Natalie Anderson Says She Voted For Tara Lipinski at Her Last Roundtable in ‘The Traitors’ Season 4 to Cause Confusion and Help Rob Rausch: “If You Are Going to Vote Me Out, I’m Not Going To Help You Do Your Job”

After her exit from Season 4 of The Traitors, Natalie Anderson says she had no intention of helping her fellow Faithfuls get the remaining Traitors in the game.

Sitting down with DECIDER to chat about her elimination in Episode 10, the Survivor winner explained that after having the rug pulled out from underneath her by Tara Lipinski, who had come to her to form a plan to take out Rob Rausch at the Roundtable only for the Olympic figure skater to flip-flop almost immediately, Anderson opted to write down Tara’s name as a parting gift to the Love Island star.

“In my head, one: I didn’t want to have any more suspicions on Rob. If you are going to vote me out, I’m not going to help you do your job. Now, I’m going to vote against Tara to make you guys even more confused. And then second of all, I was rooting for him,” the gameplayer and strategist explained. “So now I’m rooting for Rob, when I got eliminated, I was like, ‘I hope Rob wins.'”

Even though Anderson says she was fairly confident Rausch was a Traitor due to his demeanor over the final few days she was in the game with him, he still was enough of an ally up until the final moment that rather than stay consistent in her Roundtable argument and vote for him, she decided to throw everyone for a loop one last time.

Photo: Peacock

“Part of me, walking out of banishment, wanted to be like, ‘Forget you guys. I hope the Traitors win,’ But I was like, ‘I don’t want to put any sus on Rob so let him do what he’s doing and let him win the game,” Anderson said. “That would make me feel good right now.”

Check out DECIDER’s full interview with Anderson below.

DECIDER: Before we get into anything too serious, let’s talk about the dress. Two questions here: One, where can people get it because I’m seeing some say they want to go as you for Halloween. And two: what is your reaction to that?

NATALIE ANDERSON: I feel like it’s so weird to have my fashion [talked about], from all the people on the show, people are obsessed with what I’m wearing? And it’s really funny because it’s a combination of what I randomly threw in a bag — because I did not shop for Traitors — like I was focusing on my training. A week before I left, I was like, “Okay, I need some outfits,” and that dress, I didn’t know it was like a club dress. I guess I don’t go clubbing, I just threw it in the bag. It’s actually from this brand called Nookie. I think it’s so funny, watching myself now at breakfast, I’m like,”oh yeah, I do look a little out of place.” But all my outfits, I look completely out of left field, so I think it’s funny. I’m not offended at all by any of the jokes. People are coming at me and I see people trying to defend me and I’m like, “It’s fine, I’m not offended, as long as you think that I look strong in the dress. I’m happy with it.”

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You always look strong. Let’s get to your banishment, you told Johnny Weir not to apologize for voting for you, what was going through your head in that moment?

I think if I had gone into the round table knowing that I had nobody on my side, it would have been a very different feeling for me. But because for the first time in a long time since I lost Monet [X Change], I lost Yam Yam [Arocho]. I had felt alone in that game with nobody really willing to work with me, and I had this glimmer of hope connecting with Tara. And there was a moment where I said to her, “Maybe this is what it’s supposed to be, maybe the journey for both of us is supposed to, kind of come together in this moment and we can do it.” So I had these really high expectations for us. And then I think having the feeling of the rug pulled out from under me was why I was so angry. And I let it get to me. In hindsight, I wish I had just been like, “Go focus on the mission, forget Tara, forget Johnny, just do something to make people vote for Rob.” But I was so angry, and I think that it felt like I was working with people who didn’t care about winning together, they just cared about going one day further together…I was so frustrated and I was like, “It’s all bullshit, these apologies.” I think Johnny has said sorry every single time he’s voted for somebody. And I was like, don’t give me a bullshit apology, just fucking vote for me, you know? 

That last day, though, you really locked in on Rob being a Traitor. It kind of seems like the remaining Faithfuls can’t see the forrest for the trees, do you think they can turn it around?

I had these weird feelings about Rob, but I didn’t want to admit it to myself. If I gave up Rob, I would have had nobody as an ally in that game. So I didn’t want to pivot. But having Tara come to me and be like, “I think it’s Rob,” gave me this affirmation. And it felt good in that moment because I was willing to let go of Rob if it meant jumping onto another, onto another alliance member, but it was just too little too lat. The faithfuls that are left off in the castle, they’re just not willing to pivot. There were signs of Rob, especially the last couple of days, there was an awkwardness between us, which I had never felt before. And with Rob, there was this unspoken kind of bond where we didn’t have to do a lot of talking, we just had bonded through the challenges early on, because I was with him on the rowing challenge, with him on the stupid chariot challenge, and then I feel like that’s how I bond with people anyway. And I feel like I had that bond with him, so it had shifted. But again, nobody was willing to jump the Rob ship at that point.

Since you had that bond, is there any part of you that’s rooting for him?

For me, he did his job. And the Faithfuls, we did not do our job. It’s like, do your job. Watching it at a bar in New York City, I like randomly surprised fans and watched it with them, and they were like, “Why would you vote for Tara after all of that?” And I was like, in my head, one: I didn’t want to have any more suspicions on Rob. If you are going to vote me out, I’m not going to help you do your job. Now, I’m going to vote against Tara to make you guys even more confused. And then second of all, I was rooting for him. Part of me, for a split second it went through my brain, I was like, “Maybe Tara is a Traitor because she did this amazing blindside move.” On Survivor, if she had bamboozled me and then came to the to tribal and was like, “Actually, I never said I was voting for Rob,” and threw me under the bus, that’s an amazing move. And I would never judge it if she was a Traitor, but because she’s a Faithful, it was just like, “Girl, why?” So now I’m rooting for Rob. When I got eliminated, I was like, “I hope Rob wins.” Part of me, walking out of banishment, wanted to be like, “Forget you guys. I hope the Traitors win,” but I was like, “I don’t want to put any sus on Rob so let him do what he’s doing and let him win the game, that would make me feel good right now.”

Considering that you’re a game player, do you hold or harbor any feelings of ill will towards anybody?

So I think I’m in the middle. I’m still frustrated with myself. I have a hard time forgiving myself for fucking up in these games, so it’s it’s not like I think I played a perfect game, but I so I, I do have frustrations for how it ended. But I know Johnny and Tara, they’re good people and I’m not holding on to anything. Obviously when I talk about what happened, I’m going to get fired up, but at the end of the day, it’s it’s a game that I had guaranteed shot of winning and I, and I didn’t do the best that I could have done to set myself up to win.

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I’ve spoken to Tara, I don’t harbor anything because it doesn’t make me feel better about what happened. But I am really frustrated and I’m frustrated with myself. It’ll take me a little longer to get over losing. Because for some of us in the castle, the $250,000 is a lot of money. Not for everybody, but for some of us, losing it comes with a heavier pill to swallow because of the significance, the significance of what that money could do. I went out here saying, like, “If I win that money, it’s for my nieces.” So I think that’s the hardest thing for me.

We’ve seen a lot of Survivor players come through, but do you have somebody either from Survivor or The Amazing Race who you would love to see play next? 

I love to see athletes out there, I was on the challenge with Lolo Jones, who’s an Olympian who I think would do so well in this atmosphere. She’s super fiery, he’s a go getter, so strong physically, like insane. I would like to see her from Survivor. I honestly would love to see Nadia play The Traitors. I would love to see Nadia’s return to reality TV. And if you’re going to come back to any show, coming back to The Traitors is top tier. So I would love to see her.

The first 10 episodes of The Traitors Season 4 are now streaming on Peacock. The Season 4 finale and reunion air at 6 p.m. PT on Thursday, February 26.

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