This article contains spoilers for Season 3 of “The Traitors.”
Before heading to a castle in the Scottish Highlands to film the new season of “The Traitors,” Dorinda Medley read “The Art of War,” talked through strategies with her daughter and filled her luggage with vintage Vivienne Westwood and Alaïa pieces.
Medley, a veteran of “The Real Housewives of New York City,” figured she was prepared for the competition series, in which a cast of reality stars is divided between “traitors,” whose identities remain secret and who choose a player each day to “murder,” and “faithfuls,” who try to uncover the traitors’ identities.
“One of my very best friends said to me, as the parting note, ‘it doesn’t matter if you get kicked off, just don’t be the first one to get kicked off,’” Medley said. But that’s just what happened.
After just one night in the castle, Medley was murdered by the traitors. “I’ve done some great things in ‘Housewives,’ I’ve done some not so great things,” she said in an interview. “But I’ve always been in control of them. Whereas when you’re on this show, it’s just a whole different set of rules. Like, what could I have done?”
An early departure can be a bit of a gut punch for reality stars, who sometimes lobby for coveted spots on “The Traitors,” an Emmy-winning Peacock show that has been among the highest rated unscripted shows on TV. Besides offering a cash prize of up to $250,000, the show can help change perception of a villain or a ditz and be a springboard for their next casting. Hosted by Alan Cumming, whose wild sartorial choices set the standard, it’s also a showcase for fashion-forward reality stars.
Chanel Ayan, from “The Real Housewives of Dubai,” was excited to go to Scotland because she is a big fan of shows about the royal family and because she said she is known for her style. She hoped to showcase her smarts, but she was the second person murdered this season.
“I was just disappointed because I didn’t think I deserved it,” Ayan said. “And I wanted to be there for women in my culture [in Somalia] seeing me doing something like that. And I think I was robbed of that. And so I was really angry about that, too.”
She added: “I was also angry that they didn’t see my clothes.”
Wells Adams, who competed on “The Bachelorette” and was the bartender on “Bachelor in Paradise,” was banished during the first round after some of his fellow cast members accused him of being a traitor, though he wasn’t.
His disappointment coming out of the game was twofold. He said that when he agreed to do the show, producers said he would be able to travel around Scotland and golf after he was kicked off. But that didn’t end up happening.
“I was just going to go rent a car and drive around and go play golf and they were like, ‘No, you have to go home’” he said, shaking his head. (Representatives for the show declined to comment on the record for this article.)
After contestants are eliminated, they are brought to a second castle, where they film confessional interviews and other promo material over a few days. Many then try to make it back to their homes unnoticed.
“Not only do I have to slither back to the U.S., in like a cloak because God knows if anyone saw me, how hard would it be to put two and two together that I’m no longer at the castle?” Medley said. “We are really sworn to secrecy, and we take it very seriously. I mean, you feel like they’re going to hunt you down in the middle of the night with a cloak.”
Adams, a vocal fan of the reality series “The Challenge,” said he wouldn’t participate in another competition show.
“I do much better when, like, they can’t kick me off the show,” he said. But Medley, Ayan and Adams all said they would continue to watch “The Traitors” as the season airs.
For Ayan, revenge came in Episode 4 when Bob the Drag Queen, who had suggested her murder, was the first traitor banished from the castle.
“When I was a little girl in my village, we were so poor and broke that when my mom bought me Coca-Cola, it was like the best thing. So you see me, I haven’t drunk Coca-Cola in a long time and literally I’m celebrating Bob’s death,” she said on a video interview, holding up a can.
Medley has also enjoyed fans’ shock at her early exit.
“I thought it would come and go, and people would be like, ‘I’m glad she’s gone,’ because I’m always so paranoid,” she said. “But instead there’s been like constant fireworks about it and outrage, which I have to say, I’m sorry, NBC, I’m kind of happy about it.”
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