Deontay Wilder says that taking part in The Traitors almost reduced him to tears because it brought up too much “childhood trauma”.
Back in 2022, the former world heavyweight boxing champion – best remembered for his thrilling trilogy of fights against Tyson Fury – took part in series two of America’s version of the must-see TV show currently captivating audiences across the UK, alongside, among others, former MP and Speaker of the House John Bercow. But after just three episodes, Wilder quit, citing personal difficulties.
The Bronze Bomber, 39, was a ‘faithful’ in the show, and struggled to cope after rallying the group in order to banish Dancing with the Stars alum Maksim Chmerkovskiy, who he’d grown close to, after suspecting that he was a traitor. It turned out that Chmerkovskiy was in fact a faithful, which devastated Wilder.
After the reveal, the boxer was seen lying on the sofa, visibly emotional. He was then heard saying to himself: “I don’t know how much more I can go on. My heart. I can’t do this no more.”
In a subsequent interview with Us Weekly, Wilder explained that he’d been surrounded by traitorous people all his life, and that the game had evoked a lot of painful memories for him. “I thought it was trying to figure out [who] were the traitors, and being that you have so many more faithfuls than the traitors, that it would be kind of easy to try to figure it out. But being on this show, it really struck some childhood trauma from me that I didn’t expect,” he said.
“Although my profession is ‘the hurt business’, as I call it. But as a man, as Deontay Wilder, as a person, I’m a loving, caring guy that I love everybody and I want to see everybody succeed in life. And I think you got the best of me being on the show.”
He also told Screen Rant that he’d have been better served as a traitor. “I’m a people person and I love people… we all need each other,” the athlete explained. “You get a lot of traitors in my profession, so I’m used that world… I think my background, my space of where I come from it [being a Traitor] fits me better.”
For those out of the loop, The Traitors is a game of deception, based on a Dutch series ‘De Verraders’, where two groups of contestants compete against one another to win a cash prize. The contestants are placed in a large house (in this case, a castle in the Scottish Highlands), at which point the host selects a small group to be the traitors.
Each episode, the traitors meet secretly and decide to ‘murder’ one of the faithfuls. Meanwhile, the entire group – consisting of faithfuls, and traitors posing as faithfuls – votes every episode to ‘banish’ one contestant they suspect is a traitor, with both murder and banishment resulting in immediate elimination.
Throughout, contestants work together on missions to earn money for the prize fund. The game is won when either all traitors or all faithfuls have been eliminated at the end of the series, with the prize money being divvied up between the remaining contestants.
Wilder is widely regarded as one of the greatest American heavyweights of the 21st century, and one of the hardest punchers in boxing history. He boats a professional record of 43 wins (42 by knockout) from 48 fights, and held the WBC heavyweight title between 2015 and 2020.
Get email updates with the day’s biggest stories
