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The Traitors' Tony Vlachos Explains Why He Called Boston Rob a "Sellout" After Elimination
The former Survivor winner admits he didn't enjoy being betrayed by one of his own!
This story contains spoilers for The Traitors Season 3, Episode 3.
Two-time Survivor winner Tony Vlachos excelled at navigating that series' remote island politics, but he's not afraid to admit that The Traitors' reality celebrity dynamics inside Alan Cumming's lair, Ardross Castle, outwitted him from the start.
As the third competitor ejected from Season 3, Tony admitted to NBC Insider that he felt like he walked into the game with a target on his back.
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"The majority of the players in the castle, I knew nothing about, so I had to accept them at face value," Tony explained. "I didn't get the same in return. They didn't accept me at face value, so they only went off my reputation. Whether they know me or knew of me, I was a dead man walking from the start. The second I stepped out of that Land Rover, I was already a Traitor, so I was already starting on a bad foot."
And then, he was thrown under the bus by one of his own, "Boston Rob" Mariano (Survivor, Deal or No Deal Island), which Vlachos confirmed was a blindside. He opened up about that betrayal, when he started to figure out who could be a Traitor, and who he thinks might have the advantage in the game now.
Tony Vlachos on not getting selected as a Traitor
As a multi-season Survivor winner known for playing aggressively — some might even say recklessly — Tony admitted he was gunning for that Alan Cumming tap on the shoulder for Traitor positioning this season.
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"I wanted to be a Traitor," Tony said with passion. "That's my M.O., so when he kept passing by me, I was like, 'Please, just tap me!' There was a point where I thought he was gonna tap me, and that he was just trying to make me a little nervous so I was like, 'OK, next round, he's tapping me', and he didn't tap me! The deed is done and I was devastated, heartbroken."
When he had to go into the game as a Faithful, Tony said he felt like he was off his game.
"It was very difficult for me to try to be myself," he explained. "I had to try to be a little bit under the radar, which, I normally don't play like that and I don't like playing like that."
The Tony Vlachos strategy to dominate the game as a Faithful
A police officer with 25 years of service in New Jersey, Tony admitted that he entered the game without much context for the contestants that make up this season of The Traitors. For example, during the first post-elimination breakfast, he said he believed Danielle Reyes when she was tearing up over Dorinda's murder.
"On Survivor, you get a lot more time to know the players. Here I didn't get a chance. I thought that was really Danielle," he said of her waterworks. "I was like, 'Yo, this girl is very emotional.' And then I find out she's a grandma, and I'm like, 'Those tears are probably real.' She was playing it off good."
In his mind, Tony said when he saw fellow former Survivor players Mariano, Carolyn Wiger, and Jeremy Collins, he figured there would be an "unspoken golden rule" that they would form an alliance.
"I want them and I want to win the game with them," he said of his mindset. "This is not 'Sole Survivor.' This is The Traitors where you're trying to actually win as a group. I saw those three, then I saw Derrick, then I saw Wes, then I saw Big Brother Danielle with Britney, and I was like, 'OK, we got this. Let's just start knocking people out and then, between us, we'll figure out who's a Traitor. Let's get a little deeper into the game so we can play better.'"
Once they got through two elimination votes, Tony said he was finally getting to know his competitors and feel them out. And then the bomb dropped at the second Elimination Round Table.
Tony Vlachos doesn't regret calling Boston Rob a "sellout"
At the second Elimination Round Table, Tony said that he was not expecting the Traitor accusations to come his way.
"The way it went down at the table, I was a dead man walking," he said. "Everybody was kicking my face in: 'Tony, we respect you, but we think you're a Traitor because if anybody can do it, it's you.' And the other one, 'Tony, there were some things that you said that raised red flags.'"
And then Boston Rob offered, out of nowhere, that Tony not coming to speak with him after giving him a shield made him suspicious. Tony said he immediately thought that was "uncalled for" gameplay.
"If anything, you should be fighting for me — to try to keep me. Because, one, you know me. I'm a Survivor. I'm gonna stick with you," Tony said about what Rob should have been thinking. "And number two, I'm a Faithful. I'm the one who gets to vote out who the Traitors are. I'm a number, so wouldn't you want to keep me? You should have stuck your neck out a little bit to defend me to keep the numbers. Jeremy would have done the same. Derrick would have followed suit. Wes would have followed suit, and everybody would have laid off me. But that wasn't the case, so that's why I was upset with Rob. Because I really didn't see that coming."
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When Tony was banished from the game, he stood up and revealed his Faithful status, and then pointedly said to Rob: "You're a sellout, bro."
"You get a few moments to gather your thoughts, so I was like, 'You know what? I should challenge Rob right now. I should tell everybody these three players just came into the game and you guys should really look into them,'" Tony said of his thought process in the moment.
"Then I was like, 'I'm not gonna do that.' By the time that I finished my speech, the emotions just took over, and I was so angry with Rob, and I just said, 'Rob, you're a sellout, man,'" he explained. "I would have lost my game for him. I would have stuck my neck out for him.
"Then after I'm walking out, it started making sense to me," he continued. "Either he wanted the camera time where he's like, 'I got to put the nail in Tony's coffin,' or he was deflecting, but he didn't need to deflect. He didn't need to say anything. If you're gonna say something, try to defend me. But you don't have to say something to try to bury me even deeper because I'm already a dead man walking, so that's why I was upset. I was p---ed. Now, I love Rob."
Who Tony thinks may have the best foothold to win
Now that Tony has seen these first episodes, we asked who he thinks might have the upper hand in the game. His answer? "Dylan [Efron], for sure. And Jeremy."
He expanded: "Jeremy was on point with Danielle. There was a point in the car when he started talking about Danielle when we were coming back from a mission. He's like, 'Hey, I really think Danielle, she's acting sus." Bob the Drag Queen was in the Land Rover, too, and he started turning colors. So that was the first time I was like, 'Oh, whoa! Jeremy, did you just hit a nerve?'"
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He said he tried to get Jeremy's attention to point out Bob's reaction, but the camera didn't catch the moment. However, he said there was a point after Jeremy told Bob that he needed to go talk to his people that proved interesting.
"And I was like, 'Jeremy, why'd you do that?' I kept saying, 'Jeremy, bro, you got to watch Bob because Bob is acting [off],'" Tony said. "At that point, a few days in, the face value goes out the window, and then you start looking what's inside of them."
"If I had two or three more days, it was over!" he said of spotting the real Traitors.
New episodes of The Traitors Season 3 premiere on Peacock on Thursdays at 9/8c, with the season finale and reunion premiering on March 6.
All episodes of Seasons 1 and 2 are available to stream right now on Peacock.
