The Traitors’ Claire on Being a Traitor and Being Blindsided

Well folks, they did it again. The Faithfuls correctly sussed out and banished their second Traitor of the week and, once again, it was with the help of The Traitors most traitorous Traitor, Marielle, who voted to banish Claire from the game.

Up until this week, the Faithfuls had been having a hard go of it, banishing four Faithfuls in a row before finally hitting the nail on the head and getting rid of Angus on Monday night. While Traitors Nigel and Marielle both voted to banish Angus as well, in order to stick with the majority and keep the target off their own backs, Claire was left in the dark, and she was not very happy about it.

Chatting with POPSUGAR Australia following her Tuesday night elimination from the game, Claire said that she’d had “absolutely no idea” her fellow Traitors were going to vote for Angus.

“Even seeing it afterwards, the conversations, I had no idea those conversations were even happening,” Claire explained with a laugh. “So they’re obviously playing an amazing game at this stage.”

While she has no hard feelings toward any of the players, Claire admitted that in the moment, she was “pretty angry and a little bit upset”.

“But you know what, at the end of the day, it’s a game, and if that’s how it’s going to get them to the end, that’s how they’ve got to do it,” she said of Nigel and Marielle. “Everyone’s got to play their own game, [but] it’s not a way that I would’ve played — that’s just a personal choice.”

Had things gone Claire’s way, she explained, the Traitors would’ve stuck together, protected one another, and all made it to the end.

“That’s how I played the game, but everyone in there is gonna be playing the game differently, to their own advantage, and kudos to them… they’re there, I’m not! So there you go,” she laughed.

In fact, even after Nigel and Marielle had turned on Angus and voted to banish him, Claire said that she still didn’t anticipate that her days in the game would be numbered as well.

“I actually think out of everybody, in everyday life, I have no bad thoughts about anybody, and I honestly didn’t think they would!” she laughed. “Whether that’s just me being really naive, I just… really, really didn’t think that Marielle would actually do that, because I thought ‘well, we’ve still got the numbers, even with one down, we can still really go forward with this’.

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A post shared by Claire Sawyer (@clairesawyer123)

“So that’s how my brain was working,” she explained, conceding that it was possible her “undoing in the game” in the end.

When host Rodger Corser selected Claire to be one of the show’s four Traitors, she was “so excited” for all the deception and hijinks she was about to get into.

“Seriously, it was like an explosion coming from my belly, all the way up to my head, and the whole time when Rodger was going around, he was amazing, because there was no way anyone could’ve had a hint about who the Traitors were, ‘coz he did it so well,” she recalled. “He was pacing around, pacing around, pacing around, and the moment he tapped me on that shoulder I thought ‘ohhhhhhh, my God, THIS IS IT. Game on!’”

While she went into the game “ready to lie, steal, cheat, the whole kit and caboodle,” Claire soon found that the life of a Traitor was more difficult than she had anticipated, and that she “just couldn’t” go through with some of the big moves.

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A post shared by Claire Sawyer (@clairesawyer123)

“It just wasn’t me!” she said. “Yes I played a Traitor, yes I deflected, yes I may have told some white lies, but at the end of the day, I kept honest. I may have said all of that in the beginning but when it boiled down to it, I couldn’t actually go through with it!”

Still, Claire said that she was leaving the game with no regrets.

“I’m so happy with the way I did actually play, and the fact that I got halfway, I’m absolutely over the moon,” she said.

As for who’ll walk away with the $250,000 prize, well, there’s only one way to find out!

The Traitors airs at 7.30pm, Sunday – Tuesdays, only on 10 and 10 Play on Demand.

Want more The Traitors’ goss? Check out the stories below:

• Everyone Who Has Gone Home So Far on The Traitors
• The Traitors: Champion Chess Player Jack Is 10 Steps Ahead of His Fellow Competitors
• We Asked Rodger Corser How Far He’d Get in The Traitors
• The Traitors: Fiona Is Strategic, Smart and Determined to Win
• The Traitors: Teresa Has a Superpower Up Her Sleeve
• The Traitors: Midy Hopes He’s a Faithful
• The Traitors: MK Is Used to Calling Out Liars
• The Traitors: Ethan Is Ready to Push Some Barriers
• The Traitors: There’s More Than Meets the Eye With Dirk
• The Traitors Is a New Game Show That Will Keep You On Your Toes — Here’s How to Watch