take Us back

You HAD to be There

- Russell Steinberg

Survivor came out of the gate hot! In its inaugural finale airing Aug. 23, 2000, jury member Sue Hawk — days after being betrayed by Kelly Wiglesworth — delivered a scathing speech to her former ally and the other finalist, Richard Hatch: “This island is pretty much full of only two things: snakes and rats,” Hawk said. She saw Hatch as a snake who “knowingly went after prey”... which left Wiglesworth as the rat. “I feel like we owe it to the island’s spirits... to let it be, in the end, the way that Mother Nature intended it to be. For the snake to eat the rat.” For host Jeff Probst, “What still reverberates is the tension in the air,” he tells Us. “Within seconds of her starting her speech, you could feel the rest of the jury leaning in. Nobody really knew how to respond.”

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