Coming into this season of The Traitors, Tiffany Mitchell was seen as one of the favorites to travel far in this season and also become one of the Traitors. Mitchell, a Clark Atlanta alumna, was legendary for her strategy that launched “The Cookout' to success in the 23rd season of Big Brother in 2021. Although The Traitors is a different game from the coalition-building and strategy deployed in Big Brother, the level of communication and long-planning needed to succeed in the hit Peacock series seemed befitting of a game-player of Mitchell's caliber.
But Mitchell was voted out after former The Bachelor star Colton Underwood suspected that she was one of the three hidden Traitors, though she was a Faithful. The roundtable that led to her banishment was the most emotional of the season thus far, as she bristled at suddenly being accused and laid out the stakes that led her approach to the game: paying for her son to go to college.
Mitchell spoke about the emotional roundtable in her exclusive recap of the show on her digital media company, The Heavy Crown Network.
I was so thrown off that I instantly lost my cool. I was caught off guard… I was livid… I kind of took it personal because the things that were being said about me at this round table… it felt very personal, she said in the pre-recorded recap. “It's not easy to defend yourself against something that you know you either are not or you didn't do. It’s like, how do I prove this to you? I don’t have proof, I just know… it’s traumatic.”
The roundtable moment featured her shedding tears, something that he didn't intend to do.
“While I was sitting there trying to hide the fact that I was crying, all I'm thinking about is Danielle Reyes from last season telling me, ‘And when you get to that round table, if something happened, you better not cry.' I said, ‘Girl, you ain't got to worry about it, I ain't going to shed a tear.'”
But, despite her best intentions, her emotions got he best of her and she even cried upon departing the castle.
“It was sad… it was painful… and when I turned around to leave, I literally broke down.”
After having time to reflect, Mitchell identified what she felt was a strategic misfire on her part.
“I shared with a lot of people who I was going for… it was a mistake… I think that I will say the thing that you're never supposed to say is maybe I felt too comfortable with the people that I was sharing information with and I thought we were on the same page.”
But, she felt comfortable because she didn't feel as if she was a target for banishment.
“I didn't feel like I was a target. I didn't feel like I had people looking at me, and up until [Colton] starts saying my name, I literally don't.”
Despite her early elimination, Mitchell quickly became a fan favorite. Her desire to win the game to provide for her son, as well as her strategic moves, earned her support amongst The Traitor fans who might not have been familiar with her run on Big Brother and The Challenge.
The Traitors premieres on Peacock on Thursdays at 9 PM EST/8 PM CST/6 PM PST.
