Lisa Rinna Compares Filming ‘Traitors’ to ‘Real Housewives’: ‘You Can’t Trust Anybody’

The hotly anticipated premiere of “The Traitors” Season 4 is just months away from making its streaming debut on Peacock. Fresh off winning the Emmy Award for Best Reality Competition, the Alan Cumming-hosted project is preparing to welcome a brand new cast of Faithfuls and Traitors to Scotland’s Ardross Castle for an unmissable season of back-stabbery, deception, and copious amounts of classic cloak-and-dagger drama. 

In true “Traitors” fashion, the upcoming season will feature players pulled from the annals of reality TV history, including stars from series like “Survivor,” “Big Brother,” “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” and, of course, “The Real Housewives” franchise. 

Lisa Rinna, who rose to reality TV stardom on the cast of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” will join fellow franchise darlings Porsha Williams, Caroline Stanbury, Candiace Dillard Bassett and Dorinda Medley on the upcoming season. Rinna is also known for her work in soap operas over the years.

Lisa Rinna Reveals Her Strategy for Playing ‘The Traitors’

While Rinna originally thought that she would “die” without access to her phone while filming the series in the remote Scottish Highlands, she has since returned to the U.S. unscathed enough to open up about the differences between filming “The Traitors” and “Real Housewives.” 

In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, Rinna opened up about whether or not she entered the “Traitors” with a strategy to outwit a cast full to the brim with reality competition show legends. 

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“I had absolutely no strategy,” she admitted. “I come on as a Housewife, they label you, right? So I get labeled into the ‘Housewife’ category, which…there’s gamers that go out and survive the ‘Survivor’ wilderness for 40 days and the ‘Big Brother’ house. They’re so hardcore, they know exactly what they’re doing. And then there’s me [saying], ‘Hi, what are we doing? Where’s my drink? And wait, I have to do that and be physical and carry [stuff]?’”

While Rinna is no stranger to reality TV, having spent eight years on “Real Housewives,” she has never appeared on a reality competition series like many of her Season 4 co-stars, including “Survivor” winners like Natalie Anderson and Yam Yam Arocho as well as “Big Brother” champion Ian Terry. 

Rinna Compares Her ‘Traitors’ and ‘Real Housewives’ Careers

Despite her relative lack of experience, Rinna recalled her time on “Traitors” as “fun.”

“It’s fun, it’s a game,” she explained. “That’s what’s great about it. It’s not toxic, it’s not negative, it’s not dark. It’s a game. We’re playing a game.”

Comparing the competition series to her time on “Real Housewives” directly, Rinna told ET, “It’s different. ‘Housewives’ is mentally and emotionally very difficult. [‘Traitors’] is emotionally and physically hard. This is hard. There’s people lying everywhere, you can’t trust anybody.”

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Despite their obvious differences, Rinna ultimately found the two reality series comparable in terms of the emotional toll they take on cast members. 

While “The Traitors” Season 4 does not yet have an official release date, new seasons of the Emmy-winning series have typically premiered in January.