“They Got Me Good!”: Marielle on Being Blindsided and the Reality of Being a Traitor

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by Stephanie Anderson
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Network Ten

In the first blindside of the season, OG Traitor Marielle was Banished from The Traitors last night, and no, she never saw it coming.

After weeks of flying under the radar, murdering the Faithful in the night and Banishing two of her fellow Traitors by day, Marielle’s time came to an end after one offhand comment to Kate about Fiona saw Kate turn her attention toward her.

Chatting to POPSUGAR Australia over the phone, Marielle assured us that while the conversation with Fiona did happen — in which Fiona said that if she was murdered by the Traitors, to look to Teresa — she “didn’t really think it through” when relaying that tidbit to Kate.

“I knew that Fi being there and not being able to back me up was going to be hard,” Marielle said. “When I didn’t have anyone to confirm my story it was kind of the beginning of the end.”

Having gone through the whole Banishment Ceremony without her name coming up, Marielle admitted that she “thought [she] was safe”, but as the votes were read out, she soon realised it had been a ruse.

“They got me good in that blindside, that’s for sure!” She laughed. “It was just like ‘oh NO!’”

With that, Marielle was banished from the game. Looking back on it, the law and politics student said that it was “so shocking” because it all “happened so quickly”.

“It just felt like it flew, and suddenly I was gone,” she said. “But I really admired them for pulling off that blindside, I just couldn’t believe it was all over, I was so shocked!”

Going into the game, Marielle said that she was “desperately hoping” she would be selected as one of the season’s Traitors.

“I just think it’s such a cool way to play the game and it’s such a fun side of the game to get to see,” she explained, “and when Rodger put his hand on my shoulder my adrenaline just went through the roof.”

From that moment, Marielle said, it was game on.

“I think I said it at the time — ‘everything I do from here is a lie’,” she recalled. “It was just this crazy adrenaline and excitement, and it was so overwhelming to try to keep those feelings inside when we revealed and took our masks off.”

While Marielle had planned to be “quite friendly with everyone” and to bond with the Faithfuls as though she were one of them, she soon found that being a Traitor was much harder than she’d originally anticipated and had to change her approach.

“Once I became a Traitor, it really clicked that it’s SO difficult to fly under the radar, and the more you talk, the more risk there is of slipping up and saying something you shouldn’t,” she explained.

Her revised plan of attack, she said, was to take a step back from befriending everyone, and to lean into being more “reactive than proactive”.

“I withdrew myself a little bit, because I knew that I wanted to avoid how easy it was to slip up with all this new information,” she said.

With her time in the game over, Marielle is now cheering on her fellow OG Traitor Nigel, but she has a few other ideas about who might take out the win in the end.

“Look, I would love to see Nigel win, I’m backing him all the way, I think he is a very deserving player who worked very hard,” she said, “but as to who’s gonna win, I’m a bit torn, to be honest!”

She explained: “I think Craig has played a really quiet game, and he has absolutely no suspicion on him, but I also think that we didn’t really see him as a threat, so he might come out. Alex has managed to keep her personality exactly the same since being picked as a Traitor, so I don’t think there’s any suspicion on her, either, especially now that she’s voted for me.

Finally, she said, both Kate and Teresa are playing “really hard” games, but she’s not sure whether that will pay off for them in the long run.

“At this point, I’d probably say Kate or Craig, they’re probably my two top picks, but I’d love to see Nigel go all the way,” she finished.

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

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