'Survivor' Women Boot Joel

By Stephen M. Silverman

Thursday August 27, 1998 12:00 AM EDT

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The women of "Survivor" had their say last night. They voted Joel Klug, a 28-year-old health club consultant from Arkansas, off the island, after accusing him of being condescending and chauvinistic. Klug denied the charge at the end of the program, and on this morning's CBS "Early Show" claimed the comments "were taken out of context." He added that, given the high-pressure situation on the island, "little things became big things." Ironically, his teammate Gervase Peterson survived, despite his utterance, "Women are the stupidest things on the planet next to cows." Next week the two tribes will be combined into one.

• Offshore, meanwhile, survivor Richard Hatch, 39, is claiming that police in Middletown, R.I., violated his civil rights by releasing details of his April arrest on child-abuse charges to the National Enquirer. The corporate trainer also says the state emotionally abused his 9-year-old son by removing him from home. Two days after he returned from filming "Survivor," Hatch was arrested for allegedly forcing his son to run six miles and then hitting him when he faltered. A judge ruled that there was no crime and returned the boy.