Survivor's Lindsey Tells the Other Side of the Story

One thing that we, as viewers, tend to forget when we watch Survivor is that, while it is television, it's reality television. The cast members as not soap opera characters and the drama is not made up – although it might be built up and blown up out of proportion. The cast of Survivor are real people, flesh and blood human beings who go into an experiment of social Darwinism carrying a ton of baggage. When there is nothing else around – just you vs. your fellow human beings – that baggage falls open like a suitcase with a broken zipper and all your unmentionables come spilling out, on television in front of an audience of millions. If you are an Elisabeth, your unmentionables are tasteful Victorian gowns. You become America's sweetheart and David Letterman invites you to sit next to him instead of over by that woman who does the election coverage. If you are Tom, your unmentionables can sometimes look like a pointed white hood, even if that is not who you are.

And what if you are Lindsey Richter? What baggage did Lindsey bring into the game and why, when it spilled open onto the African plain, did it look like black leather and whips? The unmentionables of dominating bitches. Is this really who Lindsey is? Did she deserve the title of most hated of all the African survivors?

It's Tuesday evening, January 8th, 2002. Lindsey is getting ready to go to dinner at a friend’s house where she will eat a salad and forgo the Seafood Gumbo that is being served because she is allergic to scallops. Her friends are not making a special meal for Lindsey because she is just a regular person. Even though she was on television and got a deli platter from Rupert G, to her friends that does not really make her any more special than she was before she went to Africa. They know who she is and where she comes from.

Lindsey admits that growing up, she was the center of attention. A spoiled brat who everyone watched. She was a big fish in a small pond and her athletic ability made her special. She was always small, hovering between a size 4-6, but she was strong. She made All State four years in a row. She was constantly in the newspaper for her sports abilities. So much exposure caused her to become more and more competitive and more and more insecure. If everyone is watching you, you cannot screw up.

When Lindsey went to Arizona to go to college, she became the small fish. She was no longer Miss Sports Queen and she learned to cope with that, but what remained was that insecurity of never allowing herself to make a mistake. She wasn't playing for the papers anymore, but she still hated to lose.

After college, she moved to Australia with her boyfriend, that insecurity was fed by a potential mother-in-law not approving of who her son chose to be with. And so by the time she came back and auditioned for Survivor: Africa, she wore that insecurity as an accessory – like her bike helmet or her Lycra shorts or her "Alliance" necklace, made by her friend Hannah as a very special talisman that ended up defining who Lindsey Richter was and how she played a game that was entirely different from any game she had ever played before.

Survivor sounded like fun, Lindsey always did well in front of a crowd. Public speaking was a breeze, in fact she thrived in that spotlight. She was a conditioned athlete and a serious camper. She made friends wherever she went and the game would be no different. She would fit right in.

When she was on the plane going to Africa with the other contestants, she found a kindred soul immediately. A younger woman, about her age who, although she could not talk to with words, found herself making eye contact with. Simpatico. On the lorry ride to the drop off point, a seven-hour trip with frequent bathroom breaks, the two young women would hide behind bushes and whisper to each other. Lindsey knew that in order to get what she wanted out of this trip, she would need a pal.

"I hope you are on my team," they said to each other. And by the time they got chased off the truck by a rifle-wielding driver and found out that they were in fact on the same team, Kim Powers and Lindsey Richter were thisclose. They hugged immediately and so the first Samburu alliance was formed.

One thing the producers did not tell Lindsey, or any of the other Survivors was the microphones were everywhere. In the ground. In the sky and in your backpacks. So when Lindsey was walking along and getting sicker and sicker on the four-hour journey to camp, and realized she had started menstruating, she turned to her new girlfriend Kim to tell her, not realizing that microphone picked up on every word she said. She had just told millions of people she started her period. Brandon lurking off to the side came over to see what the girls were talking about, and Lindsey, being outspoken and trying to find humor in the situation told him, no wonder she had cramps. Sometime later, Frank was asked by a camera man what he thought about the younger tribe members who were trying to have fun on the tedious walk, carrying loads way to heavy for them after such a long ride. The famous "We are not at the mall" quip was spoken and later edited so that it looked like Frank was responding to Lindsey telling the tribe about her period. Frank probably never heard the original statement to begin with.

That was just the beginning. There was a moment when, after hours of the younger Samburus building their shelter, complete with roof, they sat down to take a break. It was hot and they were working their asses off. The ever-present cameramen were filming away. They were also filming when Frank decided that five am was a good time to get water, before the sun even rose. The younger group did not like being ordered around and asked for a compromise. Let's wait until 7 when the sun rises and we will all go together. As far as they knew some lion was out there in the dark waiting for them to walk about of the boma. Frank overruled this. He had already made up his mind that two of the youngsters had to go and fast. Brandon and Kim Powers were physically weaker than anyone else, Frank thought, and so he told Silas. We want you and Lindsey to join an alliance with us. Lindsey was conflicted. Kim Powers had pledged that she would never vote for her and now Silas was asking on behalf of Frank to go back on that pledge. She went to him directly to see if Silas was real and Frank told her to just follow his lead and on tribal council day, do what he tells her to do. She reluctantly agreed. Within the first three days, she had made one heartfelt alliance with Kim Powers, and a begrudging alliance with Silas and Frank and some of the elders.

And then Silas realized what would happen. After Kim and Brandon were voted out, the elders would come after him and Lindsey. If they stayed with the elders, they would be gone. Silas changed his mind and decided the four younger tribe members needed to stick together. He set the rules, Do what I do, stay with me. He refused to allow Frank or Linda or Carl to be alone with any of the younger ones lest they persuade them to drop their alliance. Silas had a good plan. Teresa had made noises like she might join them and then decided her word was her bond and stuck it out with Frank. But Silas and Lindsey knew this was only temporary. If everyone else was gone, Teresa would join them and by the time merge came along, they would rule the African plains.

And then Hannah's necklace broke. Lindsey was given this great necklace of different colored beads to bring to Africa to keep her positive. Each bead represented a positive emotion that a person would have given her if they had come along. One for her mother, one for her dad and brother, her boyfriend. Even her dog. All Lindsey had to do was to feel the bead and conjure up her own familiar spirits and she would be OK. And then on day four, the necklace broke. While everyone was napping in the heat of the day Lindsey got up and tried to repair it, but she admits she was a goof when it came to crafts. Kim, on the other hand, was great and so she helped her fix it. In the center of the necklace were two baby blue beads. Lindsey offered one to Kim Powers when Kim helped her rethread the necklace onto some old fishing net no one was going to use.

About this time, Brandon and Silas awoke from their naps and they wanted a bead necklace too. Carl got up and sat near them, so did Teresa. While the four young ones made their fishnet bead necklaces, Carl tried to repair a pot that he had broken. Apparently feeling a little frustrated over the pot Carl got mad that they were not helping him. Lindsey didn't understand how four extra people could help fix a water pot. Too many cooks and all that. Linda came over near they four younger ones were. She heard Silas and Brandon genuinely ask for a bead, and in her own very mocking and condescending tone asked, "Where is my necklace?" Had she genuinely been interested in getting a necklace, Lindsey would have given one. But Linda thought the necklace repairs were juvenile and a waste of time, even though no one else was doing any kind of work. Everyone else had been napping and all Lindsey was trying to do was to fix her necklace. Linda and Carl put the four on the defensive. And just like the small crack in the pot that Carl was trying to repair, the crevice opened up a little bit wider and the team began to split in half.

By day five, the younger Samburu realized that they were not welcome to come on the early morning watering trips. It was private time for the "Elders" to talk. Having the younger ones come along might ruin their plans, so they no longer bothered to tell them they were going to get water and then later bitched about them not going. Silas picked up on this and after day five decided to play into their hands. If Frank really thought the others were lazy, they would use that to piss them off. And they stopped working. They did as little as possible. Frank, by not compromising and going to the water hole until the sun actually came up, created a self-fulfilling prophecy. He thought the young ones were lazy before, he would see lazy now. Lindsey was amazed that the tribe members who knew her bike regimen, up at the crack of dawn and working out for hours, would dare think she was lazy. "So what if I didn't want to get up at five. Five, six, seven, what did it matter to wait in hour?"

But Frank had drawn his line in the sand and Silas had drawn his. And then Mark Burnett came along a few days later and erased those lines with a twist of his own.

Later, when the producers (not Burnett, by the way), had to edit the scenes to come up with a story line, they went back to day one and took every lazy moment they could find. Including that moment when after working to get their shelter built for hours, Lindsey, Silas, Kim, and Brandon sat down to take a break.

Even before that Lindsey was set to look like an idiot. She brought five luxury items for Burnett to choose from, all having to do with game playing or sports. No survivor type items of any kind were allowed. No, Swiss Army knife, no water purifying tablets. Bring something that represented who you were, Burnett told her. Tom brought a raccoon penis key chain. Lindsey brought a deck of cards, a Nerf football, the book of questions, and a beach ball. Mark Burnett, knowing ahead of time that the tribe would be in a boma surrounded by huge thorny bushes, chose the beach ball for her to bring. When Lindsey got to camp and saw that it was going to be impossible to play beach volleyball, she kept the ball out of sight. She knew she would look like a total idiot to pull out a beach ball and have it pop in thirty seconds. She used it, half inflated, as a pillow instead.

Did Mark Burnett really edit them to look bad? Burnett did not edit them at all. As executive producer he had final say, but the forty minutes of clips from the 150 hours shot were blended by associate producers. That is not to say Burnett did not have a finger in all the pies, but the shows were being edited while Burnett is in Tahiti overseeing Survivor 4. Everything you see aired is real. It really happened. Lindsey really cried and was very emotional. She said those things she said. She was at times, a bitch. But you know that if they have one hundred and fifty hours of footage to chose from, those forty minutes can be constructed in such a way that your mother might look like Attilla the Hun.

A cameraman takes you aside. You are tired and hungry and dirty and he treats you like the good cop half of good cop/bad cop. His job there is to get you to talk. He asks you about your family. Don't you miss them? Don't you miss the way your Mom smells when you hug her? Don't you miss the way your boyfriend places his hand on the small of your back when you are standing next to him? Don’t you miss your sweet little boy who just started saying, "lub ou daddy," a week before you came here? And what do you do? You cry. You bawl like a little baby. All that stress has built up and started to seep out. And then the bad cop persona comes out. Don't you think Frank is a jerk for taking that thorn bush and trying to push you out of the way with it the other day. And you say, "I hate Frank!" when really you mean, “I want my mom's apple pie cause I am hungry and I want her to serve it cause I am in Africa and I miss her.” And you cry to this therapist/producer who has now become your way to let off steam and you forget he has a camera in your face and he takes those three minutes of you crying and edits it in a way that makes it look like you were crying for three straight days.

You take a deep breath and go back to the game, like you were just at a pit stop during the Indy Five Hundred. New tires, more gas, ready to race again. Except you realize that if you lose you cannot come back next May. That's it. You are done. No more Indy 500, no more mountain bike race next week, this is it and you better not screw up. And of course you do screw up. On TV in front of millions who wait with baited breath to judge you. And when they edit you screaming like a maniac at your tribe members not to "Fuck with you," they forget to add the next scene which has everyone laughing loudly as if you just told a really funny joke, including you because you realize what a jerk you just were.

And the funniest joke of all? You beat out thousands of other people to have that therapist cut you up and put you out of context. This is what you wanted all along.

RealityNewsOnline: Lindsey, when Silas, Frank, and Teresa went to the Twist, why were they chosen to go?

Lindsey Richter: Frankly, everyone else was sleeping when the mail came. It was early and we said well, you guys are up so you three go. And they went. If I did it over again, knowing what I know now, Silas, Teresa, and I would have gone. It would have given us time to soften Teresa up so that by merge we would be one solid tribe again.

RNO: How many Survivors required medical attention that you know of?

LR: From the other team, I know Ethan had a scorpion sting; and Silas, on his first day when he did the rope climb, tore a huge gash in his hand. It was ripped completely open, raw and bloody. Everyday he had to have it looked at. I spent six hours hooked up to an IV getting hydrated while still in the game. My body had shut down to the point where I was urinating blood and my mouth was so dry and chalk-like that I could not even swallow water. I also suffered from tendonitis in my shoulder and I practiced that bow and arrow so much that my forearm was covered in blood blisters and had to be wrapped in an ace bandage for a while. Other than that, I don't know.

RNO: Why do you think Africa caused such an athletic person as yourself to weaken?

LR: I am a psychotic competitor. I do not know how to lose. I could not tolerate the fact that I might lose. It made me totally insecure and when you are insecure it causes you to act out in strange ways. I was once in a bike race and I wanted to be the first woman to cross the finish line. Even though I won my age class, I was beaten by another women, in the next age class –a forty year old. Beaten by ten minutes. I became possessed and was determined to never be beaten by her again. The next time I raced her, I fought as hard as I could and beat her by only a minute. I was puking my guts out from biking so hard and fast but I beat her. On Survivor, you don’t get the chance to come back and have a do-over. It's a one time shot and that makes someone like me crazy.

RNO: Why did you vote Carl out?

LR: Carl talked constantly, he was always bragging about his 4500 square-foot house and how he was a professional dentist for the Orlando Magic. Silas did not need to set him up to talk about his cars, he talked all the time anyway. We knew there was going to be a competition where they asked questions about other people in your tribe. If Carl kept talking, he was not listening to anyone else. How would he get those questions right and how could we find out anything about anyone else if he was talking all the time? We thought that by saying we were voting him out because he was rich already that it would be a compliment to him. It backfired and made us look like we were punishing him for being rich, but that was not the case at all.

RNO: You were really dehydrated. Laying on the ground, spitting up water Kim Powers was trying to give you, you were very weak. Why does it surprise you that they tried to vote you out?

LR: A. I did not think anyone could see how weak I was; Kim was not letting anyone get near me. And B. Carl had always said the challenges were the Lindsey and Silas show, I pulled more than my fair share at the challenges. Even Clarence noticed that Boran was being beaten by Samburu women. I just could not believe that the strategy they were going to go with was to vote off their strongest woman. It seemed stupid to me. Why didn't they want to fight as a team for as many challenges as they could win? It seemed like poor strategy and it pissed me off. The more I thought about it, the more I took it personally. And I screamed and made an ass out of myself. What they don't show you is how after I said all that stuff at the campfire, we all started cracking up about it. We were all laughing at how ridiculous I sounded, but Linda could not let it go. The next morning she was still talking about it when everyone else had left it behind. She said I had a negative energy about me and that is why she voted me off. The comment she made about my mother never hugging me did not bother me initially but she wouldn't let it go. She eventually did apologize and braided my hair and I apologized to her too again, about acting like an idiot at the campfire. I felt like we both were sorry about things we had said.

RNO: Have you talked to Brandon since he was so insulting to you in the episode after you left?

LR: I was warned ahead of time that they were going to show that and it’s another case of things being taken out of context. What they don’t show you is Brandon and Kim deciding the best way for them to go farther in the show was to disown me and act like they hated me from day one and were happy to get rid of me. That was the plan, and yet they did not show that. I have spoken to Brandon and we both understand it’s a game. They were trying to back-pedal.

RNO: Did you know that Kelly was feeding information back to Lex and Tom?

LR: I had no clue, Kelly acted like she wanted to join our alliance and take an all-woman alliance to the final four. We were her age, we spent a lot of time together. She taught us how to knit. I had no idea that she was trying to get information, but we were trying to give it to her – wrong information. That is why I said I would vote for Brandon when she approached me. I wanted her to think I was on their side and throw the votes to him. Tom approached Kim and told her if she didn’t vote for Brandon that she would be next. Lex promised me that after I was gone, after the merger, Frank would be the first voted out – I made him promise Frank would go before Kim and he kept that promise. At Tribal Council that night, I opened my mouth and talked. I did not plan to say anything, [but] I was ready to leave and did not even realize I would have a chance to state my case. I did not not vote for Brandon because Kim did not not vote for Brandon. I never intended on voting for Brandon. It was just something I told them so that they would and I would remain in the game.

RNO: You were a natural on Letterman, you are very comfortable in front of the camera-are there any prospects in the future?

LR: My CBS contract prohibits me from going outside to any other sponsors until May, but I do have an agent here in Portland and I would really like to be a commentator. Something to do with sports or animals would be my dream job. I am not too interested in acting although I would not turn an acting part down. I really would love to be a commentator for the Gorge games here in Oregon. Or do a nature show. I have spent my life in the dirt.

RNO: Of all the Survivor evil villains, who is the most evil?

LR: Richard Hatch, I guess, although I never met him, but he seems like a not-so-nice guy.

RNO: Do you feel that you or Lex were portrayed more as having their true personality on the show?

LR: I think we equally were portrayed accurately we were both insecure and we both really were competitive and did want to or know how to lose.

RNO: Why did you think this was going to be a camping trip?

LR: I came to Survivor to have an adventure, meet new people, enjoy the camaraderie, and have fun. I had no idea it was going to be brutal and cut-throat. I was in for a rude awakening. When I said I realize this is real now, it was not referring to the work involved, it was referring to the fact that it’s a ruthless game.

RNO: Before you were voted out you said you wanted to last nine more days? Why was it so important for you to be in the Jury?

LR: I wanted to decide who walked away with the money. I wanted to stay in the public’s eyes for as long as I could.

RNO: Do you read your own press?

LR: Yes. In the beginning I was so depressed I did not want to leave my room for two weeks. I felt stupid and blamed myself and I could not understand why people who would never go on Survivor would judge someone who did. It was really hard and I thought I made the biggest mistake of my life. I thought my life was ruined. I am one who believes you can always grow and learn from your past. It took a while but I finally took a good look at who I was. Even if the way I was portrayed was not 100% accurate, if any part of that was really me then I needed to look at who I was and change what I did not like about myself. It was a true growing experience for me.

RNO: What do your family and friends think of how you were portrayed?

LR: They know me, they know I am emotional. They were not surprised by any of it and they love me and accept me for who I am.

RNO: Would you buy a used car from Silas?

LR: No! (Laughs)

RNO: Would you let Brandon hold your Diary?

LR: No way, he would read it all. I don’t trust him.

RNO: What do you think of the rest of the Survivors?

LR: Carl, he is a braggart but he is a nice guy.

Frank has a heart of gold and when he speaks about his girls, you just choke up.

Silas was the leader, I needed a leader and he told me everything to do and I did everything he said. He might be cheesy, but he really is a sweet person.

Teresa and Diane are both incredibly sweet people. Teresa called me to reassure me that the way I was portrayed was not really how she felt about me. She never had a bad thing to say about anyone. Diane was my replacement mother after I was booted off. She was very sweet and a little unsure of herself.

Jessie was so beautiful and so tough, not someone you want to mess with. After I was booted I became very close to Jessie. I was in the hospital after I got voted out, for gastroenteritis. I was really sick and Jessie took very good care of me. She is a great super person.

Tom is hysterical. He had the cameramen in stitches all the time. He is the funniest person I know. It would sometimes take two hours to film a two-minute "confessional" because he had the cameramen laughing so hard they could not film.
Kim Powers is someone I am very close to, I really feel like we were very similar to each other.

Brandon is someone who I know can manipulate me and I do not trust him, but he is still a really good friend of mine.

Ethan is so real, so cute, so honest. The reason they don’t show anything bad about Ethan is because there was nothing to show. He was always a decent human being. He is also in a committed relationship – he has been with the same woman for eight years.

Lex is a doll, I still talk to him, he is not an evil man, he is a good man.

RNO: Do people talk to you in person the way they do online?

LR: There was one incident where I was an a radio station signing. These people came up and I said, ‘Oh I hope you don’t hate me.’ They said they did. They were so glad to see me off the show. I kind of laughed it off. Why were they asking for my autograph if they hated me so much? It turns out that they just happened to win the free lunch with Lindsey the station gave away and as we got to talking over lunch I think they were shocked that I was not a bitch. Five people will approach me every day and be positive, but my hair dresser tells me that they come in there and say bad things about me. One of these days she is going to call me when she is doing someone's hair, someone who hates me. I am going to walk in there and demand the star treatment, act like a prima Donna and play into their vision of me just for fun.

RNO: Does your mother hug you, Lindsey?

LR: (Laughs) Yes, and when we are in L.A. my Mom is going to go right up to Linda and tell her so herself.

RNO: What was the first thing you ate when you got "voted off the island"?

LR: Grilled chicken breast, pasta and two snickers bars.

RNO: Who do you want to win Survivor: Africa?

LR: I guess Ethan, he is really a very modest person. Very cute. A real nice down-to-Earth guy. I don’t think the money would go to his head. I don’t think it would change him all that much.

RNO: You laughingly call yourself the Survivor Crybaby, but that is not how you really want to be remembered is it?

LR: No, I want to be remembered as an unforgettable character. I don’t want to be embarrassed by the fact that I came across as an insecure spoiled brat. I added some drama and I see it as a character I portrayed. I cannot go through life caring what people think.

RNO: Last thoughts?

LR: I am in touch with everyone from the show. Even Brandon. We are actually good friends. It was a game. What happened was not real life. Everyone is in touch with everybody else.

Here is a good example of what it was like out there. I got a tiny little paper cut on my hand, but because we had no real food and no water and the water we bathed in was filled with animal feces, my tiny little cut got infected and I had a huge swollen ball of pus on my knuckle bigger than a Hershey Kiss. The doctor came and drained that pus and it was oozing and gross and all from just a tiny little cut. And that is what Survivor does to you. Any emotion you have, any stress you have, it becomes swollen and infected to where you become paranoid and insecure and then these people you are stranded with and you cannot trust react to that insecurity. They judge you because of it and that makes you more stressed out and you make more mistakes and pretty soon everything is like that little cut –blown way out of proportion and infected and not what it would be in a situation that is not as extreme as the one you are in.

I used to be judgmental too, thought some actresses and singers were cheesy. I try not to judge them anymore because I don’t really know what they go through. Anyone who wants to judge me fairly, I would tell them to go on Survivor and then we will chat.

Peggy Keller is Mother and Behavior Therapist to her two autistic sons and teenage daughter.

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