Spoilers follow for the second season finale of The Traitors, “One Final Hurdle.â€Â
Chris “C.T.†Tamburello’s Instagram handle is “_famous4nothing,†which isn’t exactly true. In the two decades since appearing on 2003’s The Real World: Paris, Tamburello became a mainstay of MTV’s sprawling competition-series universe born from The Challenge before hopping networks to appear on the second, all-reality-star season of Peacock’s The Traitors. He’s appeared on more than 20 different iterations of the one-time spinoff of The Real World and Road Rules (and won a few) despite butting heads with various other Challenge competitors over the years, including Trishelle Cannatella, his fellow Faithful on The Traitors. But C.T has become a fan favorite over more than two decades in this space thanks to his no-bullshit personality, that roguish Boston accent, and the growing sense that under his ruthlessly gamified exterior lurked a big softie — the latter of which only became more clear during his season-long flirtation with Phaedra Parks, and in the final moments of The Traitors’s season finale “One Final Hurdle.â€
Spoiler alert: C.T. and Trishelle win it all. But for a few very tense minutes before they end up victorious and cut final Bravo representative Mercedes “MJ†Javid out of the $200,000-plus prize, the Challenge-based alliance looks like it’s going to break. In a final vote to determine if there are any lingering Traitors among the Faithfuls, C.T. votes for MJ — as he and Trishelle had agreed upon earlier — while Trishelle shocks C.T. by voting for him. That last-second switch-up almost results in one of the pair being eliminated, until C.T. convinces Trishelle that he’s still on her side. After a season where the two intermittently bickered (and years where they weren’t on the best terms), they won together, and C.T.’s open-faced appeal to Trishelle (“I’m sorry if I made you doubt how I felt about you. I’ve never doubted youâ€) is what pushed them over the edge.
“If you caught me 10 years ago, I would have been like, ‘Well, F you! Let’s get her, MJ!’†C.T. says with a laugh. “But I didn’t have it in me. I was like, Let me just talk first. You’re the boss. I’m glad she changed her mind.â€
You won! Congratulations. Who was the first person you told?
Thank you. I got lucky. You would think I would want to tell my son, but he doesn’t care. He’s like, “Oh, that’s cool. You wanna play Minecraft?†And, well, my mom. She’s always bugging me. She wants all the spoilers. Just tell me, I’m not going to tell anyone! It’s a little cat-and-mouse game we play with each other, so that’s fun. And then when I told her, she was surprisingly quiet, which is rare. She didn’t expect that. I’m starting this new chapter of my life, and to be able to start it like this — it was my privilege and I’m very grateful.
It was such a dramatic finale. When Trishelle voted for you as a Traitor, you looked so devastated. What was going through your head?
I was just shocked, you know? One minute she trusts me more than anybody; next minute, she hates me. It’s like that with my sister, so I can relate to that. But I figured if we’re at the end here, let’s just finish what we started.
Going into that final round table, obviously, obviously we knew that Phaedra was going to be the Traitor. But you don’t necessarily want to get rid of a Traitor unless you have another one to hold onto. I had a pretty good guesstimate that it was Kate, and I played along with the Sandra thing because I was afraid that if we got rid of Kate and then it came down to MJ, Sandra, Trishelle, and me, that I was gonna get eliminated. It’s just so late in the game. As much as you want to split the pot, you can never really be 100 percent sure. I thought, If I help Kate get rid of Sandra, and then we get rid of Kate, and then it’s me, MJ, Trishelle, I figured it would be an easier sell for me to Trishelle because I feel like I’ve done more for her in the game — advice, helping her get shields, trying to not blow up her game and have fun sometimes.
I didn’t think I was going to have to plead my case, especially when we’re all doing that Spider-Man meme. It was crazy. I wasn’t expecting MJ to vote for Trishelle. I don’t know if they had some beef, but that caught me off-guard. And then I was sure she was definitely going to vote for me next because I voted for her, right? And she didn’t. And then Trishelle had a change of heart and we won.
There’s this moment where, after she voted for you, you say to her, “I’d like to finish what we started. For real this time.†Did you guys have a predetermined agreement about, “If it’s the two of us and other people, we will vote them out�
Me, Bananas, and Trishelle had a pact. We’re The Challenge. We started this competition reality-TV stuff, and we’re gonna finish it. That was a conversation we had in the beginning — I believe it was on the first day.
Sometimes you get so caught up in the world of this game, and I’m sure from the outside looking in, it’s, Oh yeah, it just looks so simple. But when you’re in this little bubble, you get to the point where as the game goes on, any little shift in your body language, it could really set someone off. I probably should have said something to Trishelle that I was voting for Sandra. If I had communicated better, it would have made things easier on myself. But, have we met?
Is there anything that would have made you vote for Trishelle?
If you caught me 10 years ago, I would have been like, “Well, F you! Let’s get her, MJ!†But I didn’t have it in me. I was like, Let me just talk first. You’re the boss. I’m glad she changed her mind. I don’t know how that would have turned out afterward. If we had stalemated again, MJ for sure would have voted for me, I would have voted for Trishelle, and then I would have got voted off. There’s a lot of moving parts, a lot of different variables.
One thing I figured out earlier is that the game is designed to keep you in a state of confusion, and once you let go of that, you just let it flow and you just be like water, like Bruce Lee would say. And not that things became clearer, but I felt like it became easier, it became quieter. Everybody’s buzzing, and I get it. You’re in such a high state of panic. People are getting accused of being Traitors for asthma, for drinking too much water. I got accused of being a Traitor because I drink too much coffee!
You said things look easier from the outside, but for me as a viewer, they looked so stressful! Like the moment where Kate tried to convince Sandra that you were voting to get her out, and tried to convince you that Sandra was voting to get you out. Watching how that lie rippled outward — nothing about dealing with that seems simple.
I learned in my Challenge career, it’s about letting people think it’s their idea. And Kate had a good point. I honestly started to question Sandra when she was going out of her way to sabotage people from getting the shield. She did it at the challenge with the bird calls, and she did it with Trishelle. I thought it was suspect. And she’s a gamer. If she had gone a different way, I would definitely have been gone. It would have been Kate, then Trishelle, and then probably me, because everybody just wants more money. So far in the game, it’s like, I don’t want to take any more chances. Love you, but … not it. Hopefully people don’t take it too personally.
I understand eliminating MJ as a strategic move to get more of the money, but it was a little hard to watch after she said she trusted both you and Trishelle.
She played such a clean game. I don’t know if anybody even voted for her. I think she was one of the first people to say Dan. She would always be around enough to be present but not enough to draw too much attention to herself. She did well on the challenges, too. She was in that water with me, going through that cave. She made it all the way across those rafts. Except for the escape-room mission, she did pretty well. She went down that cliff! She should be proud of herself. She played a real clean game — perfect, really — until the end. But we had to eliminate somebody. Tough break. It’s nothing personal. It was just, I’m sorry, I’m not taking any chances. We have to let everybody know that The Challenge is the best.Â
You, Bananas, and Trishelle came in with a leg up because The Challenge is so physical. You called yourself a “workhorse†when it came to the missions and earning money this season. Did you have a favorite mission?
I really enjoyed the crossbow one, where we were in the chapel, because we’re all just roasting each other, and the banter back and forth. It was funny — everybody was taking things personally if their name was getting shot at, and then it got to the point where everyone was just cheering you on so you can save money. Alan was hysterical on that mission. He was cracking jokes. It was just a lot of fun. One thing I wish I had done after I had shot the last bolt was grabbed one of the bolts and pretend I was smoking it like a victory cigar. I missed my chance.
And that’s a mission you all were doing collectively, rather than you running around doing everything.
We’re all in this for ourselves in the end, but we all have to come together if you want a piece of that pie. And I like the dynamic of that because it makes it more fun rather than being super try-hard, I gotta win everything, argh! There were physical aspects of the missions, but for the most part, anybody could have won a shield. It was a little bit of a brain game, a little bit of physicality.
In the last fire ceremony when Trishelle initially voted for you as a Traitor, she brought up that she was still hurt by and suspicious of you for not protecting her in that torch elimination. Can you talk about what happened there?
Honestly, I was a little bitter because she got nominated into the Cool Kid Club, and I was originally a part of it, and then all of a sudden I’m not invited to the meetings. There were a few episodes where I was on the chopping block, like two or three times in a row, and you’re telling me your little Paw Patrol didn’t know about it? And you were just gonna let me sink? You didn’t defend me when Janelle was coming for me and everybody else was letting it happen. Maybe I was a little bit spiteful.
At the same time, I just didn’t think she was going to be a threat because she was just so neurotic. She’s in her own world. Granted, she’s looking for a Traitor, but it was at a time where no one was really taking her serious because she was just so high-strung. And John, I honestly thought he was a top asset for the Faithfuls because he was really good at just reading people, and he kept it close to his chest. When he took a shot, he didn’t miss. Granted, if she had said, “If you pick me, I’ll pick John, then it goes to Peter†— Peter had the right idea, what he was trying to do. But with him, it’s like, well, it’s not just about getting a Traitor. It’s about surviving. Let everybody else bang a drum about who the Traitors are, and then yeah, you’ll get my vote. But I’m not trying to be the tip of the spear so I can just get murdered later on that night.
Is there anyone that you thought played the game really well?
There were a lot of strong, strong players in the game. One thing I didn’t see, and maybe this might have been lack of experience, is patience. Just because you think something or you feel something doesn’t mean you should say it. Let the dust settle, and maybe someone will say it for you.
Did you ever want to be a Traitor?
I thought about it. It’s not like I have a choice. But I wanted to come on the show because I haven’t done a show in a while, and I wanted to enjoy myself. With a Faithful, I can just speak from the heart, whereas a Traitor, you gotta remember everything. You gotta remember all your lies. It’s exhausting. I’m that type of person, if I buy you a present for your birthday, I have to tell you what it is. It would be really hard for me to be like, “You’re voting for … who?†[Pantomimes looking over his shoulders in paranoia and suspicion]
There were so many Bravo people this season, and they were all very glammed out. I’m wondering if you felt pressure to step your game up, fashion-wise.
I went with the boots. Those were my vibe: groundskeeper. I thought I fit in well.
The hat you were wearing was good.
The scally cap? Yeah, I liked that one. Production told me I was wearing it out, and they actually went and got me a few more. He’s literally wearing it every day. That was nice.
I have to ask you about Phaedra. She says there’s nothing romantic between you two. I want to know your side of the story.
Look, I respect her too much to try to turn that into something it’s not. It’s just not realistic; we met on a game. We had a moment and I appreciate it. She was great to me, little corny cheese ball that she is. I got a kick out of her.
When you’re the last man standing and you’re surrounded by all these women, you make a joke about being on your own dating show. Do you want to be the next Bachelor?
That’d be weird. That’s a lot of estrogen. I don’t know. Dealing with seven women was tough enough. How many do they have on that one?
I think it’s like, 20.
Fuck that. Nuh-uh.
Is there anyone else from The Challenge that you think would do well on The Traitors?
I thought about this. I think Aneesa Ferreira would be really good at it. She’s really good at reading people.
What else was there to do in the castle when you guys weren’t doing missions and getting together for meals? How did you spend your time?
I was reading. I remember one poem I read called “The Faithful Bird†by William Cowper. And just bullshitting, giving yourself an anxiety attack because you didn’t like the way somebody said “Hi†to you that morning.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.