Brandi Glanville and Arie Luyendyk are best known from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and Bachelor Nation, but The Traitors had them expressing a side of themselves fans aren’t used to seeing. The series, based on the Dutch television program De Verraders threw Brandi and Arie into a castle with 18 others competing for a cash prize. Three of the contestants are chosen to be the traitors, while the other 17 are faithfuls. Trying to decipher between the two was a challenge for everyone involved.
Brandi had quite the personality on RHOBH. She spent a lot of time fighting with her costars, especially Kyle Richards, but she has since squashed her feud with the star and her sisters Kim Richards and Kathy Hilton. The Traitors was a whole different ball game, far from Beverly Hills and with a lot less alcohol. Brandi also competed on Big Brother UK season 20, where she got in a blowout fight with Chad Johnson. She later appeared on Big Brother US in 2018 and was the fifth houseguest evicted.
Arie had a much different experience with reality television as he was in pursuit of love. The star was a contestant on season 8 of The Bachelorette and was the runner-up. He was devastated when Emily Maynard chose Jef Holm over him but returned for The Bachelor for another chance at finding a relationship. Arie proposed to Becca Kufrin only to learn he really wanted to be with Lauren Burnham. The two are currently married with three children. Brandi and Arie spoke to Screen Rant about how different The Traitors was from their previous pursuits.
Brandi, can fans expect you to bring the heat like you did on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, or did The Traitors allow you to showcase a different side of yourself?
Brandi: Honestly, I had to showcase a different side of myself. If I was exactly the way I was on RHOBH, they would have needed to give me a lot of wine, and they did not do that for the show at all. You just can’t go in balls to the wall.
Aerie: She had to be a little bit more like PC.
Brandi, alliances are pretty popular on Big Brother, which you competed on. Will fans see similar dynamics on The Traitors, and did you form any close bonds with the other Big Brother alums on the show?
Brandi: Arie and I were talking about this earlier. It’s really hard to have alliances on this show because you don’t know who to trust. You don’t know who’s lying. It’s really every man for himself. As much as you think you might have a friend, you don’t.
Arie: [to Brandi] I feel like you and Kate formed a bond.
Brandi: Did we?
Arie: I mean, I feel like you did.
Brandi: We’re friends now. I’m just saying it’s hard. You want to trust somebody, but then you just don’t know who’s playing what game.
Arie, were you more or less nervous going into The Traitors than you were when you joined The Bachelorette and The Bachelor?
Arie: Definitely less. It’s way less personal. You’re playing a game, you’re there to win some money, you have a strategy, and it’s just a whole different ball game. With The Bachelor, it’s so personal. It’s such a life decision, so for me, [The Traitors] was actually kind of nice because it was just such a different type of show.
Without giving anything away, coming onto the show, did you want to be a traitor or faithful, or were you open to either outcome?
Brandi: I was open to either. I think everyone knows I’m a straight shooter, and I’m not a liar, but I wanted to have the opportunity to show my acting chops a little bit, so I definitely prepared for both sides.
Arie: I think that you have to be prepared for both sides because you just don’t know who’s going to get selected, but I think if I would have leaned one way or the other, being a faithful would be a better route for myself because [I] wouldn’t have to lie, [I] would just have to be really good at spotting someone being deceitful. I think that is one of my strong suits.
Brandi: Also, the odds are in your favor as a faithful. You have seventeen people who are faithfuls and only three traitors, so you would think the odds are in your favor.
Arie: But you have way less power.
Brandi: Yes, that’s true.
Despite having experience on other reality competition series, what was the biggest challenge on The Traitors that you hadn’t encountered on the previous shows?
Brandi: I think that the combination of having to manipulate and lie and figure out who you could trust and not trust plus the physical part of our challenges that we had, our missions were incredibly physical, and not that they weren’t fun, but it was very intense. I would go back to the castle and just want to take a bath for like three hours, and it’s not something you can do.
Arie: I think for myself, it was just kind of relentless. I think there was a constant state of paranoia. That was the hard part. You really couldn’t relax. The game never really shut off. You went back to your room at night, and then you were like anxious if you were gonna be there in the morning
Brandi: And playing it all over again in your head, right?
Arie: Yea, and you’re plotting, or you’re writing down names, and you’re trying to put the pieces together. So for me, it was just like the constant gameplay for the length of time that we were there.
Brandi: Yea, you couldn’t turn your brain off
All 10 episodes of The Traitors will be released Thursday, January 12 on Peacock.