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On Wednesday night, Kirby Bentley was named winner of the rebooted The Traitors Australia, claiming a prize pot of $200,600. The former Australian Survivor contestant and AFLW player was an OG Traitor who maneuvered her way through the reality competition as her fellow Traitors – former Bachelor contestant Alex Nation, former MasterChef Australia contestant Alvin Quah and comedian Rhys Nicholson – were picked off by the Faithfuls.

Called a “parlour game sociopath” in the final episode, Kirby had to convince The Real Housewives of Sydney’s Krissy Marsh and former Bachelor contestant Keira Maguire – at the fire pit that she was a Faithful. Spoiler alert: She was not! Bentley talks to national TV editor Louise Rugendyke about her victory, what makes her such a good manipulator and which competition was harder: Australian Survivor or The Traitors?

Hello Kirby! How are you feeling now that it’s all over? It looked very stressful.

It’s been an incredible experience. The show is just so complex that when you’re watching it, you’re like, “That’s that’s so simple, and it’s so obvious”, but it genuinely isn’t. I’m really relieved [it’s over] because it’s a stressful game. It was a wild ride, and they’ve done a done an incredible job [with the edit].

The show was filmed at an historic estate, Castle Claremont, in New Zealand’s South Island. How long did the shoot take?

It was 12 days of filming, and I think 12 days is the maximum that I probably could have lasted, because the moral dilemma of the human in you starts to play a part, and I was a Traitor the whole time. And it’s not a comfortable position to be in, when everyone’s their authentic self as faithfuls – and we’ve all got trust issues – so it’s just a really bizarre experience.

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What were you thinking on that first night, when host Gretel Killeen was choosing the Traitors, and you felt her hand on your shoulder?

I genuinely wasn’t expecting it. I think I said to Gretel when she had asked if I wanted to be a Traitor, I was like, “If I’m a Traitor, I get to play the game and move the game the way that I need to as a Survivor person”, because there’s a reputation – “Survivor this, Survivor that” – that it has to be one of us [picked as a Traitor]. And I was like, “No, it doesn’t.” So when she selected me, I was so excited because if I wasn’t [picked], I would have been gone pretty early.

How much did being a former Survivor player affect the way you played, especially when you had so much heat on you early on?

In an ideal circumstance, where you don’t wear clothes that Kween Kong can hear [Kween said she could hear the rustle of Kirby’s jacket when Gretel tapped her on the shoulder], I would have liked to have played a little bit lower. But I just ended up just adapting to what the game was giving. And when Kween heard it [the jacket rustle], and told people, I was like, “Well, let’s not let it ruminate any more. Let’s just bite the bullet and get Kween gone, and we’ll deal with the repercussions the next day.” There’s so much paranoia around Faithfuls, but it worked out a lot easier than I thought it was going to. I play a really aggressive game in Survivor, and it’s really cutthroat. If anyone ever says my name, it’s “Let’s just get them gone” and create that fear. And I did the same in this, and it worked.

OK, Kirby, what is it about you that makes you so cutthroat? Why do you keep getting cast in these shows? I mean, you seem pretty nice to me.

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Well, there’s probably there’s another side of it. You don’t have people second-guessing themselves without the social aspect. So my biggest strength, it comes from my upbringing. I’m an Aboriginal girl. I grew up in a country town – white Australia, black Australia – I have learnt how to navigate those worlds, especially now as an adult in the corporate space.

But when I’m playing these games, I want to connect on your level. I want to know who you are on your personal level, and make you feel safe to be around me, and it’s all genuine. That way, then I know how to navigate myself around you if you decide to turn on me. I think Claudia said it at one stage, and it didn’t make the cut, but she said, “I think you’re a Traitor” and I was like, “I actually think you are as well. And these are my reasonings.” I’m laying it all out. So if I can address the person directly in a respectful way, it doesn’t hit the same as manipulation. Because I’m not trying to manipulate. I’m just leaning into you as a human.

Have you had people in your job or your family who are watching this and are now just going, “Kirby, can we trust anything you say or do?”

A lot of the people who know who I genuinely am at my core, know that I was a prankster. I had to have a safe word, and it was “honest”. Like if I say “honest”, I would never lie. But in my real world, I don’t like liars. I like my space to be safe. I like to know who the people around me are as well. So, it’s a very different world that I walk in my real life. And these games, it’s just like football. You step over that white line, and your best friend can give you the biggest hit or tackle or whatever, and it’s not personal. We step back over that line, and we’re still mates. We’re just representing our jumpers under a set of rules. So it’s the same sort of concept.

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You recruited Rhys as a Traitor, but in those last couple of episodes, things became quite tense between you – you wrote their nane down twice! – what’s your relationship with Rhys like now?

Nothing’s personal. Like in those moments, we are exhausted. I’ve been an OG Traitor from the start, and it hasn’t been easy. The heat’s been on me the entire game, so I’m trying to make decisions that – because I would have happily gone to the end with Rhys – and there were times where Keira and Krissy were off Reese, so I was like, “OK, cool, we can make this happen.” But then when they [Keira and Krissy] were back on them [Rhys], I was like, “Well, I need to make this happen for me because that’s what the game is about.” So it was very conflicting. I would like to think that Rhys is in my life forever, and I think a lot of our cast, if not nearly all of our cast, feel the same about each other because it’s just such a unique experience.

How much research did you do? Because it seemed like some contestants knew how to play the game but others (looking at you, Dicko!) seemed to think they were playing Survivor.

I made a point of watching them all [the international versions of The Traitors] just to be able to see if there are any patterns or styles of how to work your way through. And there is no formula. I think the complexities around it are personalities, experiences, exposure, pressure. All of those variables play a huge part in it. So you need to be adaptable, which is why your social game comes into play. So when you’re a safe person, when people freak out, they come back to you and they lean on you. I learnt that at a young age. But it works, and it’s worked really well for me in all the games that I’ve played.

What was more difficult, Survivor or Traitors?

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Traitors. But it’s different. I could easily sit on an island for 47 days, and there’s an element of trust and safety in your alliances, and you know what that looks like to a certain point. In this, as a Traitor, you don’t know if the Faithfuls are telling you the full truth, and they don’t even know what their full truth is. I don’t know if I could play as a Faithful in this game. It was hard enough as a Traitor, but they [Faithfuls] have no answers. There’s no such thing as evidence. It messes with your head on a different level.

You have to choose between Survivor All Stars and Traitors All Stars – what do you pick?

Oh, I’ve always said I would do a Survivor All Stars. But I think I need a break from it because I don’t think anyone would trust me anyway, and I wouldn’t last. The only reason I would do Traitors is if we were all returning Traitor players, and if it was a world one, so or like UK, US, Oz, all came together with Gretel hosting.

Well, I just hope everyone in your office is nice to you when you walk back in tomorrow morning…

Yeah, we’ll have to regroup, do a team building and an honesty and trust game [laughing]. We will figure it out!

The Traitors Australia is now streaming on 10Play.

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