Maura Higgins Faces Final Choice as Rob Rausch Emerges Sole Winner of The Traitors Season 4
maura higgins reached the final five of The Traitors Season 4 and found herself weighing trust against suspicion in a finale full of last-minute banishments and a decisive betrayal that handed the victory—and the cash prize—to Rob Rausch. The resolution matters because it reversed a recent pattern of Faithful winners and left a Traitor walking away with the season’s full pot.
Rob Rausch Wins as Sole Traitor
Rob Rausch was the lone winner of Season 4, taking the entire prize pot after the final banishment decisions. Rausch, a 27-year-old professional snake wrangler and reality TV personality from Alabama, had maneuvered through the castle as an original Traitor and later recruited Eric Nam as an accomplice. When only three players remained, maura higgins and Rob voted to banish Eric Nam, leaving Rob as the last Traitor standing and in possession of a cash prize described in the season as more than $200, 000. The last-chance challenge earlier in the finale also offered contestants the opportunity to add up to $220, 800 to the pot.
Final Roundtable Votes and Johnny Weir’s Exit
Going into the final deliberations, six contestants had been reduced to five, then three, through a mix of murders and banishments. The five who reached the late-stage play included Traitors Rob Rausch and Eric Nam and Faithfuls Maura Higgins, Tara Lipinski and Mark Ballas, alongside Johnny Weir. At the last roundtable, vote assignments were: Eric voted for Johnny; Johnny voted for Eric; Rob voted for Johnny; Tara voted for Eric; Maura voted for Johnny. That tally led to Johnny Weir, a Faithful, being the last contestant banished at that roundtable. Earlier in the finale sequence, Johnny had been voted out in a 3-2 vote, and Tara Lipinski was later banished in a 3-1 vote.
Maura Higgins Confronts a Choice
Maura Higgins, who had counseled fellow players to find at least one person to trust, advanced to the final five but wavered over whether her closest ally—fellow Love Island alum Rob—was secretly betraying her. At the final roundtable she heard arguments from both sides and followed her instincts. Her decisions factored directly into the banishments that followed: Maura joined Rob in voting to banish Eric Nam, a move that ultimately ensured the Traitors claimed the prize. What makes this notable is that Maura’s shifting trust late in the game altered the balance and allowed a Traitor to outlast the Faithfuls.
Tara Lipinski, Mark Ballas and the 'Fire of Truth'
After Johnny’s banishment, the contestants faced the “fire of truth” and a choice of pouches. In the first round, Maura, Eric, Rob and Tara all selected the red pouch, electing to continue because they believed a Traitor remained. That sequence produced the vote that banished Tara: Eric, Rob and Maura voted to send Tara home while Tara cast her ballot for Eric. Earlier in the episode, Mark Ballas had been one of the players murdered in front of the group; another account in the finale’s narrative names Alan Cumming as the final Faithful murdered by the Traitors—unclear in the provided context which of those two was the ultimate on-camera murder.
Traitor Strategy, Cast Turnover and Secret Identities
Rob began the game aligned with Real Housewives alums Lisa Rinna and Candiace Dillard Bassett in the Traitors’ turret and outlasted both, at times engaging in Traitor-on-Traitor conflict. He is noted in the season for strategic composure, hobbies such as chess and quoting Mark Twain, and off-camera tactics like staying mentally grounded with lessons from Love Island and physically energized with hard-boiled eggs while taking breaks from his Alabama farm. The season also included a twist: celebrity parent Donna Kelce was revealed as the first “secret traitor, ” a role whose identity viewers did not learn until the end of Episode 3.
Scottish Castle Setting and Broader Impact
The season returned to the show’s signature backdrop of Scotland’s rolling hills and historic castles. The premiere’s filming locations coincided with a measured travel uptick—vacation rentals in Scotland increased by 15%, tracked through Vrbo—and episodes highlighted properties such as the 16th-century Castle Lomond situated along a river and Carnell Estates, a smaller castle with walled gardens dating to 1435. The program’s format, hosted in the U. S. by Alan Cumming, follows the established Faithful-versus-Traitors structure adapted from its Dutch origin and has continued to grow in popularity across international editions.
Rob Rausch’s victory makes him the first Traitor to claim the U. S. version since Cirie Fields won Season 1, breaking the recent streak of seasons in which multiple Faithfuls took the final prize. The season’s closing moves—final challenges, pouch choices, and a string of narrow votes—underscore how small decisions in the castle delivered a decisive, and controversial, outcome.
