Koh-Lanta (France)

The Koh-Lanta doctor died ten days after Gérald Babin

Thierry Costa, 38, the doctor working on the 2013 Koh-Lanta shoot in Cambodia, died by suicide on 1 April 2013, ten days after contestant Gérald Babin died on 22 March. Adventure Line Productions announced it the same day. Costa was never charged with or found responsible for anything.

Confirmed The death, the date, the age and the existence of the handwritten letter come from contemporaneous reporting, including an Associated Press account carried the following day. No cause has been established for Costa's death, and nothing located here shows any person, outlet or company being found responsible for it or for Babin's.

Koh-Lanta (France) Confirmed

What the record shows

  • Confirmed Thierry Costa, 38, was the doctor working on the 2013 Koh-Lanta shoot in Cambodia. He died by suicide there on 1 April 2013, ten days after Gérald Babin died on 22 March 2013.
  • Confirmed Adventure Line Productions, the producer, announced the death the same day and said his professionalism and humanity across four seasons on the programme had been recognised without dissent.
  • Confirmed He left a handwritten letter. In it he said his name had been sullied in the media, that unjust accusations and assumptions had been made against him, and that he was sure he had treated Babin "as a patient and not as a contestant".
  • Confirmed Costa was never charged with anything. No court, inquest or regulator has been shown to have found him at fault in Babin's death.
  • Disputed Anonymous accounts published in French media in the days after Babin's death questioned the production's medical response. Adventure Line Productions rejected those accounts, and Costa disputed them in the letter. They were never attributed to a named person and were never adjudicated.
  • Confirmed The Associated Press reported that the Créteil prosecutor's office had opened an inquiry into involuntary homicide over Babin's death, and that France's broadcasting council, the CSA, said on 3 April 2013 that it would consult broadcasters on safety rules and on the recruitment and medical follow-up of reality show participants.
  • Unverified No outcome of the Créteil inquiry could be retrieved for this page. Nothing located shows a charge, a dismissal, a trial or a verdict, and nothing should be read into that silence in either direction.
  • Unverified No cause has been established for Costa's death. No inquiry, finding or proceeding located here identifies any person, outlet or company as responsible for it, and this page names none.
  • Confirmed Support is available for anyone affected by this. In the United States the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline can be reached by calling or texting 988. Elsewhere, the International Association for Suicide Prevention maintains a directory of crisis lines by country.

What is actually established

Thierry Costa was 38 and was the doctor working on the 2013 Koh-Lanta shoot in Cambodia. He had worked on the programme for four seasons. He died by suicide in Cambodia on 1 April 2013. Adventure Line Productions, the company producing the season, announced the death that same day and said his professionalism and humanity towards participants and crew had been recognised without dissent.

The gap matters, because most retellings blur it. Gérald Babin died on 22 March 2013, the first day of filming. Costa died on 1 April. That is ten days, not the vague "days later" or "about a week" that different accounts carry, and the two dates are the part of this story nobody disputes.

What the letter said

Costa left a handwritten letter. In it he said his name had been sullied in the media, that unjust accusations and assumptions had been made against him, and that he was sure he had treated Babin "as a patient and not as a contestant". The Hollywood Reporter's account says the letter was released by Adventure Line Productions and published in Le Parisien, reportedly with the family's agreement.

That is what he wrote. It is his account of how he experienced the previous ten days, and it should be read as that rather than as a finding about anything. He was disputing accusations, not answering a charge, because there was no charge against him.

Nobody was ever found responsible, for either death

Costa was never charged with anything and was never found at fault in Babin's death by any court, inquest or regulator. Any sentence that describes him as blamed, or as having failed a patient, is asserting a conclusion that no proceeding reached.

The same restraint applies in the other direction. No cause has been established for Costa's death, and nothing located for this page identifies any journalist, outlet, executive or family member as having caused it. Suicide does not have single causes, the record here contains nothing that would isolate one, and this page names nobody. The Associated Press reported that anonymous accounts in French media had questioned the production's handling of Babin's collapse, that Adventure Line Productions rejected them, and that TF1 said it shared the family's pain. Those are statements from the parties, not findings.

This page does not describe how he died

Several write-ups of this story include the method. This page does not, and it does not link the pages that do. Reporting guidance on suicide is consistent on that point, and nothing anyone needs to understand about what happened in Cambodia in 2013 depends on it.

Anyone reading this because it is close to home should know that help exists. In the United States the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is reachable by call or text at 988. The International Association for Suicide Prevention keeps a country-by-country directory of crisis lines for everywhere else.

What the French authorities did afterwards

Two official threads ran after the two deaths. The Associated Press reported that the Créteil prosecutor's office had opened an inquiry into involuntary homicide concerning Babin's death. No source establishing where that inquiry ended could be retrieved for this page, so no charge, dismissal, trial or verdict is claimed here.

Separately, on 3 April 2013, France's broadcasting council, the CSA, said it would consult television stations about respecting human dignity in reality programming and revisit the existing safety rules. It reminded producers to use the greatest prudence in recruiting contestants and suggested that participants receive medical and psychological support during filming and for several months afterwards. That is a regulator recommending changes, not a regulator finding fault.

This was Koh-Lanta, and the first death is a separate page

Koh-Lanta is the French edition of the Survivor format, with its own cast, producer and broadcaster, and English coverage that files this under Survivor is why the story reaches people searching for a death on the CBS series. The 2013 season was filmed in Cambodia and never aired.

The circumstances of Babin's collapse, the cancellation of the season and what was and was not established about it are set out separately, and this page deliberately does not repeat them. Read them there rather than reconstructing them from the ten days that followed.

Questions people ask

What happened to the Koh-Lanta doctor in 2013?
Thierry Costa, 38, the doctor on the 2013 Koh-Lanta shoot in Cambodia, died by suicide on 1 April 2013. Adventure Line Productions announced the death the same day and said he had worked on the programme for four seasons.
How long after Gérald Babin did Thierry Costa die?
Ten days. Babin died on 22 March 2013, the first day of filming, and Costa died on 1 April 2013. Accounts that say "about a week" or "days later" are rounding those two fixed dates.
Was Thierry Costa blamed for Gérald Babin's death?
He was never charged and no court, inquest or regulator has been shown to have found him at fault. Anonymous accounts in French media questioned the production's medical response, Adventure Line Productions rejected them, and nothing was ever adjudicated.
What did Thierry Costa's letter say?
He wrote that his name had been sullied in the media and that unjust accusations and assumptions had been made against him, and said he was sure he had treated Babin as a patient rather than as a contestant.
Did anyone face charges over the two Koh-Lanta deaths?
Not on the record here. The Associated Press reported a Créteil inquiry into involuntary homicide over Babin's death, but no source showing a charge, a dismissal or any final outcome could be retrieved, and Costa was never charged with anything.
Did this happen on the American Survivor?
No. Koh-Lanta is the licensed French edition, with a separate cast, production company and broadcaster. The 2013 season was filmed in Cambodia, was cancelled after Babin died and never aired.

Sources

Checked on 2026-07-26. If something here is wrong or out of date, we want to know: get in touch.