First ‘Survivor’ Winner Richard Hatch Calls Out CBS, Claims He Wasn’t Invited to 50th Finale

The original winner of Survivor called out CBS for allegedly lying about the upcoming Season 50 live finale.

Richard Hatch made reality TV history in 2000 by becoming the first-ever winner of Survivor. As the show plans a big, extravagant finale to crown its 50th winner, Hatch, 65, took to X to call out CBS Mornings anchor Gayle King after the show reported that all past winners have been invited to the event.

“@GayleKing Disappointed, Gayle. CBS Mornings lied this morning saying all Survivor winners were invited to tonight’s Season 50 finale! I’m the Original Winner, and I WAS NOT INVITED!” Hatch wrote on Tuesday, May 19.

He later clarified that he was mistaken about the date of the finale, which airs on Wednesday, May 20.

This isn’t the first time that Hatch hasn’t participated in a Survivor milestone. In 2020, the House of Villains star was not part of Season 40, which was titled Survivor: Winners at War that brought back all past champions. Longtime host Jeff Probst explained at the time that he didn’t think the controversial Hatch fit in with the current tone of the show.

“I don’t know if we didn’t ask him because I think we called every single winner about returning, and the fact that he was the first is a fair point,” he told Us Weekly at the time. “But the bigger consideration was ‘Where is the show now?’ and ‘Do these 20 winners represent the show today?’ In that sense, we didn’t feel that Rich fit into the equation.”

Hatch has a rocky past that the show may not want to be associated with. In 2006, he was sentenced to 51 months in federal prison for failing to pay taxes on his $1 million prize from winning Season 1. He served three years and was sent back to prison for nine months in 2011 after still refusing to pay his taxes.

The last time he was part of a Survivor game was in 2004, when he caused a massive controversy by doing an immunity challenge nude and purposely rubbing his naked body on fellow contestant Sue Hawk. He was voted out later that episode and she left soon after because she was so distraught by the incident.

“Given his history on our show, it did not seem appropriate,” Probst told Us Weekly in 2020. “We were in a different time and different culture back then and we would never let him run a challenge naked now. Looking back on it, it just didn’t seem to fit. It’s not a slam against Richard Hatch. He’s just being Richard Hatch.”