Peacock’s “The Traitors” so far has largely cast from the reality TV world like “Survivor,” “Big Brother,” “Love Island” and the “Real Housewives” franchise.
But the buzzy show, which pits Traitors vs. Faithful in a moody Scottish castle, always plucks a handful of wild cards: a British aristocrat, a loud actor, an Olympic skater (or two) and even the mom of NFL athletes in Donna Kelce.
Season 4, which just concluded, cast K-pop star Eric Nam, a household name in South Korea who actually grew up in metro Atlanta and graduated from the Lovett School in 2007.
Quiet, sweet and unassuming, Nam was a solid Faithful who threatened no one, even when he occasionally threw out possible Traitor candidates. Good ol’ Alabama boy and Traitor Rob Rausch (“Love Island”) recruited Nam late in the game to be a Traitor, figuring Nam was too nice to ever turn against him.
Credit: Euan Cherry/PEACOCK
Credit: Euan Cherry/PEACOCK
Rausch was right. Instead, Rausch turned against Nam in the final moments of the game to take home the entire pot of $220,800 for himself.
This was not exactly a shocker — Rausch had already burned Traitors Lisa Rinna and Candiace Dillard Bassett, so why not Nam?
In an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution a few days after the season finale, Nam admitted he was taken by Rausch’s charm, friendship and keen ability to lie.
“He told me Candiace and Lisa were so mean and awful to him,” Nam said. “I believed him because I take things at face value. If you tell me you’re hungry, I believe it.”
Credit: Euan Cherry/PEACOCK
Credit: Euan Cherry/PEACOCK
Ultimately, Nam said it was hard to deny Rausch played a great Traitor game and earned the victory.
“It was crazy!” Nam said. “People trusted him so much! If I brought his name up, people would snap at me. Maura (Higgins) and Dorinda (Medley) would yell at me. Literally nobody thinks he’s a Traitor? As a Faithful, if I say his name too much, I’d get murdered.”
Nam said Rausch recruited him to be a Traitor just as his suspicions of Rausch were rising: “Off camera, after I became a Traitor, he asked if anyone thought he was a Traitor. I said I did! He was very relieved he had recruited me.”
Credit: Griffin Nagel/Peacock
Credit: Griffin Nagel/Peacock
At the same time, by that point in the game, Nam was ready to go home. “I was so tired emotionally and physically,” he said. “We’d been there for weeks! I wasn’t mentally prepared to become a Traitor at that late in the game. This is exhausting!”
It also doesn’t help that the players are kept perpetually disoriented. “Everybody is paranoid,” Nam said. “Everyone is second-guessing everything. Everything is a trick. Everything is a stab in the back. From a viewer’s perspective, we don’t seem very smart, but on the flip side, it’s a really hard game to play.”
Despite Rausch’s betrayal and missing out on $110,400, Nam has no regrets about doing the show after some initial reservations.
Now a South Korea resident, he ultimately signed on to “The Traitors” to broaden his appeal in his home country beyond core K-pop fans.
Mission accomplished, he said: “I achieved my goal. I wish the end was slightly different, but it was a fun ride.”
Credit: Ryan Fleisher
Credit: Ryan Fleisher
Nam, now 37, grew up in Duluth in the 1990s and 2000s with immigrant Korean parents, who now own a successful insurance brokerage agency. Not surprisingly, his mom, Sue Nam, discouraged him from pursuing singing as a career.
“I sang in the Atlanta Boys Choir in fourth or fifth grade,” Nam said. “Singing was my passion. My mom discouraged me. I had to study and go to college.”
He went to Boston College and graduated with a degree in international studies with a job lined up at Deloitte. Instead, he joined a singing competition show in South Korea in 2011 that was very much like “American Idol.” He came in fifth and received a record deal in South Korea.
So Nam stayed in the country, became fluent in Korean and found fame as a pop star. He also hosted popular TV shows, launched podcasts and started a wellness app. He grew his international following, even landing on the Music Midtown lineup in Atlanta in 2021.
“I became very comfortable in front of a camera, and that led me to ‘Traitors,’” Nam said.
To celebrate his time on the show, Nam recorded a song about betrayal called “How the Fire Started” and released a video Tuesday featuring Rausch and Higgins along with several other “Traitors” cast members.
“Rob said it was the least he could do for me,” Nam said. The Western-themed video features a vengeance element against Rausch and also gives Rausch an excuse to show off his buff body.
“It was a great way to wrap up this season and the stories and friendships that we made,” Nam said.
iF YOU WATCH
“The Traitors,” available on Peacock
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