He was openly gay, unapologetically—and often hilariously—cantankerous, and boasted a giddily mischievous mastery of reality TV gameplay long before there was a model to follow. Richard was an openly gay liberal man who unashamedly paraded around camp in the nude. Rudy, on the other hand, was a seventy-two-year-old Navy veteran—conservative and unapologetically homophobic. It was casting that seemed designed for confrontation.
When The Advocate interviewed Richard Hatch for an October cover story, the gay, 6-foot-4 Rhode Island native had just won the wildly popular premiere season of Survivor, a. Survivor's first ever winner Richard Hatch has admitted that being open about his sexuality on the CBS competition show had a 'devastating' impact on his life. Five years after Richard's victory, however, he was jailed for 51 months on tax evasion charges. He went on to serve an additional nine months in prison from March to December for not amending his and tax returns.
Richard of Season 1 was able to play and win, but he’s been only one of two gay contestants to do so in the show’s 40 seasons. Despite the disparity in winners, plenty of awesome (and not so awesome) queer contestants have blessed our TV screens over the last 20 years. Hatch, speaking publicly for the first time since being released from prison to home confinement, told NBC's "Today" show that he believes the judge in his tax evasion case discriminated against him. He also accused a prosecutor of misconduct. I don't know why.
Richard was 39 when he won Survivor. He took the opportunity in the series to come out as gay to the world as well as to people who knew him but didn’t know his sexual preference. He won it all and took home the $1 million prize after a Tribal Council vote. Survivor , the CBS reality TV show which maroons strangers together on a deserted island just to watch them vote each other out one by one, has been a queer show from the very beginning — the first player voted out was gay. The first winner was gay. While the show has always felt undeniably queer, it hasn't always embraced its queerness like it does today.
He was openly gay, unapologetically—and often hilariously—cantankerous, and boasted a giddily mischievous mastery of reality TV gameplay long before there was a model to follow. .
When The Advocate interviewed Richard Hatch for an October cover story, the gay, 6-foot-4 Rhode Island native had just won the wildly popular premiere season of Survivor, a. .
Richard of Season 1 was able to play and win, but he’s been only one of two gay contestants to do so in the show’s 40 seasons. Despite the disparity in winners, plenty of awesome (and not so awesome) queer contestants have blessed our TV screens over the last 20 years. .
Richard was 39 when he won Survivor. He took the opportunity in the series to come out as gay to the world as well as to people who knew him but didn’t know his sexual preference. He won it all and took home the $1 million prize after a Tribal Council vote. .