Rob Rausch, a handsome snake-wrangler from Alabama, was standing a few feet away from Maura Higgins, the former Love Islander, next to the Traitors\u2019 roundtable. Showing little emotion, he finally revealed that he had double-crossed her to win more than $220,000.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was so fooled by you, you absolute *sshole, you pinky promised,\u201d Higgins says in the Peacock finale. \u201cYou\u2019re never going to have a girlfriend after this; you\u2019re such a good liar.\u201d<\/p>\n
Higgins and the majority of the cast had been fooled all along.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wish I could sit here and say I knew he was a traitor, but I had no clue,\u201d Higgins said at Deadline\u2019s Contenders Television: The Nominees Studio. \u201cHe played the best game in that castle. I genuinely did believe he was a faithful, but you know what? It\u2019s a game, and I was fine with it. I went through all the emotions very quickly, and then I was like, \u2018You know what? Fair play.\u2019 I genuinely was so convinced that me and him was winning the show together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Higgins was joined by Rausch and fellow Season 4 contestants Mon\u00e9t X Change, Tara Lipinski, Lisa Rinna, Rob Cesternino and Eric Nam for the Deadline conversation. Watch the discussion below, and scroll down for photos from the event.<\/p>\n
Rausch was cold as ice. \u201cI was actually surprised in the edit. I feel like they made me seem a little more nervous than I was,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Rausch, who also became famous on the U.S. version of Love Island, did make it up to Higgins, somewhat, by buying her a Herm\u00e8s Birkin bag.<\/p>\n
Rinna, a fellow traitor and the person who helped Rausch secure the bag, had similarly been crossed by him, twice. \u201cI just didn\u2019t see that coming, so I was really genuinely shocked by that because I thought he was a better boy than that, but he wasn\u2019t,\u201d she said. \u201cEveryone wanted him to be Mr. America, and no one wanted to believe that he could possibly be a traitor.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was a dynamite finale for the Studio Lambert-produced show, which scored six Emmy nominations this year including for Outstanding Reality Competition Program, after winning that category the past two seasons.<\/p>\n
In addition to those on the Deadline panel, the series starred Ian Terry, Porsha Williams, Donna Kelce, Caroline Stanbury, Tiffany Mitchell, Michael Rapaport, Ron Funches, Yamil \u2018Yam Yam\u2019 Arocho, Colton Underwood, Candiace Dillard Bassett, Dorinda Medley, Stephen Colletti, Kristen Kish, Natalie Anderson, Mark Ballas, Johnny Weir and Eric Nam.<\/p>\n
Nam, who became a traitor after being recruited halfway through the show, was also crossed by Rausch in the finale. \u201cRob was like \u2018We\u2019re going to win this together\u2019 and I was like \u2018Cool.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The singer-songwriter said it was difficult pivoting from being a faithful to becoming a traitor. \u201cEmotionally, it was exhausting,\u201d he said. \u201cWe had quickly become friends. I went to bed one night and three hours later, you have to go decide who to kill and that was such a stressful experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
One moment not shown on screen was when the whole group was going down the stairs: Nam shouted \u201cTraitor,\u201d and Rinna turned her head. She was subsequently banished in episode 7. But she was fine with that.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had no strategy whatsoever, but the plan that I had was I wanted to wear that Erik Charlotte Couture dress to the banquet, and I didn\u2019t know when the banquet was because they tell you nothing. I was just holding out for that, and so once they got me after that, I was fine because in my mind I had won,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Mon\u00e9t X Change, a faithful murdered in episode 5, said that he had tried to send Higgins \u201cmessages from the grave\u201d but she didn\u2019t hear him.<\/p>\n