Alex Nation has spilled some major tea about her time on The Traitors Australia, including whether the cast is allowed to secretly discuss gameplay while the cameras are down.
Alex, a former Bachelor star, was selected as one of three Traitors for the currently airing third season of the reality show, alongside AFL player Kirby Bentley and MasterChef’s Alvin Quah, who was recently eliminated from the mansion.
While Alex is getting up to all sorts of strategising on screen — including her involvement in a shock manoeuvre by Survivor’s AJ Antonios — fans have naturally wondered whether any machinations happen between castmates in private when the cameras aren’t rolling.
Can The Traitors players secretly discuss gameplay?
Well, the Traitor herself has answered just that, revealing on her social media this week that despite fans’ imagination, The Traitors players are strictly forbidden by producers from discussing any tactics or strategies behind closed doors.
“The production — and rightfully so, they’re creating a television show — were very strict about off-camera chat,” Alex spilled on her Instagram Stories. “We could only talk about things like what we do outside of here, our kids, our families, our work, our friends, or whatever it may be. But we absolutely could not talk game off camera.”
The Traitors producers strictly enforced the no gameplay rule
The Traitors players weren’t just casually restricted from behind-the-scenes gameplay, with Alex revealing they were actively reprimanded if producers ever got wind of any funny business. “If there was any game talk we would get yelled at,” Alex said, before revealing a “hard” or “cold ice” system implemented by the producers on set.
“‘Hard ice’ means no speaking. There was also ‘soft ice,’ where we could talk general chitchat that didn’t have anything to do with the game, but a lot of the time it was ‘hard ice’ where we could not speak at all and we would literally be yelled at,” Alex said.
“We would hear ‘ice’ and we would be like, ‘Oh, sh*t, we got in trouble!’”.
There is still room for “secret” business on The Traitors
Despite the producers’ enforcement of no secret strategising, Alex did let slip that, on some occasions, the players slightly bent the rule. “For sure, there was definitely a little secret squirrel business happening off camera if the opportunity was there.”
We don’t know for sure what “squirrel business” Alex is referring to, but viewers have already seen some players’ strategies play out on The Traitors’ third season. Early on, Faithful Ian ‘Dicko’ Dickson established an LSD alliance that later blew up in his face, while AJ — in an extremely risky move — correctly guessed the Traitors and informed Alex of his discovery.
Alex has also showcased her own sneaky gameplay, voting out a fellow Traitor Alvin to successfully shirk suspicion amongst the other players. In an exclusive post-elimination interview with Chattr, Alvin mentioned the gameplay that was happening right under his nose without his knowledge.
“It was brilliant gameplay by AJ, and I didn’t expect any of that at all,” Alvin told us. “I was quite shocked that Alex put my name, but watching the episode, I was thinking it all makes sense because there’s all this strategic gameplay happening around me.”
If all that cheekiness was happening on screen, we can’t help but wonder what “squirrel business” never made it to air, or which strategy chats prompted producers to “yell.” We might just see some of that play out as the season unfolds, so watch this space!
The Traitors airs Tuesday and Wednesday on Channel 10 and 10Play.
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