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Janelle Pierzina and Dan Gheesling came into The Traitors season 2 with history from Big Brother. During season 14, which aired in 2012, Dan, 40, voted Janelle, 44, out early in the game even though they were close allies. Over ten years later, they’re both back on reality television on the hit Peacock series, which pits 21 reality stars/celebrities against each other in the ultimate game of deception.
In an exclusive interview with Hollywood Life, Janelle revealed that she went into The Traitors with no ill will towards Dan. In fact, she said she wanted to form an alliance with him right away in Scotland.
“I never have any hard feelings of anyone on any show that has voted me out of any game,” Janelle said. “That’s just how I play any game on TV. So when I saw him, I was actually super excited because I was like, oh my god, maybe we can have a new historic moment where I could be part of some sort of funeral with him.”
“So I was actually pretty stoked to see him and I really wanted to work with him,” she added.
Dan infamously dominated both Big Brother 10, which he won, and Big Brother 14, where he lost in the final jury vote to Ian Terry. Despite his reputation as a strategic mastermind on competition reality shows, Dan told Hollywood Life in his interview with Janelle that didn’t feel like an immediate target on The Traitors.
“I think I’ve been out of it for so long, for a decade, that all of these people on the cast with me, which was an incredible cast, no one really knew who I was, I felt, besides Janelle and Sandra [Diaz-Twine],” he explained. “So, I didn’t go in there with some delusion of grandeur that people are gonna know who I am and be afraid.”
“It was kind of a big benefit to not having played a lot,” Dan added. “But I was concerned that the few people that did know me in the game were gonna spread and really let the others in on the secret about what I’ve done in the past and how it could be dangerous to their game in ‘The Traitors.’
The first three episodes of The Traitors season 2 premiered Friday, January 12 on Peacock. New episodes drop Thursdays.