01:00 AM EST on Saturday, February 28, 2004

BY LAURA MEADE KIRK and BRYAN ROARKE
Journal Staff Writers

In a nationally telecast ceremony Thursday night, Rhode Islander Richard Hatch was summarily ousted from the hit reality TV show Survivor: All Stars -- after a naked confrontation with a female player.

Today, in a private ceremony in upstate New York, Hatch hopes to marry.

The mayor of New Paltz, N.Y., yesterday began issuing marriage certificates to gay couples. And Hatch, the first and most famous Survivor winner, said he and his live-in lover would wed.

"We haven't contacted the mayor," Hatch said in a phone interview yesterday. "But if we can, we'll head up tomorrow (Saturday)."

Hatch identified his partner as Emiliano Cabral, a 28-year-old Argentinian who speaks three languages and works in the hotel industry.

HATCH'S MARRIAGE, if it happens, will add another bizarre twist to a saga that began more than four years ago when Hatch set out from Middletown on a long-shot quest to win a million-dollar prize in the first of what ended up to be a tidal wave of reality TV shows.

Hatch is considered one of the best and arguably the most obnoxious player of the entire Survivor television series. And that, he says, was intentional.

"The contestants perceive me as cocky, arrogant and naked," Hatch said yesterday. "Part of my strategy was to ensure they got what they were thinking they would get, so as not to get suspicious when I changed my approach."

But Hatch was voted off the show that aired Thursday before he could switch his strategy -- much to his surprise.

"I've been bamboozled!" Hatch declared in shock, after his tribe mates in Mogo Mogo voted 6 to 1 to send him home and his torch was snuffed out. "Man, oh, man."

His ouster came after one of the most controversial incidents to air in the long-running series (CBS even issued a parental warning about the scene.)

Hatch doffed his clothes (again!) in the middle of an immunity challenge that was an elaborate form of "capture the flag" played out on balance beams.

Out on the balance beam, Hatch confronted Susan Hawk of the Chapera tribe and stood naked before her, wiggling his hips, saying "Want some? Want some?"

The other players groaned and even host Jeff Probst shook his head in disgust, saying "Guys, come on."

Hatch later said that getting naked was not his idea, but his tribe's. "That was the funniest irony," Hatch said. "I'm always naked. But I had my shorts on because I didn't see the advantage with them off. They got me aside and said 'dingbat, it will distract them (members of the other tribe)."

Hatch said that Hawk deliberately and unneccessarily stepped on to his balance beam, turning away from where she needed to go. "Go figure," Hatch said. "I don't know why she did it. It was Sue Hawk doing what Sue Hawk does." (Hawk and Hatch had competed against each other in the original Survivor set in Borneo.)

Hawk's team ultimately won the balance beam immunity challenge, sending Mogo Mogo to its first tribal council -- meaning it was the first time that Hatch and his tribe actually had to vote to send someone home.

That's when Hatch learned he had the bullseye on his back.

In the earlier All-Star episodes, Hatch appeared confident. Hatch's win in first-ever Survivor had established his national reputation as a master of Machiavellian intrigue.

"When I'm playing the game, the other people are more like chess pieces to me," Hatch said yesterday. "I do that intentionally. I detach myself from them, and that's easy to do. I'm not there to make friends anyway."

He deliberately established himself as one of the laziest members of the Mogo Mogo tribe -- but also as the only one capable of catching fish. In fact, he sacrificed a chunk of his arm to a shark that he caught for dinner early on.

But that changed in Thursday's show, when the surviving members of the three tribes were merged into two tribes. Hatch's tribe won a tribal challenge, with a prize that included fish hooks and a spear. They also found themselves a new fisherman when they got to pick two new members from the Saboga tribe, which had lost the challenge and been dissolved.

They chose Ethan Zohn, the sole survivor of the Survivor: Africa series. Zohn quickly proved his value when he came back to camp one afternoon with a mid-size fish. Hatch played it up for the cameras out of ear of his tribe mates. "He got a fish. I'm the only one who's supposed to get a fish. We'll have to fix that. I'll have to bring back 12 now," he said.

Sure enough, Hatch returned to camp with several larger fish. This clearly was a competition that their hungry tribe mates loved.

Hatch and his tribe mates had initially agreed to pick Zohn simply so they could vote him off at the first opportunity.

But Colby Donaldson, the runner-up from Survivor: Australian Outback had other plans. He took Zohn aside and told him: "Richard's the one we've got to get rid of. He's the snake in the grass who causes the most trouble. He's cancer in the tribe."

And, he confided to Zohn, "The cool thing is, he thinks we're dropping you tonight."

When Hatch got tipped off about Donaldson's plans, he fixed his sights on Donaldson instead: "How dare you approach somebody to get rid of me? You must go. Bye-bye."

Hatch tried to forge a plan with the three women in his tribe, and it almost seemed to work, as they debated whether it was better to keep Hatch or Donaldson. Ultimately, Hatch was snuffed out.

That came as a surprise to Helen Glover of Portsmouth , a finalist from Survivor: Thailand who writes a weekly commentary column on Survivor for The Journal in which she predicted that Hatch appeared sure to survive another week. "I really thought he was sitting in a pretty comfortable position this week. I was surprised to see him go."

She also questions whether it was the smartest tactical move for the Mogo Mogo tribe. "As obnoxious as he is, he's also an asset. He's very strong in the challenges," Glover said. From her perspective, it would have made more sense to vote off one of the women -- who've proven themselves among the weakest players in that tribe so far. She also questioned what prompted Donaldson to change his mind about voting Zohn off the island first. "Something must have happened that we didn't see."

That said, Glover admits, she's never cared for Hatch -- especially the fact that he's constantly appearing naked on the show. "I'm glad he's gone . . . I think it's embarrassing that he represents Rhode Island."

Jeanne Hebert of North Attleboro, a contestant in the Survivor: Panama series, agreed. She said she thought "it was beautiful" that Hatch went out on his tribe's very first vote. Strategically, she said, it made more sense for the tribe to have voted off Donaldson. But the tribe clearly had had enough of Hatch. "He is such a vulgar, egotistical maniac they wanted him off." Best of all, she said, "I don't think he even saw it coming."

Overall, Hebert said, "The game's going to be better with him off, period. He made the whole world hate him. He did a good job of that . . . But he was a scoundrel."

"It was," she said, "such sweet revenge."

Hatch offered this as his final word on his Survivor experience in a statement on a CBS Web site:

"Did I learn anything on Survivor about me or anything meaningful in life, and blah, blah, blah? No. Abso-freakin'-lutely not!"