‘The Traitors’ Season 4 Faithfuls Spill The Details On These Six Behind-The-Scenes Secrets

The Traitors Season 4 has a tighter chokehold on America than any of Rob Rausch‘s snakes ever could.

In only six episodes, The Traitors has already managed to capture countless meme-worthy moments, from Michael Rapaport‘s strange eating techniques to Maura Higgins‘ subtle digs. The roundtables have caused outrage and praise, while host Alan Cumming‘s outfits have become the hottest commodity since smoked salmon entered Ardross Castle. But what we, as the viewers, see in the final cut isn’t exactly what it was like for the Faithfuls and Traitors playing the game in real time. In fact, their several weeks spent in Scotland (with no contact to the outside world) are much more challenging than one would think.

The Roundtables Are Much Longer Than We Think

The roundtable in The Traitors is where it all goes down—and while viewers get to see roughly 10-15 edited minutes of sparring over who may or may not be a Traitor, the Faithfuls from Season 4 confirmed to DECIDER that these scenes are actually much longer IRL. According to Yam Yam Arocho, the roundtables are typically anywhere from 35 minutes to one hour of filming—but if you ask Tiffany Mitchell, who was banished from the castle in Episode 4, her ousting felt like it lasted “three hours.”

“Mine had to be over an hour. And you would’ve thought they had all of this evidence,” she said, while Yam Yam added, “It was actually, like, 40 minutes until you said the ear thing. And that was another half an hour,” referring to Eric Nam’s claim to have heard Tiffany’s laugh at the Traitors’ face-to-face killings the night before.

Per the Faithfuls, no matter how long these debates last, Alan Cumming remains lurking in the corner the entire time. In fact, he sometimes has to chime in when things get too heated.

“I think the one thing that stands out for me about Alan during the roundtable, other than the amazing outfits and his entrance, is when he screams at us, ‘One voice!’” Yam Yam recalled. “‘One voice’ [is] when there would be too many people talking at once.”

Mimicking Alan, Eric added, “‘Players! One voice!’ And we’re like, ‘Oh, we’re in trouble again.’”

The Food Is Not Good

Leave it to Top Chef winner and host Kristen Kish to have an opinion on the food at Ardross Castle. While she understood it to be a “very, very tough job” to have to cook for such a large group of people, Kish said she eventually “reached [her] limit” with the flavorless cuisine.

“I was really encouraging some flavor,” Kish said. “Salt would have been really helpful. Anything that gave a little bit of satisfaction. They did get better. They listened the best they could. However, I think if I were to cook for the cast, it would be delicious, smart, efficient, and just overall satisfying.”

There’s A Lot Of Downtime

The episodes are roughly an hour long, but the days they filmed were much longer (10 to 13 hours, according to Mark Ballas). Lisa Rinna recently shared that they would all get dressed for breakfast, then change into clothes for the challenges, then change back into their morning outfits for the roundtables. Some of the Faithfuls gave us an even more specific run-down of their daily schedules, revealing that there was often a lot of downtime. “We’re not going from breakfast to the challenge. There are sometimes two hours in between,” Dorinda Medley said, while Kristen Kish noted that lunch was often served “back to back” with breakfast.

“They serve breakfast on camera, then they serve lunch off camera, then you go a long time without food, then you have dinner,” Kish added.

No Game Chat!

Speaking of downtime, the players were forbidden from speaking about the game when the cameras were not rolling. Mark Ballas revealed that anytime someone would break that rule, a producer would yell, “No game chat!” If they suddenly had an a-ha moment, they had to wait until they were in front of cameras to share it.

“Do you know the place I found it most difficult not to talk about?” Dorinda Medley said. “Even though I knew the rules, I felt like once we got in the cars, we could talk about it. I thought we could get away with it there, but then they would be like, ‘No game chat.’ You’re like, ‘Eh, you don’t have to listen to him.’”

Dorinda Medley “Enjoyed” The Housewife On Housewife Crime

The Housewives have been known to stick together in The Traitors — so when Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alum Lisa Rinna (a Traitor) voted to banish Porsha Williams (Real Housewives of Atlanta) at the first roundtable and, with the help of Real Housewives of Potomac alum Candiace Dillard Bassett (another Traitor), killed Caroline Stanbury (Real Housewives of Dubai), she really threw a wrench in the strategy. But that didn’t upset Dorinda Medley, the only remaining Real Housewives Faithful at the time of this writing.

“Watching it in retrospect, it was odd that she voted for Porsha because I didn’t expect that,” Medley said. “I think the kill with Caroline was just so amazing and great. I can’t get past it.”

“The way they did it as a group and the way Lisa did it was very Housewifery,” she added, referring to Lisa’s menacing “back to Dubai” remark. “Oh, my God, that is fantastic. And I loved her answer when she said, ‘The power of killing a Housewife, there’s something incredible about it.’ So, I don’t know, maybe I enjoyed it.”

Monet X Change Thought Rob Rausch Was Homeschooled

Love Island USA star Rob Rausch has truly been this season’s sleeper star. Given his F-boy past on Love Island USA Season 6, his penchant for catching snakes, and his quiet personality, no one expected him to play such a thrilling game as a Traitor. Monet X Change thought it would’ve been helpful for Maura Higgins (Love Island USA’s “AfterSun” host) to warn everyone that Rob was the “villain” on his season, but Maura argued that he “wasn’t really a villain.”

“He was so quiet at first,” Monet added. “I just thought he was just homeschooled or something. Maybe he’s just a homeschooler.”

While Rausch’s words were quiet, his good looks were certainly screaming. The Alabama native had women across America swooning when he lifted Maura over his shoulder WITH ONE HAND and ran her to the end of a challenge. “I think everyone wanted a ride. Let’s be real. But I was the chosen one. I was the lucky one,” Maura joked. With many fans shipping a romance between the former Islanders, others have also noticed some chemistry between Rob and Natalie Anderson, who, yes, has seen some of those TikTok edits.

“I bond through hard experiences,” Anderson said. “Me and Rob did the first couple of challenges together, and we had this formation of this friendship. It kind of stuck with me because I trusted him at that moment.”

New episodes of The Traitors drop every Thursday at 9 p.m. ET / 6 p.m. PT on Peacock.

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