the Saboga tribe dissolved on Day 13, Mogo Mogo gained two extra members (Ethan Zohn and Jerri Manthey) and when they lost immunity, they immediately targeted Hatch. Although Hatch got wind of his impending doom and put together a counter strategy (aligning with the girls of his tribe Shii Ann, Jerri, and Kathy for a majority alliance to vote out the guys, starting with Colby), his plans were foiled and he was voted out, 6-1. Afterward, he screamed, "I've been bamboozed!", much to the amusement of his tribe mates and Jeff Probst. It is worthy to note that in the challenge, he "accidentally" bumped into fellow Borneo contestant Susan while he was naked. This caused her to quit in the next episode.

Post-Survivor

 * In 2000, Richard appeared as a celebrity contestant on the Australian version of Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?. He answered incorrectly on the fourth question, winning nothing.
 * Richard was a contestant in a special Survivor edition (although copyright prevented NBC from using Survivor in the edition's name) of The Weakest Link, along with fellow  castaways Gretchen Cordy, Ramona Gray, Sue Hawk, Sean Kenniff, and Joel Klug on May 10, 2001. Despite being the strongest link in the first round, Richard was unanimously voted out.  He received a house minimum of $10,000 for his charity.
 * On May 19, 2002, the day of the finale, Richard appeared live going into commercial break chatting with  during the finale episode . He started to jokingly unbutton his shirt and Rosie looks into the camera screaming "Police!". He would later be seen in the audience at the Marquesas Reunion Show.
 * In 2002, Richard, along with Sue Hawk, appeared on the short lived game show Dog Eat Dog. Richard lost while Susan went on to win the game.
 * Hatch was nominated in Survivor: America's Tribal Council for "Best Villain" but lost to Jonny Fairplay.
 * In 2005, Richard appeared as a contestant in a special Castaway Special episode of , where he competed with Jon Dalton, Rudy Boesch, Ethan Zohn, and Rupert Boneham. The five competed against Shii Ann Huang, Susan Hawk, Tijuana Bradley, Christa Hastie, and Jenna Morasca.
 * In Summer of 2005, Richard, along with Susan, Gervase, Jerri, and Burton, competed on the Bravo reality show Battle of the Network Reality Stars. He and Burton were on the dark blue tribe.
 * In Summer of 2009, Richard, along with the other first eighteen Survivor winners, appeared on a TVGuide special "Survivor Millionaires: Where Are They Now?"
 * Richard and the rest of the  final four appeared at the Survivor 10th anniversary party in Spring 2010.
 * In 2010, Hatch was inducted into the Survivor Hall of Fame along with Rob Mariano, Sandra Diaz-Twine, Parvati Shallow, and Russell Hantz.
 * In 2011, Hatch met two of his [allegedly] 200+ children that became products of his past as a sperm donor, namely, Emily Kidd and Devin O'Neil. Both reached out to Hatch and informed him he is their father.
 * Richard competed in  on March 2011, where his chosen charity was Grassroots Soccer, the charity created by fellow winner and All-Star Ethan Zohn. He was project manager in the first task, but lost to . Hatch was spared as teammate helped the least in the task. Hatch was later fired in task 5, after he contributed the least in their team's loss. He came back later in the season to be a part of 's team in the final task.
 * During the  Reunion Show, Hatch left a video for fellow  and  contestant Rudy Boesch. In the video, Hatch was fully nude and reading a magazine, before holding a bottle of sunscreen at the camera and asking Rudy to rub it on him.
 * In 2014, Richard appeared in the documentary The 16th Minute along with castaway Billy Garcia and several other reality show contestants.
 * in July 2015, Richard and Kelly appeared in the first episode of National Geographic Channel's mini series The 2000's: A New Reality on Survivor's impact on Television and their experience on the show.
 * Richard competed on  in 2016. He was the fourth one eliminated; he started off with 314 lbs. and lost 34 lbs.
 * Richard attended the wedding of Ethan Zohn in July 2016.

Arrest

 * On January 19, 2005, the United States Attorney's Office in Providence, Rhode Island, reported that Hatch had failed to report the $1,010,000 he had received from the Survivor show on his Federal income tax returns (the additional $10,000 was paid for his appearance at the live Survivor reunion after the finale). Hatch also allegedly failed to report approximately $321,000 he received that year for appearances on radio station WQSX-FM in Boston. Prosecutors stated Hatch would be charged with filing a false tax return. An agreement was arranged whereby Hatch was offered a lenient sentence in exchange for a guilty plea. Hatch withdrew from the arrangement. He subsequently said he was basing his defence on his belief that CBS had arranged to pay the taxes before awarding him the money.
 * On August 18, 2009, he was re-arrested and taken into federal custody for granting two supposedly unauthorized interviews (prisoners under house arrest are required to get permission from the federal Bureau of Prisons before any media contact), one with Access Hollywood and another with Rhode Island NBC affiliate WJAR. He had been allowed by the Bureau of Prisons to be interviewed by Today earlier in the day. On September 9, 2009, Hatch's private and ACLU lawyers petitioned for habeas corpus so he might return home for the remainder of his sentence, on the grounds that prison media-access rules apply only in prison, and that permissions are negotiated between the media and the prison so their limitations did not bind Hatch.
 * On October 16, 2009, Hatch was released from prison after completing his federal sentence, yet still under house arrest. On December 2011, he was released from prison.

Trivia

 * Richard is the first contestant from Rhode Island.
 * Hatch became the first contestant to be in the game on his birthday (his birthday, April 8, coincided with Day 27 of ). He turned 39 on that day.
 * Richard and Susan Hawk are the first two contestants to be involved in a tie vote.
 * Richard is the first person to win Survivor.
 * Richard is the only Survivor winner to be announced at the end of the Final Tribal Council. Starting with, winners are revealed right before a live audience.
 * Richard is the only person in the first round of inductions to the Survivor Hall of Fame to not make the Final Tribal Council twice.
 * In 2008, Survivor host Jeff Probst mentioned in an interview that Richard Hatch smuggled a canister of matches before , "in a little container up his bum".
 * His arrest was referenced by Jeff Probst during 's Reunion Show, when he told winner Aras Baskauskas to pay his taxes.
 * Richard is one of six winners, along with Ethan Zohn, Jenna Morasca, Sandra Diaz-Twine, Rob Mariano, and Tom Westman, to play more than once and not be a member of the jury in any season.