The Traitors Season 4 Finalists Break Down That Savage Finale (Excl)

Are you a Faithful or a Traitor — or just obsessed with Peacock’s latest reality TV megahit? Here at Us Weekly, we’re 100 percent faithful to the only game show that pits Housewives against “gamers” and actual Olympians, with hosting duties carried out by the ever-glamorous Alan Cumming (who’s won four Emmys for his trouble).

Season 4 of The Traitors upped the ante with new twists and turns, leading to perhaps the most savage finale in Ardross Castle history. To recap: After banishing figure skater Johnny Weir, the final four — Love Island’s Maura Higgins, Olympic gold medalist Tara Lipinski, K-pop star Eric Nam and Love Island USA’s Rob Rausch — convened for their last vote. Rob, a Traitor from the beginning, had recruited Eric to his side late in the game after the banishments of original Traitors Donna Kelce, Lisa Rinna and Candiace Dillard Bassett, while Maura and Tara were the last two Faithfuls standing.

After the group unceremoniously banished Tara, Rob mercilessly played his last two costars against each other, convincing them both that he planned to go all the way with them and split the cash prize. Unbeknownst to Maura, this wasn’t possible, as he was a Traitor all along, while Eric was collateral damage in Rob’s scorched-earth plan to convince Maura she could trust him. The season ended with Rob coming out on top, winning $220,800 after throwing all of his allies under the bus.

Shortly after the cast taped this year’s reunion, Us Weekly sat down with Rob, Maura, Eric, Tara and late lamented gamer Natalie Anderson to unpack season’s 4 cold-blooded betrayals — and got the bottom of whether the smoked salmon was really that good.

A Snake in the Grass

Rob is the first Traitor and first solo player to win the show since Survivor legend Cirie Fields, also a Traitor, in season 1. Viewers — and some costars — initially underestimated the Alabaman snake wrangler as a smooth-brained himbo, but it soon became clear that his gameplay was some of the best Ardross Castle has ever seen.

Rob Rausch: I wanted to be a Traitor when they explained the rules to me. I clearly realized that the Traitors have every single piece of information that you need to win the game. It just comes down to your skill set. Like, there’s no excuse to lose the game if you’re a Traitor.
Maura Higgins: [When you see me find out Rob is a Traitor], you can clearly see I am in total disbelief. I’m in shock. I don’t think I’ve ever felt like that ever in my life. I genuinely always have something to say, and I just froze. I couldn’t even speak. I kept thinking, “I’m waiting for him to say, ‘Joking!’” I genuinely thought, “OK, this has gone on too long. Just tell me you’re joking now.” And he just didn’t say it. And then it finally sunk in, and I was just genuinely in shock. I just believed he was a Faithful the whole time.
Eric Nam: I was so sad and angry [when Rob admitted it]. More than anything, I was just really disappointed, because Rob and I had built a rapport in our relationship — not just when I became a Traitor, but from the beginning. Once I became a Traitor, that only became stronger, and it was kind of like we were able to communicate without even using words. And I was like, “You know what? We’re good. I think we’re gonna be fine.” And then when he turned, I felt so dumb and stupid and honestly disappointed, but at the same time, I’m like, “You know what? Great gameplay, great game.” He was a snake. I always like to give people the benefit of the doubt. When you’re in this game and you’re immersed for so long, sometimes you forget that people are still here to play the game. And I think perhaps I trusted him a little too much.
Rob: [Before the final vote], Maura came to me and made me promise to her that I was going to vote Eric out because she thought he was a Traitor. And that’s when I was like, “OK, I have to do this.” Because yes, given the opportunity, I’m going to take the money for myself. I love Eric. He’s a great guy. But at the end of the day, he’s a stranger. I knew him for three weeks. Like, what are we talking about? … It just wasn’t a risk I was willing to take — I had the game locked up. Why would I not just finish out strong?
Maura: In my head, I kept thinking like, “Oh, my God, imagine if it was Rob. But then what if he is a Faithful and then I turn on him, and then I have the biggest regret and I’ve trusted him the whole way through the show? Am I really gonna turn on him now and not believe him?” I just genuinely believed he was a Faithful. I think he played a fantastic game, and he is an incredible liar.

Related: ‘The Traitors’ Season 4 Finale Recap: Who Won — And How Much Money?

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Reality TV stars and celebrities join Peacock’s The Traitors to see which Faithfuls can expose all the Traitors — but who ended up banished and murdered in season 4 as a result? Inspired by Dutch series De Verraders (which previously led to a popular UK version), The Traitors brings together a group of celebs, especially […]

It Was All a Game

Rob betrayed all of his allies on his path to victory, while Tara and Natalie let their sniping with each other get in the way of an organized strike. So how is everyone feeling now?

Tara Lipinski: I love Natalie! And now we have kept in touch and formed a really nice relationship.
Natalie Anderson: I feel like [Tara and I] could have done something and we could have won. But it doesn’t make it super personal.
Rob: Me and Eric are cool. Eric understands it’s a game. He said it took him a few days, but he got over it, and we’re cool. [With Maura], she took it like a champ, and she said she would have done the same thing, but it was hard because she really trusted me.
Eric: We’re good. It took a day or two for me to be like, “Wow, that was a crazy experience. And I can’t believe that I once again trusted somebody and I got completely stabbed in the back.” But Rob sent me a message after filming, and I think it just said, like, “My fault, G,” and I was like, “That’s just him.” At the end of the day, it’s a game, and I can’t be mad at him for playing a really good game. We’re friends, we’ve remained friends, we will stay friends. And I’m really happy for him.
Maura: Me and Tara are absolutely fine. We talk all the time. [With Rob], I’m not taking it to heart. It’s not real life to me — he was chosen as a Traitor. He’s not allowed to tell anyone, and he played an incredible game, so I can’t be mad at that. I can only be mad at myself for trusting the wrong person. He told me he’s going to get me a gift, which is going to be a Birkin handbag. So when he gets that, then he’s fully forgiven.
Rob: That is in the works. I’m in cahoots with Lisa. She said she could probably get my foot in the door so I can buy one. It’s proving way more difficult than I thought it would be.

Know Your Enemy — Or Don’t

Traitors contestants prepare for the game in various ways — watching old episodes, or in Dorinda Medley’s case, reading The Art of War — but season 4’s finalists took a somewhat more laid-back approach to the process.

Rob: I attempted to watch an episode with my best friend, and I just couldn’t get into it. I’ve been on Love Island, so I realized what you see is only a fraction of the whole story anyway, so I knew it wouldn’t really help me in the long run. This is a game that is completely based on the people you’re with and the connections you make and understanding those people, so there’s really no point in making a strategy until you’re in the game.
Tara: I watched season 3, but no other preparation! I never thought it would be as hard as it was. I made friends with everyone, and it was very hard for me to switch to harsh gameplay and not just follow my heart.
Natalie: I obviously studied the game.
Eric: When you get to the castle, you realize that unless you’re a Traitor, you really can’t have much strategy. The Faithful are so blind we have no idea what’s going on, and production does such a good job of keeping us completely confused the entire time that it’s really, really hard to have a strategy.
Rob: [Early in the game], we were going after people who were intellectually threatening, pretty much the people that I thought were the smartest and that could put two and two together — people that didn’t trust me. Like Mark [Ballas], Natalie — we left a lot of people in the game that I thought were very smart and strategic, but I think that they were blinded by our relationship to a degree that it wasn’t a risk to keep them in the game. Kristen [Kish] as well. There were quite a few people that were very smart that trusted me.
Maura: I had no strategy. I’m not gonna lie about it — I had zero strategy. I was learning every single day I was in there, and I was just like, “You know what? I’m gonna go in, serve some looks, hopefully stay in maybe for a week, make some friends and that’s it.”
Eric: [Maura] literally did nothing. Maura Higgins is that bitch, because she can literally do whatever she wants, and she’s fine — she was always protected. She literally would just be carried everywhere. We would just look at each other like, “We’re so f***ing good at this game.” And I was like, “Maura, you might be the best player, because you haven’t done a single thing, you haven’t lifted a finger, and somehow you’re in the final.”

100 Percent Salmon

Viewers usually don’t see much of what the contestants are eating, but this season, the smoked salmon served at breakfast became such a hot topic that it became a plot point on the show. So we had to ask: Was it really that good?

Eric: I don’t think there’s anything great about the smoked salmon. The issue is that we start shooting very early, and all the foods are cold, right? That breakfast is cold, the croissants are stale, the eggs are cold, everything is cold. And the only thing that’s acceptable to eat cold really, to me, is smoked salmon, and it’s the only form of protein outside of just a bowl of watery, hard-boiled eggs. There’s no seasoning or flavoring in Scottish food. So to have a kick of omega-3 and some salt via smoked salmon I think is what really got people so excited.
Natalie: The salmon was just something that was the best probably at the breakfast table. It was good, but not compared to good salmon, like if you go to New York City and you go to a good deli and you get a nice lox and cream cheese bagel.
Maura: I don’t think it was that good. Because the breakfast was so bad, that was the only kind of good thing we had, and because we didn’t have a lot of it, it was the one thing that we all wanted. The boiled eggs were cold, the toast was hard and cold. I can’t believe it became such a thing as well. Especially me, in every single episode, all I’m doing is eating. There’s companies DMing me offering to send me smoked salmon.

Castle Hindsight Is 20/20

It’s easy to play armchair Faithful from the comfort of your couch, but it’s a lot harder when you’re actually in the castle. Does anyone have regrets?

Tara: It would have been nice if Johnny and I had another Faithful to join our little alliance earlier, but we understand it was hard for anyone to trust anyone in the castle, so that was probably an unlikely hope to begin with! But no regrets — I tried my absolute best throughout the game.
Maura: I genuinely don’t take it that seriously, and I’m not a serious person. I’ve seen a few comments like, “Maura is the dumbest person in there,” but it’s so easy for them to say they know who the Traitors are. Like, it’s not that easy when you’re in there! It’s actually really, really difficult. But yeah, I wasn’t upset [about the ending] at all. I was actually very proud of myself for getting as far as I did. My advice for anyone that’s going to do The Traitors is don’t watch the show. Just go in and don’t have a strategy and just wing it, because it worked for me. I know that I trusted the wrong person, but at least I got to the final and I wasn’t murdered. Brilliant.
Natalie: My biggest regret is not playing a harder game. I could have put some of the worries about being targeted away, even though it was scary because they were killing us left and right as gamers, so it made it harder for me to be myself. But I should have just embraced that and just been like, “Listen, if you’re going to get murdered or banished, it’s better to just try.” … I should have just depended on myself, basically.
Rob: Murdering Mark was a tough one, because I really got close to Mark, and having to see his face right after was a tough one. And I think he knew [I was a Traitor]. I think he had figured it out, and so that’s how I know it was the right choice to make.
Eric: I would have been a little more wary of like, “OK, maybe Rob will stab you in the back.” It would have been a very complex thing to try to pull one over on him, because he had so much trust in the castle … but maybe I would have played it differently.

Related: Lisa Rinna Breaks Down Why ‘Nobody Suspects’ Rob R. as a Traitor

The Traitors season 4 star Lisa Rinna is sharing her hot takes on what went down in the castle as the competition reaches a boiling point. “I’m gonna start with this, Rob R. He’s super smart,” the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alums, 62, said in a TikTok video shared ahead of the Thursday, January […]

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Making Lala Proud

Even if they didn’t come out on top, the cast can still hang their capes on their proudest moments in the castle.

Rob: I’m only thinking about the game and how it’s going to work out for me to win. I was there to win a game. I was not there for screen time or anything like that. I wanted to play and win.
Tara: It’s not the best gameplay strategy, but I’m proud that I played the game with my heart and stayed true to myself. I am not a reality star, and it was important to me that I stayed authentic to myself and played with integrity. I made a lot of friends in the castle, and I loved building those relationships.
Eric: My goal was just to have fun. This is the most random side quest I could have ever taken on. And more than anything, I just really wanted to leave an interesting impression on America. I’m American, I was born and raised here, but I had to go to Korea to build a career, because there’s just not a lot of people that look like me doing these things. And so I was like, “OK, I want to do this in a way that’s impactful, and then hopefully we can introduce the music and the multiple films and all the other things that I have going on in an interesting way.” And so from that perspective, I think it’s been fun and successful. And then the other part was like, I really just wanted to make good TV.
Natalie: I’m proud of being an asset. One of the best moments for me was when we were dividing up into teams for the statue challenge. Yam Yam [Arocho] goes, “Alright, so let’s make the strongest people captains,” and they picked me, Colton [Underwood], Rob and Stephen [Colletti]. It’s a different feeling for me — having people just be like, “Natalie’s one of the strongest, stronger than some of the guys. And we’re not going to argue with that.” That, for me, is amazing.
Maura: I’m just proud that I made it as far as I did. To be the last woman standing, I never would have thought that in a million years. I never watched the show. I got to wear all my outfits, and I’m probably getting a Birkin handbag. So, win-win.

The Traitors is now streaming on Peacock.