Richard Hatch 'Bamboozled'

He was the game's original champion. But on Thursday night's episode of "Survivor: All-Stars," Richard Hatch, the often arrogant and often naked king of the island, was forced into exile.

After winning a reward challenge that dissolved the Saboga tribe, Mogo Mogo won first pick of Saboga's remaining four members. They chose Ethan. Colby said the pick was to eliminate him, but at their first tribal council, Mogo Mogo decided it was the game's original champ who needed to go.

"I've been bamboozled" exclaimed a surprised Hatch as the tribe's decision was announced.

"I thought I was going to win it," a fully clothed Hatch tells co-anchor Harry Smith Friday on The Early Show. "I thought I had it down. I thought he was out of there. I did feel with Colby, he wasn't being quite as honest. It wasn't coming across as true. I went with it. I figured Kathy would go with it."

Colby was the one who first launched a subversive campaign to vote off the tough competitor and first-ever "Survivor" champion. Jerri seemed to briefly turn the tables, urging the other female members to join in an alliance against Colby.

Hatch even boasted Colby was going to regret disloyalty. But in the end, the votes were against Panama's resident nudist.

Hatch says, "I don't know anything about what happened. But they'll pay for not listening to me, I'll bet."

Looking back, Hatch admits, "I don't feel like I played as well as I did the first game. It was very, very tough. People will never have any idea how difficult this actual game was. Physically, it was exhausting. And two weeks in felt like six weeks in. It was unbelievable. So I was irritable and all kinds of things."

Apart from providing fish, Hatch did little to impress his fellow tribe mates. He spent most of his days loafing, often in the buff. But Hatch disagrees.

"I had a plan, Harry. I always have a plan," he tells Smith. "People think of me as cocky, arrogant, all this things. And I came into that game, even though I knew these people, with their impression of me being that, being negative. And so I thought I had to do some things that made it seem as if I am kind of a difficult, arrogant, cocky person, try as I might. Otherwise, they would have thought I had something up my sleeve."

Part of his strategy was also to play without clothes on. It was something he also did throughout "Survivor: Borneo." But he notes, "They didn't show until halfway through on my birthday. In fact, I thought they thought I was so arrogant; I would be gone. But then they saw that fat, naked guy is still here. Show the footage."

Nakedness was an important part of his plan, he explains, "The original strategy in being naked was it was 110 degrees, first of all, so it was comfortable without clothing. But, also, I thought, who is going to film it? And who will show it? And I'll get lots of private time, which I did. But then this game, the strategy was different. If I changed, they would wonder what was up with me. So I had to be consistent."

But on Thursday's episode, Hatch's nudity forced CBS to provide a disclaimer. His nakedness became uncomfortably close to Sue Hawk during the immunity challenge (This is the first disclaimer since Mike Skupin fell into a fire during the second season).

About the incident, Hatch says, "That challenge was a crazy kind of challenge, much more difficult to stay on the beam than people realize. And I wore my pants for the first time, I think, in any of the challenges, because it didn't matter. I didn't see any advantage. But my teammates said, 'Get them off, get them off, that will distract people.' After I got wet, I took them off. We were going along. I was doing my thing. For some reason, she turned around and came back toward me. I have no idea what happened."

Nevertheless, the incident may have some sort of repercussions in future segments.

Another incident in which Hatch stood out was his the episode in which he got bitten by a shark on his arm. Showing the mark and a tattoo of a shark, Hatch says, "There's the scar and there's the shark. He was locked on here for about half an hour. I bit him back. I did everything I could do. He wouldn't let go. So I wanted to remember him."

It wasn't so bad, he says with a triumphant smile. The shark tasted good. "He was great. He was delicious. And he was chunky and full of meat. We loved it."

Now that he is out of the game, he notes, he had a big target on his back from day one and says it may be impossible for a former winner to win the All-Stars.

"It's a game," Hatch says. "Who says it's fair? People have been talking about: is it fair? It's a game and a little different from the earlier games because everybody knows each other. Who knows? I think if I were smarter, I could have done better. I fault myself for where I ended up."

Perhaps since he already won, he says, he was not as hungry this time around. "I thought I was hungry. But while I was out there, I was hurting. I was hurting," he says. "I'm thinking to myself, 'Come on, you ignored all this the last time.' Maybe it was. Maybe I was less hungry than I needed to be to really focus. It's exhausting. Exhausting!"

And yet he says he is pleased to know he will always be the original winner. Asked what it is like to lose, he says, "It's a game. I had been bamboozled! I went to that tribal council knowing Ethan was going. I knew he was out of there."

As for having second thoughts when he was asked to play the game again, he says on the contrary, he was very enthusiastic.

"But what was I thinking? How am I going to do it? From the day we started talking about it, how was I going to do it? I knew I had a huge target on my back and went with all of my energy thinking I didn't know."

There were rumors, however, he was reluctant, or playing hard to get, or holding out for more money. About that, Hatch admits, "We all have managers now and agents, representation. There was some negotiating that went on, sure."

Today, he says, "Life is great. I'm so in love. I'm a happy man."

Here is a re-cap of Thursday night's game:

"Survivor: All-Stars" threw a surprise twist at its tribes on Thursday night's episode. When they assembled for the reward competition, host Jeff Probst revealed a high-stakes challenge. The losing tribe in a raft rescue competition would be dissolved, its members divided among the first and second place teams in a schoolyard style.

All three tribes found bamboo bundles at their camps, with instructions to build a raft. Rupert's engineering skills were high on imagination, but low on practicality, so Saboga had the best looking craft, but by far the slowest.

Mogo Mogo breezed through the challenge, winning an easy first place finish, along with fishing gear and the final clue to unlocking their rice chest.

Chapera took second with Saboga trailing a distant third. Its members - Rupert, Ethan, Alicia and Jenna - lined up and were picked off, one by one, to join the other tribes.

Mogo Mogo walked away with Ethan and Jerri while Chapera took Rupert and Jenna.

The immunity challenge was a balance beam obstacle course in which tribe members ran from a starting platform across multiple narrow beams to collect flags, one at a time, from a bucket on a far platform. The first team to collect 20 flags won immunity.

After several battle bridge showdowns -- during which the Survivors went head-to-head on a beam trying to push an opponent into the water -- Chapera emerged victorious and Mogo Mogo faced its first Tribal Council.

Tribe mates proved fickle with their alliances back at the Mogo Mogo camp. Colby called the show's first millionaire a "cancer" and led the charge to send him off by unanimous decision. Though it was the first tribal council for Mogo Mogo, the result is consistent with what game experts had expected - a liquidation of the show's previous winners.