One of the biggest success stories to come out of The Traitors is just how much love, support, and respect the cast has for each other and the making of the show itself.
This season, the contestants hailed from different corners of the Australian reality TV universe. From Big Brother, The Block and The Real Housewives to Survivor Australia, Love Island Australia, and The Bachelor, the season delivered multiple big personalities who made for some exceptional entertainment.
However, often contestants leave reality TV a little bit jaded — and most often than not, they’re not best friends with their chaotic co-stars.
The Traitors Australia 2026 told a different story.
Speaking to WHO after the Grand Finale, Australian comedian and host of Drag Race Down Under Rhys Nicholson unpacked how the show shattered their expectations of reality TV, and just how much they equally adored and were jealous of host Gretel Killeen while filming.
‘I respect the industry a little bit more’
Rhys admitted that they never really saw themselves competing in a reality TV show like this one, despite being an absolute fan of The Traitors.
“I think [The Traitors] has given me a lot more respect for people who go on these shows,” they told WHO. “I would say I was probably quite snooty about it a few years ago, where I probably thought of myself as, ‘I’m an artsy comedian, and I do comedy festivals, and I get nominated for awards and arts festivals and stuff, and I would not go on a show like that!’
“But first of all, The Traitors — I was obsessed with it anyway. I think The Traitors is so good because it’s not even a guilty pleasure. We all have these secret guilty pleasure trash shows, but it’s not trash.
“It kind of reminds me of original Big Brother that was an actual thought experiment — like what would happen if we put these people in a room together? — and then by the later seasons, it was like, ‘How many boobs can we maybe show on network television?'”
After being on the show and seeing the “care that was put into [making the show]” behind the scenes, Rhys’ takeaway was that they “respect the industry a little bit more”.
“It kind of makes me want to work on things like that a bit more,” they admitted. “Like, hey, if anyone wants old Rhyssie to host some sort of reality show where, I don’t know, we make celebrities wrestle each other or something, sure!”
Why Rhys was jealous of Gretel Killeen during the show
There were multiple aspects of being a contestant on the show that were difficult — “not knowing what’s going on”, particularly as a faithful, being one of the most “exhausting” parts.
However, Rhys admitted that their background in judging Drag Race Down Under made the experience so much harder and made them envious of Gretel’s role as host.
“On a production level, not having freedom, you have no power on set, you don’t have contact with anyone, even if we’re not filming, we have to be completely silent — and none of this is a complaint. This is how this TV works — it was hard,” Rhys said.
“The difference being on Drag Race is that I’m a judge,” they explained. “And I know that when the queens, who have to go through so much on a show like Drag Race, are sewing a dress until 3 o’clock in the morning, still filming, and I’m having dinner, sitting at a restaurant, looking at my phone.
“So when I’d lie in bed at night [on The Traitors], no phone, no TV, no nothing, just so tired, [I knew] that Gretel is sitting somewhere having a nice dinner.”
Rhys made sure to educate the younger cast members about how ‘important’ Gretel Killeen is to Australia’s culture
Despite their envy, Rhys had nothing but praise for Gretel Killeen, confessing that they took it amongst themselves to “explain to some of the babies [on the show] just the full context of Gretel Killeen and how important she is to culture” in Australia.
“Especially if you’re kind of exactly my age,” they said. “The first few seasons of Big Brother had a chokehold on our country.
“I remember saying to some of the kind of younger reality people, ‘Just so you know, you have a job because of her. Like you’re on a TV show because she hosted it.'”
With Dicko there, Rhys named him and Gretel the “mum and dad of reality TV in Australia”, joking that if “Marcia Hines were here, we’d have the set”.
The iconic energy that Gretel had hosting Big Brother in the early 2000s — doing live interviews even when the power cut out — was still alive and well during The Traitors.
“The moment when she was angry at us in the second last roundtable, we were told by the EP the next day, as we’re getting ready to start filming, he was like, ‘Just so you know, we did not tell Gretel to shout at you last night. That was completely real,’ they revealed. “I think you don’t get that with TV presenters as much anymore. She’s invested in the game. She understands the game. She’s impressed when people are good, and she’s not impressed when people are throwing things away. And I think that’s a good culture on a set.
“It was so camp, and I was like, ‘I love this. I wonder what the Australian public is going to do with this,’ and I think it also shows a lot of growth in culture in Australia as well.”
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