The Traitors Australia 2026 contestant and Survivor star, AJ Antonios, pulled off one of the boldest moves ever seen in the show’s history when he confronted The Bachelor’s Alex Nation to tell her he knew she was a Traitor.
AJ had privately told Alvin Quah he suspected Alex, but when Alex confronted him at breakfast about those suspicions, AJ ingeniously worked out that Alvin must have passed the information to her overnight — effectively confirming to him that both Alex and Alvin were Traitors.
Rather than expose Alex, AJ privately confronted her, telling her: “I know you’re a Traitor.” He then proposed a jaw-dropping plan: Alex should work with him from inside the Turret, help eliminate Alvin, potentially turn on fellow Traitor Kirby Bentley and then recruit AJ as a Traitor so the pair could control the endgame together.
Alex effectively went along with the first stage of AJ’s plan, casting the deciding vote against Alvin and sending her fellow Traitor home. “It’s brilliant gameplay by AJ,” Alvin told Chattr.
“I actually didn’t expect any of that at all. When it happened all that time ago when we were filming, I was quite shocked that Alex sort of put my name. But now watching the episode, it all makes sense because there’s all this strategic gameplay happening around me.”
The gamble gave AJ huge influence over Alex — but also left him dangerously exposed, as he already had a target on his back from another Traitor, Kirby.
In response to AJ’s plan to pitch himself to Alex to become a Traitor himself, the MasterChef Australia contestant was impressed. “I think that’s very ballsy. It’s not something that I would do, but then I just think imagine going to someone and saying, ‘I know you’re a Traitor, and I want you to recruit me.’ But he’s thought like five steps ahead, and he’s very, very gutsy.”
But could AJ’s gutsy plan be missing one component? Such as Kirby not wanting to murder him immediately? Alvin shares one problem with AJ’s masterplan on The Traitors Australia.
The problem with AJ’s plan to become a Traitor
Alvin said that Kirby was never going to allow AJ to become a Traitor. “I know Kirby, and I don’t think she will [recruit AJ] because it’s not her style, and it’s not her. I think there’s a lot of coercion [coming from AJ] and I don’t think Kirby is one to fall for that. She’s a little bit more strategic in how she plays the game whereas Alex on the other hand is very strong socially — they are completely different sort of people.”
Without Kirby’s approval, this would mean that AJ wanted Kirby to be banished before he would be recruited. Alvin added that he thinks Alex was ‘targeted’ by AJ to be manipulated because Kirby would never have played along.
“I actually don’t think that AJ would ask the same question to Kirby,” Alvin said. “If you were AJ, you’d think okay, which one can I get to? And unfortunately for Alex, she was the target.”
The Traitors airs Tuesday and Wednesday on Channel 10 and 10Play.
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