The Traitors' Britney Reveals Big Post-Reunion Talk with Danielle: "I Will Always Respect Her"
The last Traitor in the game didn't make it to the Fire of Truth, and she says it still hurts.
This story contains spoilers for The Traitors Season 3.
After playing an Faithful The Traitors game for the majority of Season 3, Britney Haynes (Big Brother) was ready to toast marshmallows around Alan Cumming's Fire of Truth — but she never got to feel its warmth.
Voted out in the very last Round Table of the season, Britney was unanimously (outside of her own vote) banished by Dylan Efron, Gabby Windey, Dolores Catania, and Lord Ivar Mountbatten.
RELATED: How Much Money Was in the Final Prize Pot on The Traitors Season 3?
How did it feel getting so close? "It felt horrible," Haynes told NBC Insider in our exit interview with her the morning after the finale and reunion aired on Peacock. "I could almost cry talking about it. And I say that with the utmost awareness that when anybody else is voted off, I'm like, 'Bye. Should have done better!' And then when it's me, I'm like, 'It's so sad!' I'm fully aware of what a baby I am. But it was awful. It's almost worse to get really close, in a weird way. Of course, you want to make it as far as you can, but it's a really hard pill to swallow."
Despite the disappointment, Britney still had a lot to say about her final, fiery Round Table against Dylan, how she felt about voting out Danielle Reyes, and where they are now after their The Traitors Reunion Special confrontation.
Britney confirms a "bond" with Danielle but questioned forgiveness
Considering that Britney and Danielle came into the game with unresolved beef from their shared season of Big Brother: Reindeer Games (2023) — stemming from Britney blindsiding Danielle — why would either of them trust one another?
But Britney said playing this season of The Traitors together really did allow them to smooth over prior hurts and form a bond... even if she still wondered if Danielle harbored a bit of revenge in her heart.
"Of course, in the back of my mind it's constantly like, does she forgive me? Does she really forgive me though?" Britney said about her concerns all season long. "I know we're playing nice, but she is setting up a great [scenario] if she wanted to pay me back. So, it was living in the back of my mind constantly. However, as the season was going on and I'm still here, absolutely, there's no question that having me around was in her best self interest. But it did also grow our personal relationship and our bond. It really, truly did."
Britney said she was also a realist about what Danielle was saying, which was confirmed as she watched the episodes air.
"I'm like, the fourth person that she calls her number one," she laughed. "It's Bob the Drag Queen. Then it's Carolyn. Then it's Dylan. And then it's me. Dylan had actually come to me at one point when he was trying to convince me that Danielle was a Traitor, and he was like, 'Just so you know, Danielle told me that she would go to the final three with you and me.' Dylan straight-up told me that, so, of course, that lives in the back of my mind."
Did Britney see voting out Danielle as a Gamer Hall of Fame move?
As everybody witnessed in the castle this season, gamers often play with a bloodthirsty intent to win. Wes Bergmann, Derrick Levasseur, "Boston Rob" Mariano and others had a take-no-prisoners approach. In that vein, Britney's second blindside of Danielle at the penultimate Round Table, for some, was a baller move.
RELATED: Who Won The Traitors? All About The Traitors Season 3 Finale (Recap)
"For me, it was just purely self preservation," Britney said of her choice to be the tie-breaker vote against Danielle. "It was, 'How do I do whatever a Faithful would do? How do I vote like a Faithful would vote?' Because I thought the writing was on the wall for her. I didn't want to be the only person who wouldn't vote for her in the event that Dolores is switching her vote. I don't want to be the only one who wouldn't vote for her. That looks terrible. I've already gone out on a limb with this Ivar vote the first time, which was super suspicious. So for me, it was purely just self-preservation."
Britney doesn't regret going after Dylan in the final Round Table
Leading into the final Round Table and once seated, Britney was not shy in trying to get the other remaining women to question Dylan's motives and vote against him. Perhaps what was unexpected was just how heated she got in laying out her evidence and case against a seemingly flabbergasted Dylan.
RELATED: Dylan Efron Reveals Brother Zac's Scary-Accurate Prediction for His Time on The Traitors
Would she have toned it down in retrospect?
"The thing is that the Round Table gets condensed down," she said of the final edit for the show. "The escalation was really organic as it played out in real time. It wasn't that I came in super hot and went crazy. It really escalated at a pace that, to me, at least, made sense. I guess it looked pretty hostile or pretty aggressive. I mean, I'm fighting for my life, so it probably was. But in real time, to me, it played out more organically than it comes across when it's chopped."
Britney confronts Danielle's framing of their pre-Traitors friendship
Many expected some fireworks between Britney and Danielle at the Reunion, but, all-in-all, it was pretty peaceful. Their only big confrontation was when Britney decided to set the record straight about their "friendship" on Big Brother, which Danielle categorized as much closer than Britney knew it to be.
"The fact of the matter is that Danielle is very well connected through the Big Brother community," she explained. "I'm a little bit more of a loner, but she's more out there in terms of social media and going to events. She's been to a million more events than me. So the fact is, not even just that I didn't think we were best friends, but I knew she was good friends with everybody else there too. So what made me special? What made me like the die hard, fast-and-furious friend that you were really being truthful to? She was in these other alliances, so what made her more truthful to me than she was to them? From my vantage point, that didn't make sense to me.
"I hated that's information that I've been not saying out of respect for her for a long time because it sounds mean, and I don't want to sound mean," she continued. "But the fact is, that is how I felt. I didn't want to completely gloss over her feelings right there, but in my mind, that is how it made sense. I felt like I have to say this because what I really did was take the road of silence."
RELATED: The Traitors Cast & Audiences Will "Meet the Real Danielle" in Reunion Special: "Cold-Blooded"
Are they OK now?
"I think so," Britney said. "We had a good conversation after the fact. I've always respected her, and I will always respect her as a game player. I hope that, on a personal level, when this is all said and done, that we can mutually look back on it with appreciation and positivity for the role that we both played in each other's game."
All episodes of The Traitors Seasons 1-3 are available to stream right now on Peacock.
