\n<\/p>\n
Chrishell Stause<\/strong> is wearing a truly unique ensemble when we meet for coffee at Hotel Chelsea on a blistery January afternoon. Despite the frigid temperature, she\u2019s outfitted in a purple-pink Zhivago minidress and blazer\u2014with a twist. \u201cIt\u2019s a mood outfit. It turns pink the warmer you are. The cooler you are is purple,\u201d the realtor turned reality star tells me, twirling to show off the fit. \u201cBringing a little LA to New York.\u201d<\/p>\n Apparently, you can take the girl out of Selling Sunset,<\/em> but you can\u2019t take the Selling Sunset<\/em> out of the girl. Stause proves as much during her stint on Peacock\u2019s Emmy-winning reality competition The Traitors,<\/em> in which Alan Cumming<\/strong> asks a menagerie of reality television stars and notorious cultural figures to play an extended game of Mafia in his Scottish castle.<\/p>\n From the jump, it was clear that Stause would play the game on her terms. \u201cIt\u2019s psychological warfare,\u201d she says. \u201cI think it\u2019s easy to watch the show from the sidelines and say everything you would\u2019ve done. It is a lot harder being in the house.\u201d<\/p>\n But on Thursday, Stause\u2019s battle came to an end when she was chosen by traitors Danielle Reyes<\/strong> and Carolyn Wiger<\/strong> to be murdered. Befitting her roots on Selling Sunset<\/em>\u2014the soapy Netflix hit where she\u2019s starred for eight seasons\u2014Stause\u2019s exit was appropriately dramatic. Instead of learning of her fate by reading a letter, she was murdered by Reyes and Wiger face to face.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a juicy murder. I\u2019m glad I went out the way I did,\u201d Stause tells me a few weeks after our coffee chat. Did she suspect Reyes and Wiger were traitors hiding in plain sight? \u201cWith Danielle, I was mad because I was like, \u2018Oh, I freaking knew it,\u2019\u201d she says. \u201cAnd then Carolyn, I was blown away. I had no idea Carolyn was a traitor.\u201d<\/p>\n The writing was, perhaps, on the wall for Stause when she snatched her hand out of a box full of creepy crawlies in the prior episode, leaving her and her partner\u2014Real Housewives of New Jersey<\/em> star Dolores Catania<\/strong>\u2014vulnerable for murder. While Stause has some regrets regarding her Traitors<\/em> game play (more on that later), removing her hand from that box before anything was even put into it is not one of them. \u201cFor a billion dollars, it\u2019s just not my thing,\u201d she says. \u201cI can\u2019t do it. I\u2019m such an arachnophobe. I made them swear up and down that there would be no spiders.\u201d<\/p>\n Technically, there weren\u2019t any\u2014just giant millipedes, giant scorpions, cockroaches, and a healthy dose of maggots. And to be fair to the producers, sniffing out untruths is a big part of playing The Traitors.<\/em> As a non-gamer, Stause went into the castle thinking it might be fun to be a traitor\u2014but quickly realized she wasn\u2019t cut out for that job. \u201cI think I would have faltered in having to stab people in the back that I was really close with,\u201d she says. She\u2019s also still haunted by her gut impulse to vote against Nikki Garcia<\/strong>\u2014a member of her own alliance, the \u201cBambis\u201d\u2014in episode four. \u201cI truly, genuinely feel so bad about that,\u201d she says. \u201cTo this day, that was the hardest episode to watch.\u201d<\/p>\n After spearheading the mob that voted out one of her faithful besties, Stause tells me she felt she \u201chad PTSD.\u201d That made it difficult to choose between two more competitors during her last round table: Her unexpected ally who was clearly a traitor, Survivor<\/em>\u2019s Boston Rob,<\/strong> or the quiet but innocuous Britney Haynes<\/strong> from Big Brother<\/em>. \u201cI couldn\u2019t confidently vote for either of them. So I just thought, Who can I throw my vote to?\u201d The answer, of course, was her number one enemy in the castle: Tom Sandoval.<\/strong><\/p>\n At Hotel Chelsea, Stause makes clear that she still has deep disdain for Bravo\u2019s chief villain<\/a>. \u201cHe hasn\u2019t got two brain cells to rub together\u2026. He just is such a little weasel.\u201d she says. When I point out that it feels like she came into the castle primed for beef with Sandoval, she politely pushes back. \u201cI have to correct you on one thing. I actually didn\u2019t come in like that,\u201d she says. \u201cI wasn\u2019t excited to see him. I wasn\u2019t sure if he knew I was friends with [his ex] Ariana [Madix]<\/strong> or not. So I kind of made mention of it, and I was like, \u2018I hope that\u2019s not going to be weird in the castle,\u2019 and he was like, \u2018Oh my God, of course not.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n