Maura Higgins Stunned as Rob Rausch Reveals He Was the Traitor in Season Finale

Maura Higgins watched Rob Rausch confess, "Maura, I am and I always have been... a traitor, " at the round table in the season finale of The Traitors, a moment that left her visibly devastated and capped a run Rausch calls a win.

Round table reveal left Maura Higgins speechless

In the finale’s decisive scene, two former Love Island contestants locked eyes across the round table; Maura Higgins glanced at Rob Rausch and believed they might have won together. She joked, "I'm sorry, " pausing for emphasis. "I'm a faithful. " Rausch answered with, "Oh fuck, " then told her he had lied to her for weeks, saying he had "crept about" and "twisted the play of the game" until he controlled the group. The light fell from her eyes and her mouth hung open as she waited for him to be joking; he was not.

How Rausch describes his win and the double-cross of Eric Nam

Rob Rausch, who says he secured the victory by double-crossing Eric Nam—the Traitor he recruited and had promised alliance to—stood by the decision. He asked rhetorically, "Can you imagine if I let a Traitor that was there for three days beat me in the game and win the whole thing?" and added, "Hell no, I'm not taking that chance. I'm getting out of here with the money. " After the moment of triumph, Rausch described the feeling as mixed: "It was so weird, in that moment, " he said. "I did it, I won the game, it's over…but at the same time, it was very bittersweet. It wasn't like, Hooray! It wasn't happy feelings straight away. I was like, Oh, gosh. " He also says he is still "super tight" with both Nam and Maura Higgins.

Rob Rausch on the farm in Florence, Alabama

Days before the finale, Rausch showed a visitor around his family’s 200 acres in Florence, Alabama, working in near-freezing temperatures and feeding the cows gathered at the gate. The 27-year-old reality star and snake wrangler pointed out the only spotted cow in the herd and said, "That one's my favorite, " adding, "Her name's Darlin', because she's a darlin'. " Darlin' is the only cow that doesn’t tip her horns forward and rush at guests when Rausch lets them into the field; he moos back at the herd during the visit.

Farm life, wardrobe and a few telltale details

On the farm, Rausch wore a sturdy canvas jacket, light-wash jeans and worn-in cowboy boots rather than the denim overalls that became a talking point on Love Island USA season six. He said, "I used to wear overalls in the summer every day, but now I can't even wear them. It's like a fuckin' Halloween costume. " He carried a hefty bag of feed over one shoulder with a cowboy hat tipped over his brow. The property holds family fixtures: a wooden table he handcrafted and a vintage red Ford F150 his grandfather bought in 1993. Bullet shells litter the outside of the trailer on his land, where he and his sister run their clothing (text cuts off in the provided context).

Why Rausch’s play stood out in the history of the show

Observers noted it is rare for a Traitor to dominate a season from start to finish without slipping up; one columnist compared Rausch only to Harry Clark from the 2024 U. K. season as an equally commanding Traitor. The show’s rules give Traitors control in many decisions: contestants can be removed by banishment at the round table, where a Traitor can try to control votes, or by murder, where the Traitors pick a Faithful to eliminate. Over many seasons, Traitors still win most of the time; an amateur tally by a Reddit commenter put the total at 44 wins out of 78 seasons aired. Even so, Traitors occasionally slip up, random votes at the round table can hit a Traitor, and Traitors sometimes turn on one another.

From Love Island tears to a calculated finale move

The writer who watched Rausch play the game said they had underestimated him, recalling his Love Island moment when he hid under a water feature in a pool while sobbing. On both shows he has been described as tall and attractive with a thick Alabama accent who wrangles snakes for a living and frequently wears overalls with nothing under them. In the finale’s round-table scene, that combination of charm, deceit and a face people want to believe helped him carry the game to its conclusion.

"Just a moment... " appears as a fragment in other coverage of the season and underscores how quickly trust can shift at the round table. The next confirmed event in the immediate schedule is unclear in the provided context.