A former Bachelor, two Survivor winners, three Challenge alums, four Housewives (and more) walk into a castle in Scotland — what could go wrong?
Season 2 of Peacock’s The Traitors begins on Friday, January 12, and the trailer promises plenty of plot twists and game play. One moment from the teaser that has gone viral is between The Real Housewives of Atlanta alum Phaedra Parks and season 24 Bachelor Peter Weber, with the Bravo star declaring, “This is not The Bachelor, and I don’t have to kiss your ass for a rose.”
“I was just like, ‘Oh, my God, I can’t wait to meet her,'” MTV’s Trishelle Cannatella told Us Weekly of Phaedra, 50, in a joint interview with Weber and Love Island’s Ekin-Su Cülcüloğlu. “But also I’m terrified of her, and also how do I even act around her? She surprised me because she’s actually a warm person. Well, Peter might have a different experience than I did. But I liked Phaedra.”
Weber, 32, laughed at his costar’s assessment. “That trailer, man, the comments on that, holy s–t,” he told Us. “I had a great time with Phaedra. We had an up and down relationship. I’ve seen her a bunch on TV, so it was very cool to play with her and she’s a sweetheart — for the most part. So, it was good.”
On The Traitors, which features 20 reality stars trying to identify who among them is “murdering” their costars at night, fans should prepare to see a different side of Weber — who told Us that the ABC dating show didn’t prepare him “at all” for the twisty competition series.
“I learned very quickly doing this show, I loved it so much because it was the exact opposite of The Bachelor,” he said. “The Bachelor was a type of show where I went into — obviously you’re leading with your heart. It’s all emotion-based, and this show required you to do the exact opposite and completely detach from your heart in any emotion, to not let that cloud your judgment in any way and just have it be just a purely mental game. So, it was very different. No similarities whatsoever, but I enjoyed it like no other.”
While Cülcüloğlu, 29, also came from a dating show, she felt like Love Island prepared her a bit more.
“On Love Island, I was very good at reading people’s minds and I knew who was faking it to make it, and I knew who was playing the game and I also knew who was genuine and wasn’t genuine,” she told Us. “So, for me, I used all the traits and qualities from Love Island and I took it into this game. However, like Peter said, this is totally different from bikinis and sunbathing. It’s totally in a castle. You’ve got Harry Potter vibes, it feels all eerie. Everyone’s onto everyone. You feel paranoid, you don’t know who to trust. You become crazy almost. But it’s so fun, because I love these dark games to play. It’s good mind games — because everyone plays mind games nowadays, right? Everyone does. You always get manipulated every day, unfortunately. But it was fun, and … the cast is great, so it was nice to make new friends.”
Cannatella, 44, has a bit more experience in a competition environment, appearing on five seasons of The Challenge after her initial run on The Real World: Las Vegas (2002). The Traitors reunited her with former costars Chris “CT” Tamburello and Johnny “Bananas” Devenanzio.
“[When] I saw [CT and Bananas], I was like, ‘Why? Out of all the people in MTV, these two?’ I mean, we don’t have the best past, CT and Bananas and I. So, I felt like it was sort of a disadvantage, to be honest,” she told Us.
Tamburello, for his part, insisted he didn’t have a preexisting issue with Cannatella.
“I didn’t know that me and Trishelle had this thing, this drama, this beef,” he told Us in a separate interview, noting that their Real World seasons aired back-to-back before they met on The Inferno in 2004. “We were young. I didn’t understand the dynamic [on Traitors] of, ‘How are you guys going to go along?’ … At the same time, I don’t think she had any animosity toward me. So, to me, coming into this new chapter in my life and I’m doing the show, I’m doing Traitors and I see familiar faces, ‘Oh, Trishelle, oh, Bananas.’ To me, it was like a safe space for me. I hope that they both continue to be a space for me.”
For more from the cast, including how Love Island USA‘s Carsten “Bergie” Bergersen felt about being among reality TV legends, watch the video above.
The first three episodes of The Traitors season 2 start streaming on Peacock at 9 p.m. ET.
