Maura Higgins Faces Rob Rausch's Revelation in The Traitors Finale as $220,800 Prize Is Decided
maura higgins was left stunned in the season finale of The Traitors when Rob Rausch revealed he had been a Traitor all along, a confession that crystallized the outcome of a game playing toward a $220, 800 prize. The exchange marked the end of a season in which Rausch’s strategy and duplicity carried him to victory and spotlighted the show’s structural advantage for Traitors.
Maura Higgins at the round table
On Thursday night’s finale, the confrontation unfolded at the round table where two former Love Island contestants locked eyes. Maura Higgins, believing she and Rob Rausch might have engineered a shared win, joked, "I'm sorry, I'm a faithful, " only to be answered by Rausch’s astonished reaction—"Oh fuck"—and then his blunt confession: "Maura, I am and I always have been... a traitor. " The moment left Higgins visibly shocked, her expression described as light falling from her eyes and her mouth hanging open, underscoring how the reveal reversed her expectations in an instant.
Rob Rausch on his Florence, Alabama farm
Days before the finale aired on NBC, Rausch, 27, was on his family’s 200-acre land in Florence, Alabama, showing elements of his private life: feeding cows at a gate, mooving back at the herd and pointing out a spotted favorite named Darlin’—the only cow that does not tip her horns forward and rush the gate. He wore a canvas jacket, light-wash jeans and cowboy boots instead of the denim overalls associated with his Love Island USA season six persona. On the property he pointed out a wooden table he handcrafted, a vintage red Ford F150 his grandfather bought in 1993, and bullet shells outside the trailer where he and his sister run their clothing enterprise.
Rob Rausch’s game: double-crossing Eric Nam
Rausch’s on-screen arc culminated in a win described as the product of sustained deception: strategizing, sneaking around and being consistently duplicitous. He recruited Eric Nam as a Traitor and later double-crossed him, a choice Rausch defended by asking rhetorically whether he would let a Traitor who had been in the game for three days beat him. "Hell no, " he said, declaring his intention to "get out of here with the money. " That decision, he acknowledged, produced mixed feelings at the finish—victory that felt bittersweet even as it secured his place as the last-standing Traitor.
The Traitors round table rules and stakes
The show’s structure amplifies the Traitors’ power: contestants leave either by banishment at the round table, where Traitors can attempt to sway votes, or by murder, in which Traitors have full control over eliminations. The program’s advertised jackpot can be up to a quarter million dollars; this season’s finale landed on a final award of $220, 800. That split between potential maximum and actual payout reflects the game’s internal calculations and the Traitors’ ability to influence outcomes.
Reputation, past shows and legacy comparisons
Rausch’s performance drew attention because it resembled a near-flawless Traitor run; commentators compared him to standout players like Harry Clark from the 2024 U. K. season. Rausch is already known to reality audiences from Love Island, where he once hid under a water feature while sobbing; he is described as tall and good-looking with a thick Alabama accent and works as a snake wrangler. He frequently presented himself on-screen in overalls with nothing underneath. Even after the finale, he says he remains "super tight" with both Eric Nam and Maura Higgins, a claim that underscores the peculiar social aftermath of the game.
What makes this notable is how a single confession at the round table—enabled by a game design that hands Traitors decisive levers—can transform trust into the mechanism that produces the final outcome. The finale’s Thursday-night reveal, Rausch’s admitted betrayal and the $220, 800 award together closed a season in which calculated deceit determined who walked away with the money.
