'Trust Is A Trap, I Did Fall Into It': Anshula Kapoor On Being Betrayed By Elnaaz Norouzi In The Traitors

New Delhi: As the gripping first season of The Traitors approaches its highly anticipated finale, the competition has taken a dramatic turn with the elimination of five contestants this week. Anshula Kapoor, Janvee Gaur, Elnaaz Norouzi, Sufi Motiwala, and Jannat Zubair have all exited the reality show, which is hosted by filmmaker Karan Johar.

With only a few episodes left before the final reveal, tensions in the game have reached new heights. Among the most talked-about exits was that of Anshula Kapoor, who reflected on her experience navigating trust and betrayal in the high-stakes psychological competition.

Speaking after her elimination, Anshula opened up about the emotional and mental challenges of playing as one of the “faithful” contestants. “When you're in the middle of playing that game, specifically if you're in the middle of playing that game as an innocent, you don't have as much information as possible the traitor does,” she said. “You're constantly just trying to play the game on the basis of gut instinct and on the basis of your analysis of behaviour patterns.”

One of the most surprising revelations for Anshula was discovering that fellow contestant and close ally Elnaaz Norouzi had been a traitor all along. “I was in complete disbelief about the fact that she's a traitor. And I may have mentioned it to her a couple times that we should be looking at you,” Anshula admitted. “Elnaaz has played the best game possible. I mean, right now when you're watching Traitors, she for me is the most entertaining person to watch. And that's simply because the way she played all of us as innocent, especially the way she played me, I feel where I I totally felt like she was gullible while I was in the show, but now watching it, I can see how gullible I was. Yes, trust is a trap. I did fall into it.”

Trust, it seems, was a recurring theme for Anshula, especially considering her close bond with fellow contestant and real-life aunt, Maheep Kapoor. “I also did enter the show with somebody I knew very well from the outside world, my own aunt. And of course, there was an entire layer of trust where she is concerned. But we decided pretty early on in the game itself, I think on the second day after the traitors, before the traitors were chosen actually, that we will look at each other with as much emotional distance as we have to if we have to analyze each other as being traitors,” she said.

Despite the emotional toll, Anshula emphasised how difficult it was to detach from people she’d formed bonds with in the house. “It is a high pressure situation. And it is also an environment where you're constantly just trying to look for faults with other people. Like that crack in the armor to understand maybe logically why they could be the traitor in that sense. So if you do find that trust or that camaraderie in somebody, it gets difficult to distance yourself from them.”

The season finale of The Traitors is scheduled to premiere on Thursday, July 3 at 8 PM on Prime Video, where the true identities of the remaining traitors will finally be revealed. Episodes 1 to 9 are currently available for streaming.