The Traitors Season 2: Janelle Pierzina and Dan Gheesling Tease Big Brother Reunion, and Drama and Tiffs to Come
Twenty-one reality TV and pro sports stars are about to participate in the diabolical second season of The Traitors, and for some its players, the competition will include some real blasts from the past. Luckily for former Big Brother houseguests Janelle Pierzina and Dan Gheesling, their reunion was far less dramatic than their Challenge and Survivor counterparts, despite Dan voting to evict Janelle on their last show together.
“I never blamed Dan for my eviction, ever,” Pierzina tells TVLine. “We always wanted to work together, so I was actually pretty pumped to see him because I was excited to start a new chapter. I was like, ‘Oh cool, we can work together.'”
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“There aren’t too many people from Big Brother that I keep in touch with and Janelle is one of them,” says Gheesling. “In my heart, I knew, she knew… we wanted to work together in Big Brother. And the other thing about her: She’s a competition beast, but she also gets the context of the game. When we left Big Brother, there was no bad blood, and I always appreciated that about Janelle. She can play the game, walk away and be like, ‘Yeah, it’s cool.’ We’ll just move on and talk about life.”
But not everyone will be able to cleanly separate game from personal life. When The Traitors returns (the first three episodes debut Friday at 9/8c on Peacock), Challenge veterans CT Tamburello, Johnny Bananas and Trishelle Cannatella will be under one roof again, in addition to beefing Survivor queens Sandra Diaz-Twine and Parvati Shallow. If that wasn’t enough to deliver the goods, four cast members from the Real Housewives franchise will also be partaking in host Alan Cumming’s devious game of lies and loyalty. (Meet the full cast here.) The you-know-what will hit the fan when the game’s collective Faithful try to sniff out and unmask the select few chosen to be the Traitors.
Whether Pierzina and Gheesling are on the same side of this battle remains to be seen, but both of them assure that plenty of drama is in store this season. And that’s just one of the reasons why the former is considered to be such a fan-favorite among reality TV circles.
“I mean, it’s me! Drama follows me on these shows,” says Pierzina with a smile. “I’m always involved in some sort of little tiff. You’ll see it.”
Mercedes “MJ” Javid, who hails from Bravo’s Shahs of Sunset, also gave us a sneak peek of what viewers are in for. “There were some jealous people — not women,” she says, “and what I thought was going to be an alliance coming in was actually the polar opposite. It was really interesting to watch it unfold and see how easily threatened certain people were by each other.”
Adds Gheesling: “I loved witnessing Janelle in action in a completely different environment, with a completely different cast. As a fan, it was so much fun to watch.”
While Pierzina participated in Season 22 of Big Brother (in 2020) in addition to USA Network’s Snake in the Grass (2022), it’s been a minute — 11 years, in fact — since we’ve seen Gheesling back on our screens. So what made the BB10 winner want to return to the reality fold?
“For me, it was a new, fresh game and I thought there’d be some big-time competitors in this cast,” he says. “The Traitors did not disappoint. When we got out of those Jeeps for the first time, Sandra [Diaz-Twine], Parvati [Shallow], Janelle… those are the three people I recognized right away being a fan of Survivor and Big Brother. What a cool experience to see all these different worlds collide. It was pretty amazing.”
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