One of the biggest aspects of The Traitors is slyness and deception, but many think that could be difficult if all of the contestants sleep under the same roof during the game.
For the third year, a new season of The Traitors began in January. Streaming on Peacock, the game show follows a group of contestants who have to work together to complete specific missions. However, some contestants are traitors trying to sabotage the games.
The Traitors is hosted by Alan Cumming, and Season 3 features a star-studded cast, including reality TV stars from other popular shows.
Do Contestants Sleep in the Castle in The Traitors?
Many fans of The Traitors wonder how much of the show is real and how much is editing magic when it comes to contestants sleeping in the castle. In the series, it makes it look as though the contestants are in the castle at all times.
It is important to remember that different versions of the show are released in various countries. For example, viewers in the United States see a slightly different product than people in the UK.
In the U.S. version, The Traitors is edited so that it appears as though contestants do sleep in the castle.
In an interview with The Daily Beast, The Traitors host Alan Cumming was directly asked about sleeping arrangements for contestants, and he provided a shocking revelation - they stay off-location.
Specifically, Cumming said that contestants stay at "the airport hotel in the Inverness airport:"
"Spoiler alert: None of us stayed in the castle. None of us. They all stayed in the airport hotel in the Inverness airport [laughs]. How glamorous—you come to Scotland, and you stay in the Inverness airport hotel. And I stayed in a little house in Inverness. But I had a room in the castle where I would get made up and dressed. It had a huge bed in it. So I did actually sleep quite often, but not overnight."
In another interview with the Huffington Post, former contestant Wilfred Webster (who was the Original Traitor and the runner-up of Season 1) shed some more light on the series, explaining that "people are blindfolded until they get to wherever they are staying" and confirming that they have to travel to and from the castle:
"People are blindfolded until they get to wherever they are staying. And you don’t have your phone. We weren’t even allowed the TV remote, so that we couldn’t access the internet or Google each other."
Executive producer Mike Cotton also pulled the curtain back on the show's sleeping arrangements in a sit-down with Variety.
According to Cotton, "the secrecy of the Traitors" is one of the most important aspects of the show, so they have to find a way to "get the Traitors back out to have their meeting" without the Faithful knowing:
"The biggest thing is that the show relies entirely on the secrecy of the Traitors, and by that, I mean we have to be really careful that the Faithful don’t know who the Traitors are. It’s a massive military operation each night to get the Faithful to bed in individual rooms and get the Traitors back out to have their meeting. And as soon as we start talking about the details of how they sleep and where they sleep, it would unravel any potential future seasons."
Executive producer Sam Rees-Jones was also asked about contestants Larsa Pippen and Marcus Jordan in the same interview. Since they are a couple, Rees-Jones elaborated on if they got to stay together:
"No. I think they would have wanted to, but they weren’t allowed to because it would have given them a foot up in the game."
So, it seems contestants stay in hotel rooms when they are not filming, but it is made to look like they sleep in the castle due to camerawork and editing.
At the end of the day, although it is a reality game show, The Traitors is still a production, so the crew can manipulate certain shots and sequences to make the show seem a specific way.
New episodes of The Traitors are released every Thursday at 9 p.m. ET on Peacock.
Read some interesting facts about Kevin Kreider, one of the show's previous contestants.
