Richard Hatch (Survivor contestant)

Richard Holman Hatch Jr. (born April 8, 1961) is an American former reality television contestant.^[3] In 2000, he won the first season of the CBS reality series Survivor. He was a contestant on a subsequent All-Stars season of Survivor, the fourth celebrity edition of Celebrity Apprentice, and season 17 of The Biggest Loser.

In 2006, Hatch was convicted of tax evasion and served 51 months in prison. Hatch served another nine-month sentence in 2011 for a probation violation. TV Guide included him in its 2013 list of "The 60 Nastiest Villains of All Time".^[4]

Survivor[]

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Survivor: Borneo[]

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.^{[citation needed]}

Survivor: All-Stars[]

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]

Post-Survivor[]

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 future castaways to lounge around camp naked.^[11]

Other appearances[]

In 2000, Hatch had a cameo as a patient in the Becker episode "One Wong Move" where Ted Danson's character received him as a patient, discussing the bizarre eating habits of the people on Survivor, and mentioning that he did not mind if he had to take his clothes off.^[12]

Hatch appeared on an all-reality show edition of the game show Dog Eat Dog in 2002; he lost his challenge and was placed in the show's "dog pound".^[5] In 2005, Hatch was a contestant in Battle of the Network Reality Stars in which his team lost in the finals.^[13] He appeared as himself in the 2006 film Another Gay Movie.^[14]

In a 2010 issue of Entertainment Weekly, Survivor producer Mark Burnett said that if Hatch were not under house arrest, he would have been invited to participate in Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains.^[15]

In 2011, he appeared on the fourth celebrity edition of the US version of The Apprentice.^[16] He appeared on the Australian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, where he flunked at the fourth question ("What is 11x12?"); he was the first contestant of the Australian edition to win nothing, and became the first, and so far only recorded case, of a celebrity contestant worldwide to leave with no winnings.^[17] In 2016, he competed in The Biggest Loser: Temptation Nation and was eliminated in the fourth week.

Personal life[]

Hatch is openly gay and married Emiliano Cabral in a 2005 Nova Scotia^[1] wedding. Hatch filed for divorce in December 2017.^[18]

Hatch was born and raised near Newport, Rhode Island,^[19] graduating from Middletown High School in 1979.^[20]

He first majored in Marine Biology and Oceanography at Florida Institute of Technology before he enlisted in the Army in 1980. After enlisting, Hatch was appointed to the United States Military Academy at West Point, by Rhode Island Senator John Chafee. Hatch served five years and was honorably discharged in 1985.^[20] He was first stationed at Fort Bliss, Texas, and Fort Stewart, Georgia, before attending USMAPS in Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, and the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York.^[21]

Hatch left West Point for New York City, where he worked for Ian Schrager and Steve Rubell (owners of Studio 54) at the Palladium. He later attended Baruch College in New York and George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, during which time he became a sperm donor.^[22]

Hatch spent eight years in the Washington, D.C. area and graduated from National-Louis University with a bachelor's degree in Management/Applied Behavioral Sciences. Hatch returned to Newport, Rhode Island and adopted a 7-year-old boy, Christopher.^[23] He later attended Rhode Island's Providence College, pursuing a master's degree in Education and Counseling.^[24]

Prior to winning CBS's original Survivor series, Hatch worked as a bartender, auto salesman, and licensed real estate agent before nearly 15 years as a corporate trainer and consultant for his own company.^[20]

After his Survivor win of $1 million, Hatch was charged with tax evasion and convicted for not paying taxes on that winning sum. He served a 51-month sentence in federal prison. Hatch and his attorneys had attempted to argue that the prosecution and conviction were flawed because the IRS never completed the investigation of his 2000 and 2001 tax returns and never determined that any particular sum of taxes was due.^{[citation needed]} After being released from prison, he later served an additional nine months in prison for not amending his 2000 and 2001 tax returns.^[23]

A property purchased by Hatch in Sydney, Nova Scotia, following his Survivor win was included in a tax sale during a public auction in 2013. The CBRM tax office indicated that Hatch had not paid property taxes on the property for a period of more than six years.^[25]

See also[]

• List of Survivor contestants
• List of The Apprentice (U.S.) candidates

References[]

External links[]

• Richard Hatch at IMDb
• Richard Hatch biography for Survivor: Borneo at CBS.com
• Richard Hatch biography for Survivor: All-Stars at CBS.com
• Hatch's criminal indictment on The Smoking Gun