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Turmoil between players is commonplace for any reality series, but Survivor has had a few instances which went beyond mere intertribal squabbles. More recently, there have been debates, some even prior to the series' premiere, regarding the formatting of the show:

• In February 2001, Borneo player Stacey Stillman filed a lawsuit claiming producers interfered in the process of the game by persuading two members of her tribe (Sean Kenniff and Dirk Been) to vote her off instead of Rudy Boesch. Been supported her allegations. Mark Burnett countersued Stillman for US$5 million. The case was eventually settled out of court.^{[citation needed]}
• Colby Donaldson removed corals from the Great Barrier Reef, a crime resulting in a fine of AU$110,000. Technically, he should have been disqualified on Episode 9 due to breaking the local law. The helicopter involved with the reward also flew around sea bird rookeries.^[54] When this episode aired in Australia, the commercial breaks featured advertisements that stated removing coral from the Great Barrier Reef is illegal and results in a fine.
• Graphic violence against living animals has occasionally been shown on the program, to the outrage of animal-rights groups. In an episode from Survivor: Vanuatu, the women's tribe, the Yasur, was filmed killing a live chicken with a spearheaded object; they also cooked the chicken's eggs. During an episode of Survivor: Australia, members of the Kucha tribe were shown hunting and killing a wild pig.
• At the trivia immunity challenge for Africa's final four players, host Jeff Probst asked which female player in their season had no piercings. Kim Johnson answered Kelly Goldsmith, got the point, and went on to win the challenge, which pushed her to third and ultimately (after another immunity win) second place. Tom Buchanan was eliminated. Months later, the cast and producers (who were preparing for the live finale and reunion) watched the episode backstage. During the rebroadcast of the challenge, Lindsey Richter shouted to the TV that she had no piercings. Lex van den Berghe's answer had been Lindsey, yet the show had not awarded him a point, thus significantly changing the outcome of the game (van den Berghe was eliminated in third place). CBS later paid van den Berghe and Buchanan a settlement.^[55]
• In the fifth episode of the All-Star season, a naked Richard Hatch may or may not have come into contact with Sue Hawk after she blocked his path during an immunity challenge. Hatch was voted out that day for other reasons; Hawk quit the game a few days later (episode six). Hawk considered filing a lawsuit against the parties involved, but appeared with Hatch on The Early Show the morning after the sixth episode aired, stating she opted out of legal action because CBS had helped her "deal with the situation".^[56]
• In order to be sure to win a Reward Challenge in which the castaways competed to win a visit from their friends or loved ones, Pearl Islands Survivor Jonny "Fairplay" Dalton conspired beforehand with friend Dan Fields in what has been described by Probst as the greatest lie on Survivor to date. Fields told Dalton that his grandmother, Jean Cooke, had died, in order to win sympathy from his tribemates and subsequently the reward. In reality, Cooke had not died, a fact that only emerged to his tribemates once the episode had aired. When the show staff heard about Cooke's "death," they called Dalton's family to offer condolences, only to have Cooke herself answer the phone. Dalton admitted in confessional after the challenge that his grandmother was alive and "probably watching Jerry Springer right now." On that season's reunion show, Jeff Probst had a short interview with Cooke, who was indeed alive and well.
• Rupert Boneham, originally on Survivor: Pearl Islands and then part of Survivor: All-Stars was an extremely popular player with television audiences, but finished eighth and fourth, respectively, in his appearances on the show. As part of Survivor: All-Stars, a special Survivor: America's Tribal Council contest for the 18 players was created, where the winner would be selected by the viewing audience and would receive $1 million US prize; Rupert won this prize, unsurprisingly, with more than 80% of the votes cast. Many long-time Survivor fans saw this as a way of diluting the overall concept of the show, that instead of outwitting, outplaying and outlasting your fellow tribe members to win the game, a player could now play specifically to gain popularity with audience of the show, regardless of how well he played the game, and still would be rewarded with a large prize.^[57]
• Richard Hatch, the winner of the first season of Survivor, was charged and found guilty in January 2006 of failing to report his winnings to the IRS to avoid taxes. He has been sentenced to four years, three months in prison.^[58]
• The 13th season of Survivor, known as Survivor: Cook Islands, began with tribes grouped according to race. Host Jeff Probst claims the choice "came from the criticism that Survivor was not ethnically diverse enough."^[59] Several long-term sponsors, including Campbell's Soup, Procter & Gamble, Home Depot, Coca Cola, and General Motors^[60] dropped their support of the show shortly after this announcement, leading to speculation that the decisions were in response to the controversy. Each of the companies has either denied the link or declined to comment.^[61] The controversy did attract the ire of certain community activists, such as Fernando Mateo.
• Mark Burnett has also received criticism for "reenacting" scenes with actor "stand ins" which he claims were used to increase production value and did not affect the outcome.^[62]
• The program angered its fan base when Jeff Probst revealed that Survivor: Fiji ignored the thousands of viewer applicants and instead used their own recruited players. It was revealed that Gary Stritesky was the only actual applicant chosen, while the rest used on the show were recruits.^[63] While Probst defended the process by claiming they wanted to find more "diverse" players, 10 of the recruits were from California (13 the previous season) and many were young unemployed actors and found in places like bars and MySpace.com.^[64] Many fans felt that going away from the original selection process of using people of all ages from around the country produced inferior and uninteresting players. One example was Melissa McNulty, a Fiji recruit, who was unable to even make it to the island, quitting because of a panic attack merely five hours before departing.^[65]
• At the Survivor: China reunion show, Denise Martin told producers and the audience her unfortunate story of being demoted to a janitor from a lunch lady because of the distraction she was to students. Because of her claimed misfortune, Mark Burnett awarded Martin $50,000. Martin ultimately recanted the story after the school district publicly stated that she had taken the custodial position before appearing on the show.^[66] She also decided to donate the $50,000 to charity.^[67]
• A brief uncensored shot of Marcus Lehman's genitals during the premiere episode of Survivor: Gabon has led to the show and network being asked to apologize for the incident.^[68]
• The vocalist, who originally recorded the famous "Survivor Yell" that occurs during the themesong and varying times throughout the series, filed legal charges against the show claiming that he did not receive the proper royalties.^{[citation needed]}
• Burnett's long time associate Conrad Riggs sued Burnett. The suit accused Burnett of reneging on an agreement to pay Riggs and his company, Cloudbreak Entertainment, 10% of his net earnings. In a countersuit, Burnett claimed that he did provide Riggs 10% of his net earnings on successful TV show projects that Riggs had negotiated on Burnett's behalf as part of an oral agreement between the associates. He further claimed that Riggs tried to get TV networks to pay additional producer fees directly to Riggs rather than to Mark Burnett Productions.^{[citation needed}