In a first for The Traitors, Sunday night’s finale saw all three Traitors standing the end, only to all walk away empty-handed. The trio of Traitors were presented with the Traitors’ Dilemma, in which they had to vote to either share or steal the $200K prize. The catch? If all three of them voted to steal, none of them would win, which is exactly how it played out.
Sam, Blake and Camille had all sworn that they would write share and split the silver bars evenly between them. But when the time came to reveal their votes, OG Traitors Sam and Blake had both voted to steal. For a moment, it looked that Camille would be cut out of the winnings, but that was not the case at all. Rather, Camille said that she’d known all along that this was exactly as far as they had wanted her to get, and that if she wasn’t getting any of the prize, no one was.
We caught up with Sam to chat about the move that blocked him from the prize, his time on The Traitors, and what’s next for him.
Related: “Sam Is No Luke Toki!” — Camille Talks ‘The Traitors’ and Her Prize-Blocking Move
Sam Is “Feeling Great” About His Time on The Traitors Australia
While he may not have walked away with any silver bars, Sam tells The Latch that he’s “feeling great”, “feeling happy as, and on top of the world still!” as we chat over the phone.
“I had the most fun time!” he says. “I have nothing but happiness for the show, for production, everyone who was involved. It was the best experience I’ve ever had in my life.”
After the cameras stopped rolling, Sam says the he was “so happy with how [he] played the game”, regardless of the outcome.
“I played it exactly how I wanted to,” he says. “I wanted to make big moves early, I wanted to cause chaos, I wanted to make really good TV, for the viewers. Even if they loved me or hated me, they would watch the show. So that was my main thing, and when I was able to accomplish that through the whole season.”
He continues: “I felt like I won the game, and I was happy. So, the money would be amazing, but playing that game the way I did? You couldn’t put money on that.”
Calling the finale “super iconic”, Sam notes that “it’s going viral right now on the internet”, which is prompting him to receive “lots of hate”.
For most people, this would be undesirable, but Sam says “it’s all good”.
“It’s spreading more awareness for the show, and more people are gonna wanna watch what happens,” he says. “And then when they watch it, more people are gonna figure out who this Sheriff is, and they find this supervillain that everyone tries to kick off for nine episodes, and they can’t do it!”
He laughs.
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On the Traitors’ Dilemma…
Going into the Traitors’ Dilemma vote, Sam felt “pretty confident” that Camille would vote to share the prize, while he and Blake would write steal.
“We kind of had a little bit of a pact that we would write Steal,” Sam says. “So I knew Blake would do it, and then I was sure Camille would write Share — because Camille would talk about how she came from a wealthy family, she didn’t need the money, and she just wanted to play the game.”
While the three of them “had lots of chats”, Sam was ultimately still unsure whether he could trust Camille, which prompted him to vote to steal the prize.
“I was like, ‘Imagine if me and him write share, and Camille steals the money!’” he says. “And that’s exactly what she did! So even though she said what she said, she still wrote steal, just like us.”
He adds: “I did all the work, I did the biggest move, I made the biggest sacrifice, I stuck my head out, people found out that I was a Traitor, I deserve some of the money. And I didn’t want Camille just to then take the whole lot. She really did nothing in the whole game, so I was like, ‘I can’t let that happen’.”
… And Camille’s Reveal
Having been pretty sure that Camille would vote to share the prize, leaving Sam and Blake to steal it, Sam was surprised when Camille also voted to steal.
Recalling the moments after the vote, he laughs.
“When something really bad happens to me, I kind of laugh,” he says. “I’m just like, ‘Wait, that actually just happened?!’, and then I look at poor Blake, and he’s crying! And I went over to him and I was cuddling him and telling him it’s okay, but the producers didn’t show that part. But I really did feel sorry for Blake, I gave him lots of love.”
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If the Situation Were Reversed, Sam Would Have Let Them Win
In the finale, Sam told Camille that if she’d known that he and Blake were going to steal the prize, she should have just let them. But if the situation had been reversed, would he have let Camille and Blake cut him out of the prize in the same way? Sam says yes.
“100%! Yeah, definitely,” he says.
Sam goes on to explain that from Camille’s position, as someone “who’s got a family, got her life set up, financially really set, she’s in her 50s, she’s got everything she wants in life, she’s got her partner, he makes lots of money — she talked about this all through the show”, he would have let them take the prize.
“You see two young kids who have played the game so well, and made it to the end? We both explained to her what we needed the money for,” he continues. “As me? If I was sitting there and I had everything she had in life, I would’ve been like, ‘I know you two are gonna steal, but, you two have worked so hard, and I’m gonna share it so you guys can win. Enjoy it.’
“She would’ve been known as one of the greatest people in reality TV!” he exclaims. “But she did what she wanted, and that’s her part of her game, and fair play to her. All I can say is fair play.
“I still won, so it doesn’t matter,” he adds. “Even though Camille made that move, like, Camille didn’t win anything. She made one move at the end, and that’s it!”
Sam Is Happy to Be the Villain of The Traitors 2023
With the season done and dusted, Sam may be receiving a ton of hate on social media, but he’s fine with it.
“I’m doing my job!” he reiterates. “And I love acting. I like making videos everyday. I didn’t let anyone know at the start that I like to do acting. So when I created the Sheriff, I created a character, and I was just acting the whole time.”
Sam says that the Sheriff persona made the game “so much more fun, because you don’t feel like you’re lying, and you don’t have to be a bad person”.
“I’m acting!” he says.
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Sam Only Made One Mistake on The Traitors
Having entered The Traitors wanting to play a big, bold, villainous game, Sam was thrilled to be able to pull off Ash Pollard‘s elimination early in the game, and it remains the move he’s most proud of.
On the other hand, there is one move he regrets not making.
“I only made one mistake, and that was that I should have banished Camille,” he says. “Blake and I talked about this at the end, and we should’ve done it. We should’ve banished Camille, and me and him should’ve went to the end.”
He sighs.
“But I’m still not upset, because it made really good TV, and that was why I went on, was to make really good TV, and what Camille did made for really good TV,” he says. “I’m not a super wealthy person, I just really like making good TV and playing a character.
The Secret Skillset Sam Brought into the Game
Outside of making big moves and playing Sheriff, part of Sam’s strategy was to portray himself as “just a country boy” to his fellow contestants.
“I didn’t talk about how I do marketing and travel the world,” he says. “So, my communication skills is, I have to be able to go to any type of country in the world, and adapt the person I am to the person I’m talking with. So that is a life skill not many people have.”
Adding a background in childhood acting and YouTube content creation, Sam says, gave him a very specific skillset that “was a huge benefit” to his game.
“Everyone says, ‘Oh, the Faithfuls were a bunch of dummies’, but they’ve never met someone like me, who has the skillsets that I have,” Sam says. “I travel the world and my job is to convince businesses to either buy the product that I have, or use my services. So, if you put me in with 20 people in a room, I can make them all do what I want.
He continues: “Even the producers didn’t know I could do it. And then once I started doing it, they were like, ‘Holy s**t! Who are you? How are you doing this?!’ and it’s like, ‘It’s my job’. It’s a great skill to have, and I use it for good reasons.”
What’s Next for Sam
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Sam has big plans for what’s to come after his time on The Traitors Australia.
“I’m going to go to an acting school, that’s my first thing I’m doing, and then I have two shows that I wanna do,” he says.
“Firstly, I wanna go on Survivor, and then I wanna do The Bachelor, and I wanna be the Bachelor,” Sam says.
He laughs. “I think if you put me on there with 20 women, and with the chaos that I create, and the drama, it’ll be one interesting show. So, Survivor and the Bachelor’s next.”
Missed The Traitors Australia finale? Catch up on 10 Play.
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