Boston Rob Mariano Says His ‘Traitors’ Fate Might Be His Fault

A reality show contestant doesn’t elicit a reaction of collective gasps and murmurs of “one of the greatest” to ever play Survivor without a solid idea of how to earn both love and fear from fellow cast members. Perhaps no one has a better handle on that than Survivor legend and The Traitors season three cast member “Boston Rob” Mariano.

The Traitors is often equal parts popularity contest and strategy game, something Mariano is familiar with after taking part in five seasons of Survivor, two seasons of The Amazing Race alongside wife Amber Mariano (who he met during his second season of Survivor and proposed to live during the finale) and the premiere season of Deal or No Deal Island.

No matter how Mariano entered The Traitors – and his entrance was seemingly a point of contention for him and other cast members – he was always going to be “a big target,” he tells The Hollywood Reporter. He was selected as a Traitor and brought in after the initial three Traitors – RuPaul’s Drag Race winner Bob the Drag Queen, Survivor’s Carolyn Wiger and Big Brother’s Danielle Reyes – had already made their first kill of the season (Housewives star Dorinda Medley). The contestants of the season were given the option to allow Mariano to join the game and swap him for another player or not let him in. They chose the latter. He was eventually brought in with two other new cast members an episode later.

Season’s three group of Traitors have never fully seen eye-to-eye, particularly Bob the Drag Queen and Mariano, as the latter, in the former’s eyes, was responsible for turning the contestants against the Drag Race winner. Mariano was voted off himself, with Reyes and Wiger turning against him, last week.

As a reality show veteran, Mariano is a beloved figure in Survivor circles, but The Traitors brought the 49-year-old Boston native to those unfamiliar with CBS’s long-running reality competition series. He’s currently the subject of what can only be described as TikTok thirst trap edits showing his younger self on Survivor.

Below, The Traitors star tells THR how he felt during his last roundtable, his thoughts about how he entered the game and who he wants to see join next season.

Let’s talk about getting voted off in the round table last week. What were your thoughts in the moment? Was there a moment where you realized the tides were turning?

I felt like I was fighting for my life the whole time I was on the show from the beginning. [Last week], particularly, when we got to the roundtable, I felt like things were going OK. I came up with this idea to try to pin it on Britney [Haynes], and I felt like it was going in that direction. We’re not really supposed to talk about what wasn’t shown on the show, but Carolyn kind of diverted a little bit at the roundtable. It was like at that moment where she kind of steered the conversation back towards me, the one that Tom [Sandoval] started, that kind of set off red flags in my head. I don’t know, I felt like before the vote, it was going to be a coin flip one way or another. Whether I was going to get through. When I saw Chrishell [Stause]’s vote, go to Tom [Sandoval], and then I saw Dylan [Efron] throw his vote to Gabby [Windey]. I knew I was dead. The throwaway votes, I need those votes. Then, of course, Carolyn and Danielle, who was supposed to be working with me. Let me tell you, the game’s a lot harder when you have to fight the Faithfuls and the Traitors, and that’s what I was doing the whole time.

It was really interesting to see it play out in a way that was pretty different than before of you guys.

I think coming into the game later, even though it was only a day later, it does something to the psyche of the other contestants. Then obviously, in the beginning, not being let in. I think everybody kind of wanted to see it be really hard for me particularly. They got to see me under pressure, and how I do under pressure, and I think it made a better show, honestly.

What were you thinking when they initially didn’t reach out to shake Alan Cumming’s hand so that you could join? That must’ve been a real tough moment in the show.

I didn’t know that they [the show’s producers] were going to do that twist until I got to Scotland. The night before the show started, the executive producers came in and told me, “We got this idea.” For all the reasons I told them, I was like, “That’s not a good idea.” They said, “Why?” I said, “Because theoretically nobody should ever shake my hand.” To be honest, I was expecting nobody to shake my hand.

They told me, “Don’t worry if it doesn’t work, we have another way for you to enter the game. We didn’t make you come all the way to Scotland [for nothing].” Then when I saw the other way, the cages, I was like, “Oh, no, this is worse.” Try to put yourself in these other people’s position. They just said, no, they don’t want me, and now you’re forcing me on them. Obviously, my reputation makes a big target on me, and I think it illuminated it tenfold. It is what it is. That’s what I signed up for. I mean, it’s not what I signed up for, but it is what it is, and I’m fine to play within the context of what it was.

You and the other gamers on the show, and maybe some of the Housewives, deal with coming into the show with a well-known reputation of how you handle these dramatic situations. Do you feel like that’s an advantage or a disadvantage to you when you come into this?

I knew only Tony [Vlachos] and Jeremy [Collins] coming into this game. I had previously played with and knew. I knew of Carolyn. Everybody else there. I didn’t know. To me, it’s harder because I don’t have any intel on them, but they all have intel on me. Danielle, at some point we had met or something because she knew, but I didn’t remember and I wouldn’t have known. I knew of Britney, but nothing about their history. From my point of view, it is always going to be hard because especially, just the way they started it, it puts me on a pedestal. For me, I can see it through the other contestant’s eyes. They’re like, “Come on.” At the same time, I have so much experience that it should be harder for me, I think a little bit.

You enjoy playing the game. When taking a contestant out, do you think of that person as a worthy opponent and that’s why you’re going for them?

Absolutely. That’s the only reason. It’s funny, I watched the first two seasons of Traitors to prepare for this. I thought to myself, how cool would it be to be in a situation where the person that’s coming at you, you can directly go at them because there’s no way anybody would ever actually think that you would.

I found myself in that exact position this season. I was like, “This is perfect. I can just murder anybody that comes at me and wipe my hands.” Ironically, Tom Sandoval didn’t see the strategy beyond the strategy, and he just looked at it on surface level one. Of course, if you’re thinking on it on a basic level, then it’s also true, right? Maybe my fault for getting rid of all of the smarter gamers first. I don’t know.

I stand by my decisions, and I do. It was out of a respect. Absolutely with Bob the Drag Queen going out and Bob H. [Harper] and even Robyn [Dixon], to a degree. Wes [Bergmann] and Derrick [Levasseur]. These players were smart, and I recognize that. I think one of my biggest strengths is my self-awareness, so to be able to recognize the threat that they were, some of them imminent, some of them not as imminent, but to be able to see it and to be able to go at ’em made it fun. I did enjoy it. One of the biggest takeaways for me was actually the friendships that I made with different people beyond the gamer world. Dylan and I became really good friends. It wasn’t really shown a lot, but in the challenge where we had to bring the heads up, I worked really well with, Chrishell and Nikki [Garcia]. Of course, [in the] last episode Ciara [Miller]. It was cool to just meet new people outside of the reality gaming world and connect with them in the game, but on a different level as well.

Is there someone from the reality gaming world you’d love to see on this show?

I spend a lot of time playing poker in my spare time, and it’s a game of strategy and deception, and a few poker players have actually reached out to me about playing this game. A friend of mine, Daniel Negreanu [and] Josh Arieh, they’re really into this gaming world, and I think they would be great on it.

Let’s talk a bit more about working with Danielle and Carolyn, especially post Bob the Drag Queen leaving. When you were having your exit video in the last episode, you said you would’ve worked with Carolyn.

The dynamic is difficult because again, I’m forced in that turret now. Not only do they not want me in the game, but they definitely don’t want me in the turret. My plan is just lay low, and let them do whatever they want to do. I mean, even with Jeremy’s murder, I didn’t want to murder Jeremy. I really didn’t, but Danielle wanted it, and I let it happen. I mean, I guess I’m guilty because I let it happen. But something interesting happened in that, I don’t know what you call it, after roundtable, getting the people up for murder was that Bob [the Drag Queen] tried to put Carolyn into the coffin as one of the three in the coffin [from episode four]. That set off a red flag. Why would you do that? Why would you try to put one of us in there? That’s going to put suspicion on one of us. I clocked it and I kept her out of it because I was like, I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to turn on each other. Then the very next episode, he does it to me, by saying, we got to look at the cage boys. Now, he didn’t directly say, we’ve got to look at Rob, but he said, we’ve got to look at those guys. Now he’s indirectly putting suspicion on me. At that point, I can’t not see it. I’ve already seen it.

I had to go at him. I felt like my hand was forced, and once I did, even though I tried to give Carolyn and Danielle the heads up, they must have missed him saying that in the moment. Even though I heard it loud and clear, probably because I was tuned into it, it was probably more of a thing in my head than it was in theirs. But once I spread that around, I couldn’t put the lid back on anymore. I had to go in that direction, and despite trying to give them the heads up that I was going to do it, Danielle wasn’t on board for it. I immediately closed the door on that, and I was like, we’re doing it anyway, whether you want to or not. They eventually got on board and voted that way, but they were upset, and I can see how, from their point of view, here I am coming in and taking over and doing this, and now they’re fearful. But the truth is, I think Danielle had a bit of a chip on her shoulder towards me. Whether it was just for that or because she knew my reputation and my history and didn’t want me to outshine her or something. But I never felt that connection working with her.

I tried to get with Carolyn and assure her that we were going to be good, we were going to be good. But I can also see from her point of view why she was scared because it’s me, and I just did what I did. It’s like you have to overlook that. The distrust going on, and then Danielle trying to get Carolyn out to get me out. I could see the meta going on in her head. I could see that she had [a] strong alliance with Derrick and Britney because of the Big Brother history. I could see Dolores [Catania] was in her corner. I could see what she was trying to do just because I have a lot of experience, and I could see it. But I can also see from her point of view how she views me and Carolyn as potentially tight because we’re from the Survivor world, so she feels outnumbered in the turret. Even though it wasn’t really like that. That’s probably her perception of it.

At the end, [when] I said I would’ve worked with Carolyn and that Danielle was a bad Traitor and a bad gamer, and just bad. I think the last part, “just bad,” was probably just me being a little bitter, really. When I look back on it, as far as a bad player and a bad Traitor… I’m not so aware of her Big Brother stuff, but in Traitors, I stand by it. She made some bad decisions, some bad acting, but I don’t think she’s a bad person.