Tara Lipinski Says She Nearly Quit ‘The Traitors’ to Save Natalie Anderson: 'That Was the Hardest Part' (Exclusive)

The Traitors Season 4 has arrived! Throughout the season, Mike Bloom will speak with someone from the star-studded cast who was murdered or banished on the iconic Peacock reality series.

Tara Lipinski has made a career out of keeping her balance on the most precarious ice. But it’s safe to say she got quite spun around on The Traitors. The gold medalist came into the season in arguably one of the best spots, joined by fellow Olympian and incredibly close friend Johnny Weir. However, the two decided to keep their bond a secret to avoid becoming public enemies number one and two. And so they skated largely under-the-radar for the first half of the game, trying (and struggling) to successfully find Traitors.

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Their routine changed, however, once Johnny was targeted as a Traitor due to his close relationship with Candiace Dillard Bassett. Feeling the heat, the two decided to come clean about how close they were, clearing each other as Faithful. With her bestie out of the line of fire, Tara then redirected her suspicions onto Rob Rausch. And for someone who outright said, “I’m so bad at this,” it turned out she was right on the money. Waking up and choosing violence, she went to Natalie Anderson with her theories. And, after squabbling over an antidote at the “Black Banquet,” the two decided to work together to take the Love Island star down.

Going into the Round Table, it had all the makings of a power shift that made Natalie a Survivor champ. Unfortunately, the ice skater got cold feet. Tara and Johnny chose to back off of targeting Rob, which instead shone a spotlight on Natalie. The Survivor winner was blindsided and incensed, accusing Tara of “taking advantage” of her. Despite the Round Table leaving her emotionally distraught, Tara and Johnny had to keep their eyes on the prize: Swaying Maura Higgins to their side to take out Eric Nam. Going into the vote, Tara was confident she had made a successful pitch, laying the path for them to take down Eric and Rob and secure a win for the Faithful. But, ironically, it was Maura also relenting on a vote that spelled doom for Tara’s game. She chose to side with the Traitors, taking down Johnny and Tara in the process. It’s only fitting that the “skating twins” left one after the other, representing their hand-in-hand journey in this game.

Now out of the game, Natalie talks with Parade about her reaction to Tara and Johnny turning on her (and where they stand now), her relationship with Rob and how it changed

Related: Everything to Know About The Traitors Season 4

What made you so confident that Maura was on your side going into the final Round Table? And what was your reaction when that turned out not to be the case?
I would say I was 100% confident — naively, clearly. But I had a lot of talks with her, and she was all in. She’s like, “Eric’s gonna be so surprised that I do this. This is insane.” But yes, we got this together, because I told her, “What’s most important is Johnny and I get to the end game. And that there’s no way I will ever throw in for you. Whatever the situation is. I promise. I’ve never voted for you. I will never vote for you.” And I thought we had it. So I went back to Johnny like, “We just won the game. We have it.”

And I was very surprised at the Round Table. I had no idea. Een walking into it, it felt like we were on the same page. And obviously, again, it’s a game. But I gave it one more try. I was a little less sure at this point after the Round Table, but I still thought maybe there was a 50/50 shot [at the “Fire of Truth”]. Because she did seem to be on the fence a bit. And with me openly talking about things, it wasn’t like, “Oh, just shut down. I’m not going there.”

So I really thought when I looked at her, she could see it. Especially since I played the game, obviously crying all the time, and so vulnerable and sort of transparent. I was like, “She’s got to know that I’m so serious on this that she’s gonna come my way.” But the hardest part was walking away. I wasn’t upset. I was just knowing what was to come. And I thought, “Oh, this is going to be heartbreaking.”

Well, let’s talk about how we got to that point. From our perspective, it seemed like the round before, you woke up and talked with Natalie about targeting Rob. But, by the Round Table, you had backed off of doing so. So what prompted you to ultimately choose not to go forward with the plan?
Well, this is an hour show, so you can’t put in everything that happens inside the show. That day, I was onto Rob. But I made it clear, and I think there were several lines they put in about how, “I don’t think that this was the night we should do it. We should do it tomorrow.” I also thought that maybe there was a “Bonnie and Clyde” type moment. Before I really honed in on Eric, we thought possibly it could be Maura. So I was also talking a lot about that that day. And Natalie and I went to Maura, as they showed. And we got nowhere there, obviously.

And then Johnny went to Eric and came back and reported that, “Oh my goodness. There is a huge alliance between Mark, Eric, Maura and Rob to take Natalie out with the Dagger.” And so there was no Eric. And then I went to Mark. And they didn’t show the whole conversation. But I bluntly asked, “Will you commit? If we do this, will you commit?” And he didn’t.

So I personally went to Natalie before the Round Table and told her, “It is a no-go. I am not doing this.” Because I didn’t want her to be surprised at the Round Table. And so I said, “We don’t have the votes. It’s three against five.” We needed either Mark or we needed Eric, [because] Maura was definitely not going there. And Eric was a Traitor, so he wasn’t going to go there. But we needed Mark or Eric at the time. And I said, “Yeah, we don’t have the votes.” And so everything seemed fine.

So then what was your reaction to everythingthat went down at the Round Table, considering Natalie accused you of “taking advantage” of her?
These Round Tables are so long and intense. So everything was kind of fine at the Round Table in the beginning. I voiced right away, “I’m sitting back.” Just because I think, for strategy for Johnny and I, we really were going strong a few Round Tables. We got Stephen wrong, and we knew if we kept doing that, if we weren’t going to go for Rob with the numbers, and we kept doing that with someone else, if we went after Maura and she was a Faithful, that would really bring suspicion on us.

So when all of a sudden the heat came for Natalie at the table, I respect her gameplay. It was probably the really smart thing to do of, “Okay, I need to now throw something out here and really distract this intention.” And so, for me, I was actually surprised, because I had gone to her before. I was like, “Wait a minute. What? I’m definitely not voting for you. What are we doing? Let’s figure out what we’re doing tonight.” But I get it. When heat’s on you, it’s a very intense feeling in the Round Table, and it’s almost like, “What do I do? How do I survive?”

So I realized that it was just coming at me. But at that same time, I knew we didn’t have the votes, and I knew she was so angry that she was either going to vote for me or Johnny at that point. And it was really hard, because, especially the way I played, I’m not a real reality star, and I don’t really care to be. There’s never a point where I want to be a character. I just want to be myself authentically. And there was a part of me that was like, “Oh, should I just forfeit the game and try to save her?” Obviously it would be the worst gameplay ever, but to jump in for her.

And that was the hardest part, because the boat was sinking at that point. And I felt like, for myself to play with integrity, being able to tell her before the Round Table and all that, I feel like I did my best. And that’s why, I think, though, watching her get emotional, it’s hard. You create relationships, and you don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. So I think that’s why it was very overwhelming for me afterwards. Because I am a competitor, but I also obviously want to play and know that these are my friends I’m playing with. So there were certain boundaries for me.

But at that point, for gameplay, it would have been over for us. If we just randomly did that with the way that we had no one on board for the votes, it would have been three against five. And it’s hard. You never know what could happen. Maybe if the table really swung and Mark changed his mind and voted for Rob there, that could have unfolded that way. So you never know which combination. But in the moment that was what we had to do. It was so hard.

Well, let’s talk about a far-less complicated relationship: Johnny. Talk to me about how you were able to navigate keeping your friendship a secret for so long. Were you surprised more people didn’t know?
Yes, we never expected that. We thought we would probably be going home very early, just because we were a duo and an alliance. And of course, you’re going to be targeted at that point. And you saw, once we came out of our about our friendship, we were a target. All the talk about, “Oh, if Johnny’s a Traitor, then he’s recruiting Tara.” All of that converesation started happening. But thank goodness it was later in the game and we were able to stick it out for long enough to get to the end and try to really go for a swing for it.

But I think we thought going in, either someone’s gonna know, follow our socials, know how close we are, and there’s no secret. Or they just don’t know, and they don’t follow figure skating, and they don’t know that we’re that close. And we had our go-to lines of, “Oh, we know each other. We’re both in the same sport. But Tara won very early, and I started much later, so we were in different generations. And I live on the East Coast, and Tara lives on the West Coast. We work together sometimes.” We would just kind of phrase it like that. And we just thought, hopefully they would think that we were part of the same sport, but just competitive people that wanted to play their own games. And I think that kind of worked for us for a while.

You mention at the beginning of the finale the difficulty you had in playing with your head versus your heart. And you talked before about the number of times you would get emotional in the castle. Did it surprise you to be so invested, considering how many times you’ve mentioned it’s a game?
Yes! I watched Season 3 before I left, and I was like, “Guys, why are you crying? Pull it together. What is happening? It’s a game. It’s so easy.” But when you’re in that castle, it doesn’t feel like a game anymore. You’re spending a month of your life there, and you’re isolated, and you’re making friends with people and forming real relationships.

And obviously, at this age and phase of my life, forming relationships and playing the game also with integrity was important to me. Johnny and I are not reality stars. We come from a different background, where I just wanted to play authentically. So it really was emotionally taxing to kind of switch on the heart and mind. Especially when you’re in a competition, because we’re athletes, so we want to be competitive. But I think for me, there were just certain boundaries that I set for myself. If my daughter watches this and sees her mom on TV playing this game, I want her to be proud of the way that I played. And so that was important to me.

Related: Mark Ballas Reveals Why He Backed Down From Voting Rob Out on ‘The Traitors’ (Exclusive)