Yahoo Lifestyle Wes Bergmann Says He Clocked Bob the Drag Queen on 'The Traitors' Right Away (Exclusive)
The reason that three players entered The Traitors Season 3 several days after filming began wasn't that producers wanted a new twist. The late additions also weren't an inventive new way to sow chaos among the Faithfuls. No, Wes Bergmann, Derrick Levasseur and Boston Rob Mariano joined the cast late due to a scheduling conflict.
"When they told me the dates, I told them multiple times that I was unable to be there," Bergmann tells Parade after his banishment. "I had a conflict of interest with something else TV-related that was very important for me. Then eventually after like the third time talking to them, I was like, 'Listen, it's not gong to happen unless I come in late.' They were like, 'Oh, what would that look like?'"
For those who have seen the current season of Peacock's reality TV hit, the three "Cage Boys" were introduced to the game during the season's second mission, with Bergmann and Levasseur as Faithfuls and Mariano as a Traitor.
"I knew I was coming in late," Bergmann says, "But what the details looked like, I wasn't sure of until I got there."
In some ways, Bergmann's late entrance ended up being the reason he was eliminated. A theory (vocalized by Bob the Drag Queen) began to float around the Scottish castle that one of the three Cage Boys must be a Traitor. When Bergmann and Levasseur decided to set their sites on Mariano, the Survivor legend turned things around and managed to get Bergmann banished instead.
After Bergmann's exit, he sits down with Parade to discuss his time on the show, a massive Christmas tree still prominently displayed behind him in his home despite the interview taking place in February. We chat about his exit, his fellow cast members and what he'd do differently if he ever returned.
Read the full interview below.
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Wes. You still have your Christmas tree up.
It's stuck.
How?
I have a ladder large enough to set it up, but then I learned I don't have a ladder large enough to take it down, and I've been busy, but yes, we're still celebrating Christmas.
When you were up in the cage, what was going through your head? What was your strategy as you entered the game?
We almost always have people come in late on The Challenge, and there is a strict rule. It doesn't matter who they are, sometimes even if they're your friend, you have to send them home immediately. It's just like a hazing. So that was going through my head, and I had a lot of anxiety. I know how we treat and feel about new people. Those bonds that you form, even if it's in the first few days, are so strong, especially because you know in those first few days that they're not Traitors. I knew I had an uphill battle, and so it was important–or at least so I thought–to work with the other Cage Boys because they were gonna have a very similar uphill battle.
When Bob the Drag Queen called out the three of you and said somebody in that group must be a Traitor, what were you thinking?
I wasn't too turned off. You look so defensive if you get too defensive over anything, right? It kind of stunk because it was the first time I heard anything, and it was to everybody. That meant that I might need to clock in a little sooner, but I felt pretty safe with Bob the Drag Queen because I had already clocked him. He had made a mistake with me earlier, and I was just kissing his butt and telling him I was going to vote for whoever he was going to vote for and I was with him and all this kind of stuff. Which is why I threw that one random vote for Ivar a cycle or two prior was to match Bob the Drag Queen. So even if he was coming after the new guys in the cages, I was pretty sure that he was not going to be eyeing me.
What was the slip-up that Bob made?
He bragged about the acting school he went to, and the way that he talked about it, all of a sudden a lot of the behavior that he had been doing—I started to look at it through the lens of an actor—just started clicking. On top of Chanel kind of called him out as did Dylan, and so I was like, "Ah, Traitor, nice."
At the Round Table where you got banished, Boston Rob comes for you hard, were you expecting that?
I knew he was gonna deflect to me. But I would definitely like to change the characterization that he came for me hard, because "hard" would imply that he said anything of substance. They cut out the majority of his arguments because they were that silly. I had a custom suit made, and it had the word "Faithful" stitched into the collar, and that was his big argument. Then after that, he said something along the lines of "You're always making jokes."
So then, towards the end, before I made the "threat," I go, "Okay, so to everyone that's in here, I just want to make something abundantly clear. You guys let me know if I've got this wrong. You guys are voting me out because I'm the funniest person here?" And then it was just crickets. At which point, in the same vein, that's when I made the joke, because I was like, "Okay, well then one of you, I will come after." Because they all just acknowledged, there are no arguments, and so the threat was indeed a threat, but it was such a joke threat. But without the full explanation of how we got there, the joke doesn't make sense, so the joke comes off as serious. I commend him. He is very good, and I understand why he's so great.
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Would you do anything differently if you went back?
Yeah, I mean, there's lots of little things that I would do differently. But what's challenging about The Traitors is that all the little things that I would do differently have equal ramifications of you doing, right? So you could play less hard, but then not saying any names could get you in trouble? Dan is the most famous one for not doing anything and getting in trouble. But also, some of the people that I was eyeing as waste of space were not doing anything. Also, the people not doing anything that are not making any ripples are the most Faithful looking, and so they get set up for murder. And so The Traitors is debatably more about balance than any other game that I've ever played. Yes, I would calibrate, and I have learned. But I guarantee that's how everybody probably feels about it.
Both Carolyn and Danielle seemed absolutely bonkers from watching the show. Were they as unhinged in person as they come across on TV?
I want to say that Carolyn is–I like the word "quirky" better. That's her word, and I think that's working to her advantage a lot. I also think it's easier for people to say that Danielle is playing the worst game of all time when you're on your couch, and you can kind of see it. I want to commend both of them, 'cause I think they're playing up very well just in their own way. And if Danielle was playing such a bad game, then why does she have so few votes against her?
You were just on House of Villains. If you could pick anyone from that cast to be on the next season of The Traitors, who would you pick?
There's definitely a couple. I mean, Safaree would be a really good one. He won because of his social game, and he's absolutely hilarious. Tiffany "New York" Pollard would be good on anything. If this is a show that Housewives feeds into, how could you not consider Teresa Giudice as part of that?
Yeah, let's just fly the whole House of Villains Season 2 cast back to Scotland.
They would be good in Scotland.
This interview has been condensed and edited for length and clarity.
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