Wes Bergmann reveals Boston Rob's unaired Roundtable argument that led to his threat on “The Traitors”

Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Traitors season 3, episode 6, "A Dysfunctional Family."

Wes Bergmann doesn't regret what seemed to be his game-ending threat during The Traitors Roundtable. But he does regret making jokes that ultimately led to his banishment, thanks to the scheming of Boston Rob Mariano.

The last Roundtable turned into a battle of wits between reality TV legends Boston Rob and Derrick Levassuer, with the Survivor alum deflecting all Traitor suspicion onto Wes to save himself. As a Traitor, Boston Rob only had lies to back up his argument against the three-time (retired) The Challenge winner, but he still came out on top after Wes made a threat to keep his "eye" on whoever voted for him. Some of the women didn't like his "aggressive" gameplay, and as a result, Wes was banished from the game. Before he left, he revealed his status as a Faithful by giving everyone the finger and saying "F--- all you guys" on his way out.

"It is a comedian's worst nightmare, that game, because there's just so many good jokes," Wes tells Entertainment Weekly. "But what I've learned subsequently is everyone is so paranoid, they're just not in a place to receive those jokes."

Below, Wes explains why his "threat" was actually a joke inspired by Boston Rob's unaired Roundtable argument, the real reasons why he was banished, and more.

Related: Carolyn Wiger shares reaction to Britney Haynes' Traitors comments: 'F‑‑‑ you, bitch'

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: I'm actually shocked that we're talking about your banishment because I thought Boston Rob was DOA at that Roundtable.

WES BERGMANN: [Laughs] Yeah, me too.

How did you feel going into that Roundtable? Did you anticipate it was going to be a battle between you and Boston Rob?

Let's give Rob his flowers — he's one of the best players like this of all-time, so anything that I'm about to say is nothing. He made a mistake, he got clocked. That's all that I did. And I noticed that it's not, at the end of the day, that big of a deal. The full context of the Roundtable lost the plot a little bit. His argument for me was that I am the only one there that's smart enough to come after him. And sure, I'm going to let that argument slide. That is, in fact, true. I am a genius that was spot on about Rob, so I'm going to let him get that dunk. But then they cut out his other big argument, which was that I was the funniest guy in the house.

Wait, really?

He said that I was using humor to deflect. I had a custom suit that was made that I wore a couple of days prior, and it had "Faithful" stitched into the collar. And he brought that up as the argument, and about how I was always making jokes, the good jokes, that everyone was laughing at in the breakfast room. Then I give all my arguments that you guys see, and it's perfect. It almost looks like the producers have given me the answer, it's that good.

But then I go, "Now I want to address being the funniest person in the house. And it is true, I'm the funniest person here, but I just want to make sure that it's clear that no one here is voting for me because I'm the funniest guy in the house, right? Because that's the only argument." And everyone was crickets, and they were kind of laughing and smiling. Not everyone thought that this was funny, but most of the people were kind of smiling and I thought it was a friendly room. It is, in fact, funny, despite the fact that it's a paranoid environment.

Then I made the joke of, "So in the off-chance that one or two of you votes against me, I'm coming for you!" And it was at the [end of the] string of me having to defend that the only reason why Rob thought that I was a Traitor was that I was hilarious, so I wanted to give him a joke, and the way that it was cut takes that joke out of context to where I was literally celebrating and laughing because it was a child's argument.

Then it comes off as if it was some serious threat that ruined my game, and it wasn't. Those people had made up their minds. Rob had gotten rid of a lot of my allies, not necessarily because they were my allies but because they were smart, free thinking people. There are definitely things that I could and should have done differently, but if anyone thinks that the threat was the reason why [I was banished] I would quite frankly disagree with that opinion if they saw the full unedited Roundtable.

And I'm cheating because I have the truth. He has to make stuff up on the fly, and I don't blame him. If I was him, I could not have done any better. So I was sitting there just laughing at the whole situation. I thought at most two people, including Rob, were going to vote against me, and that he was about to be banished and we were about to start celebrating. I didn't know that so many of them had hard-ons to just get rid of me, for either misguided reasons or just because they had defined me as a threat.

Related: Danielle Reyes compares Traitors Roundtable with Carolyn to dodging bullets in The Matrix

The way that it's edited made it seem like the argument against you was some of the women felt you were playing too aggressive, and that's why the threat seemed to be the final nail in the coffin. Do you believe that also played a part in your banishment?

Gabby ends up voting Rob, so she ends up being on my side anyway, but her big thing that she said against me was, "You're always trying to band people together to come into the Roundtable to vote out somebody, and that's Traitor behavior." To which, all I have to say is that is the only tool a Faithful has. There is only one place to defend ourselves, and that's with numbers. Going around and rallying votes to go after people to which we have good arguments for, that's not aggressive gameplay. There's no footage of me doing anything aggressively. The footage of me talking about Rob, for example, is the level of coddling that I was giving to these people.

That said, I don't know. I am a little bit more rough around the edges than the average person. The Challenge house is as close to a prison as could possibly be, and I've spent about three years of my life in a prison. But what they don't want to admit, and some of them have to me, whether they go out publicly to say this or not, is I was a threat.

Whether they thought I was a Traitor or not, they weren't sure where I stood. It was easier to vote out the smart guy that wasn't in their clique than it was to let him infiltrate the group. And I was just, the whole time, looking for a group. At first, I tried to get into the Survivor group, but then Rob killed the Survivor group. I know this is going to sound really bad, but I was trying to get into the Bambis. I was prepared to go to any home and pay more than my fair share of rent. Just let me in.

We also saw Chrishell and Ciara vote against you. What do you think was your mistake that cost you their votes?

I don't know where, quite frankly, I went wrong with Chrishell, and then with Ciara I'm even more confused, because Ciara is, herself, very aggressive, very much so. I was tampering it down, she was not. You heard her threat while in the coffin — that's who she is, and I think that it's hilarious and totally fine. Also, I'm the reason why Ciara is still in the castle because people were like, "Is it Ciara or is it Nikki," for the coffin argument, and I led the charge for Nikki, so I saved her.

I'm not 100 percent sure, I think Chrishell just didn't like me. For whatever reason, I rubbed Chrishell the wrong way and she was on Team Rob. But the Ciara one definitely confused me. The two idiots, Sam and Ivar, who knows what they're doing. We don't know because they've been edited out of the show. We don't even know that they're playing the game until they vote out the smartest Faithful there, so I would say I was confused.

Related: The Traitors star Nikki Garcia reacts to being 'totally blindsided': 'I am not a gamer'

Do you think people voted for you because they actually thought you were a Traitor, or were there other personal reasons?

They were voting for other reasons. Chrishell just didn't like me, Ciara and Dylan were confused, and I think that Britney wanted to get rid of a threat. Big Brother people are scared of Challengers, they're never going to beat those allegations. I knew Bob the Drag Queen was a Traitor, so I told him that I'll vote in whichever way he wants, so I threw a burn vote at Ivar a few cycles before. So I think Ivar might've been trying to get me back — it's either that or he's dumb. And then Sam is threatened by me because in every area of life, including abs, I've got Sam beat. But he did have sex with Britney Spears, and I commend him for that. He'll always have that on me, and that is very, very impressive. But in every other area of life, he's my beta and he knew it.

House of VillainsAfter , this is now the second season in a row where you were doing well and had your finger on the pulse of the game, but lost due to the social aspect and your relationships with the cast. What lessons are you taking away from both losses, and how is that going to impact you on future shows?

I'm not sure. The internet is definitely helping me self-reflect. One could say that sugarcoating the things that I say more, not playing as hard, not forming all these alliances, not being so grandiose, and all this kind of stuff, and what they're describing are boring television stars. Meanwhile, there's cast members that play those types of games on The Challenge, and they're like, "Why am I not getting calls for The Traitors?"

They're calling television stars. We say ridiculous things. We vote out people, we form alliances. We do this stuff that steals airtime because we are playing a game second, and what we're doing first is entertaining the people on the couches.

Don't get me wrong, I want to win these games, and it's not like I'm not close to winning. In House of Villains, I essentially tied for first and was robbed for that situation. I almost stole the entire show and won it. It's true that my gameplay does make it slightly harder on myself than it needs to be, but it also means that I steal airtime that they're all jealous about.

Related: Tom Sandoval reveals unaired reasons behind his pit stains on The Traitors: 'I can laugh at it now'

At the time of your banishment, who did you think were the Traitors?

You never know for sure. I was surprised, but did you notice how Rob, when he starts his thing at me, he's like, "I've heard Wes say three names and it's mine, Danielle's, and Carolyn's." So yeah, there's proof that I kind of had the whole thing figured out, but I wasn't sure. I was less sure with Danielle and Carolyn, but it was one of those, "I'm going to go for Rob because I'm more sure about Rob while collecting data about the other two, and then we'll decide what to do with them later."

Could you tell in the moment how messy the Traitors' dynamic was behind-the-scenes, or has that been a surprise while watching the episodes?

Let's be real, the messiest of all the scenes happened in the turret after I was eliminated, so not only am I gone from the game, but I also didn't see any of the turret scenes. I did not know that there was so much tension between Carolyn and Danielle, and I was one of the ones that Danielle said Carolyn's name to — it was the first time that Danielle said that name, and I heard it, and I was like, "Oh my God, now's not the time. I've got other stuff to work on. Don't say that, leave it alone." And I tried to diminish it. I wanted to come back to it later, because you can't hunt more than one Traitor at a time.

Did you come up with your exit speech on the spot or did you have that planned?

That was on the spot. That's how much not aggressive I was — I knew to be on my best behavior that entire time, but then as soon as I saw the last [votes], I knew I had about 60 seconds and I was like, "Okay, Wes, get into character. You now get to flip the bird, burn whatever bridge you want, this game is over. Tell 'em what they deserve to be told." I'm going to just say the meanest stuff that I possibly can, make them think that I'm this Traitor that they've just caught, and then just say, "Yep, you guys are idiots. F--- you. Goodbye." It went off the rails a little bit and I was worried about how that would come off, but the internet loved it. So yeah, prepare for more speeches like that.

It immediately made me think of that time on The Challenge after you won an elimination where you were like, "F--- you, f--- you, you're cool, f--- you." It was classic Wes.

[Laughs] Yeah, I saw someone make that comparison online too. That is classic Wes.

This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

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