The game had only just begun, and with one murder already on the table the group were keen to exact revenge and swiftly take out one of the Traitors hiding in their midst.
After completing their first challenge, Olivia returned to her car to tell them of a shocking revelation that occurred after the challenge. According to Olivia, Jack had wrapped his arm around her shoulders and said something along the lines of “Who are we going to murder tonight?”.
Already on high alert, the rumour caught like wildfire and the entire group became convinced that Jack had to be a Traitor, and must have confused Olivia for Claire. With a nearly unanimous vote, Jack became the very first player to be banished, revealing to a shocked group that he had always been one of the Faithful.
“The words I said to Olivia were definitely misheard in the moment,” Jack told 10 Play. “I think the key word that was missed is this whole ‘we’ thing, there’s no real reason for me to say that as a Traitor, so I thought about what was actually said and, in my opinion, the words were more along the lines of ‘at least probably no one gets killed tonight’.
“There was certainly no ‘we’ in there because I wasn’t a Traitor,” Jack continued, “and if I was a Traitor I’m not silly enough to make that mistake and talk about things openly like that.”
Jack went into the first banishment having only really heard his name thrown out once at breakfast.
“To put it in perspective, people’s names were getting thrown out constantly so, for me to only hear it once meant that there were 23 good liars left in the game,” Jack added.
Completely unaware that Olivia’s rumour had spread throughout the house, Jack was unprepared to be confronted with a throwaway comment after the challenge. With it still being so early in the game, he also hadn’t formed any strong alliances with anyone who would offer up that information to him. When Olivia revealed what she thought had happened, Jack’s jaw dropped to the floor.
“I found it to be an impossible rumour to defend,” he said. “The natural response would be to backflip and derail Olivia in some way, but I had nothing on Olivia… I didn’t believe she was a Traitor whatsoever.”
Looking back on his short but sweet time in the game Jack said he wouldn’t have done anything differently.
“In the world of chess I’ve probably lost 100,000 games in my life and that’s why I’m good, that’s why I win tournaments because I’ve experienced losing and sometimes losing in a way where I have to take learnings about myself,” he said.
“I learned things about myself on the show and, some of those things were actually things that no, I wouldn’t change. I talk a lot, it’s my personality, I love conversing with people. I love leaving my walls down.
“At the end of the day, while I can lie and deceive, I like to talk a lot and most things that come out of my mouth are unfiltered truths. So I’m going to keep doing that because that’s who I am, that’s the way I live my life!”
As a massive fan of Survivor, Jack said heading into the banishment utterly unaware that his name was on the chopping block was bittersweet.
“I got my Survivor moment,” he added proudly, “I’ve loved growing up watching Survivor, seeing someone get amazingly blindsided - something that’s been kept under wraps - and have that moment of shock, and then be able to turn around and be a good sport about it.
“That’s one of the coolest things that’s ever happened to me, getting blindsided on a show. I can say that the first being banished in this show’s history, I’m going to look back at this very fondly.”
The Traitors continues Sunday - Tuesday at 7.30 on 10 and 10 Play on demand
