Gabby Windey Calls “The Traitors” a 'Crash Course' in Different Kind of Reality TV, Reflects on Growth Since “The Bachelorette”

Gabby Windey is reflecting on her time on television.

The TV personality, 34, appeared on The Nikki & Brie Show podcast on Monday, Jan. 13, where she opened up about her return to reality TV (alongside Nikki Garcia) in the latest season of The Traitors. After her time on The Bachelorette in 2022, so much of her life has changed — including coming out as queer and revealing that she was dating a woman — and Windey said she is happy fans get to see her in a new light.

"I think, if anything, I feel like since I've been dating [girlfriend] Robby [Hoffman] and kind of explored my sexuality, I feel like I'm just more confident,” she explained. “Because it already allows you to be different, and you have to own it, and it's been such a great experience for me.”

“So I feel like now, this season more than ever, I'm really leaning into femininity and the strength of a woman,” she continued. “I feel like that's a huge theme, I think, for this season, because we had really strong women, and lots of gays, which is nice. So I feel like, yeah, they'll see a different side of me, but I feel like it's gonna be more empowered.”

Windey has made a name for herself on social media since starring in the ABC dating show, and she joked that people see her acting “so unhinged and deranged” that they are often surprised she is the same person they watched on The Bachelorette.

“I've always been the same person, but I think Traitors gives you a little more room to be yourself and see you in a different light,” she said. “And the confrontation aspect of it, it's scary as f---, but it's also, it doesn't have to be personal. I took everything so personal."

She added of her participation in such a different style show: "I feel like for us coming from our reality TV [shows], we don't even know what the other sector is of real gaming, challenges, survivors, so I feel like we got a crash course. I'm like, ‘This is not what I signed up for! I'm showing up in a full beat. My hair's done and teased, in a sick outfit that a stylist planned, and you want me to do these crazy challenges and think like a survivor person? Like, this is crazy.’ But they were great."

Related: Gabby Windey Praises Traitors Season 3 Costar Chrishell Stause as a 'Trailblazer for Me in the Queer Space' (Exclusive)

Viewers first got a sneak peak at the drama occurring inside The Traitors house in season 3, when Windey warned one of her housemates in the trailer, "If you carry on with that cocky attitude, you might get yourself in trouble.”

Her fellow Bachelor Nation star Wells Adams then wondered, "What game is everyone else playing right now?"

Season 3 of The Traitors is fimed in an ancient castle deep in the Scottish Highlands as the group of 21 famous faces "work together on a series of exhilarating missions to build a prize fund worth up to $250,000." The twist lies in the group of Traitors, who eliminate the Faithful while they're hunted down themselves. If the Faithful contestants banish all the Traitors, they will share the prize fund, but if a Traitor — or more than one — makes it to the end, they steal the whole prize.

In addition to Garcia, Adams and Windey, the cast includes Vanderpump Rules’ Tom Sandoval, Selling Sunset star Chrishell Stause, The Biggest Loser's Bob Harper, Big Brother's Britney Haynes and Danielle Reyes and RHONJ's Dolores Catania, along with RHOP's Robyn Dixon, Sam Asghari and Survivor's Tony Vlachos, among others.

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New episodes of The Traitors stream Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET on Peacock.

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