When Celia Imrie farted on The Celebrity Traitors, she further endeared herself to the British public, truly claiming national treasure status. But she also won over Hollywood Jade, who’s currently competing on the third season of The Traitors Canada.
The newest season of the Canadian variety of the popular reality show started airing on Tuesday (21 October) night and saw 22 contestants enter the Manoir Rouville-Campbell in Quebec hoping to win up to $100,000.
Jade, a dancer and choreographer who has also appeared on and judged Canada’s Drag Race, is one of several delightful queer faces on this season. There’s also Kitten Caboodle, also of Canada’s Drag Race fame, Jamal Alexander, and the (secret) couple Cagla and Meredith Baktiroglu.
Kevin Jacobs and Coco Belliveau were picked as the series’ traitors in the opening episode of the series, which Jade has promised PinkNews is going to be “epic.”
Going back to Imrie and her wind, Jade can empathise. “I was like, ‘it’s real.’ You just got to let the fear out. I love it.” A long-time fan of the show, having watched the US, UK, and Australian versions of the show, Jade was keen to take part and feels his experience matched his expectations.
“As a cast we entered the show and everybody wanted to play the game,” he says, clearly not the only fan. “Everybody showed up to work and as a result of that, the energy that it creates is going to make really excellent TV.”
Though with a cast comprised of various celebrities, reality stars, and members of the public there was a mix of energies entering the manor. And Jade is positive he’s created some “magical moments.” He continues, “I am an energy and I bring my entire entity and energy to everything that I do. So, there are definitely moments. I think I have some pretty good TV moments.”
He then shares that “[The producers] said it in no uncertain terms that this might be one of the best casts they’ve ever assembled because we kept moving the wheel forward. In fact, they had to be like, ‘Wait, guys! We’re not there yet.’ We were so amped to go. We understood the assignment.”
Strategising on a game like The Traitors is useless given you don’t know what role you’ll have or who you’ll be playing with. As such, Jade did some prep but ultimately realised the futility of it. And despite trying to manifest being made a traitor (“to the point where in all of my audition videotapes, I intentionally was like, ‘I’m the villain. I’m the drama’) Jade remains, currently, a faithful.
It’s been noted in other series and versions of the game, that queer players have been banished quite quickly There was Bob in the third US season, Peppermint the season before. Though, in the UK’s last season Leanne Quigley won.
Asked if bias, unconscious or not, plays a part in the game, Jade hails the show as “a reflection of society,” before discussing how the queer representation on his season brought “some comfort.” This is because “it’s not gonna be a bunch of bros in here that I’m going to have to defend and explain myself to trying to get them to understand why I deserve to stay.”
He continues, “I don’t really think that comes up much in our season this year, which is great because it is a true reflection of Canadian society. We are really diverse and there’s a lot of different diverse representation within the queer community. I think there being so many of us helped it not feel like ‘get the gays out,’ which sometimes it does.” Finally Jade shares, “My greatest fear entering was going home first. Nobody wants to be the Pork Chop.”
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