Sue Hawk

During the original Survivor season, Survivor: Borneo, Hawk made it far in the game by using her secret alliance with Richard Hatch, Kelly Wiglesworth, and Rudy Boesch during a time when other cast members did not yet use alliances and several even considered allied voting to be "cheating". As the fourth-place finisher, she launched into her notable "Snakes and Rats" speech[1] at the final Tribal Council that drew comparisons between the top two castaways, Richard and Kelly.[2][3] In her speech, she said that the island they had been inhabiting was "full of only two things: snakes and rats" with Richard representing the overtly malicious snake and Kelly the underhanded rat. Hawk then urged the other jurors to obey the laws of nature by letting the snake eat the rat. She also told Kelly that if she ever saw her in life again, she would not give her a sip of water if she were dying of thirst and that she would not stop the vultures from attacking her. Sue's jury speech resulted in angering fellow jurors Colleen Haskell and Gervase Peterson, who ultimately voted for Kelly, although Hatch would be named the Sole Survivor in a 4-3 decision.

Sue Hawk's speech "Snakes and Rats" has become one of the greatest and most memorable moments of Reality TV in the early 2000s and has led to the creation of the "Sue Hawk Award".

In 2004, Hawk returned to Survivor for the Survivor: All-Stars season. Hawk's tribe, "Chapera" found early success. Her position in the game appeared stable until an incident prompted her to leave. During an immunity challenge, a naked Richard Hatch rubbed up against her, and Hawk became increasingly distraught over the incident the next day. At the next reward challenge, Survivor host Jeff Probst made a passing reference to the incident, which prompted Hawk to rant about it and accusing Probst of making light of something that Hawk viewed as harassment. Despite the fact that Hatch had been eliminated on the prior episode (due to other reasons), Hawk claimed that "her mind left the game 24 hours ago" and elected to remove herself from the competition, much to the shock of other castaways. When Probst asked the Mogo Mogo tribe if an incident was brought out back at their camp, neither castaways claimed that it occurred except for Colby Donaldson who cited that he did witness the incident in a prior Immunity challenge and cited that "he's (Hatch) naked all the time".[4][5]