Dolores Catania has been a fixture of The Real Housewives of New Jersey since its earliest seasons, and Season 3 of The Traitors made her something no other Real Housewife had managed before: an actual winner of the show.
Her law-enforcement-adjacent public persona turned out to be exactly the right instinct for a game built entirely around detecting deception.
An Original Real Housewife of New Jersey
Catania has been an original cast member of The Real Housewives of New Jersey since the franchise’s first seasons, building a reputation over more than a decade on the show. NBC’s own promotional coverage of her Traitors casting leaned into her self-description as being “at heart, a cop,” a persona that framed her as a natural fit for the new game before she ever set foot in the castle.
Playing a Trusted Faithful Game
Catania played the entire season as a Faithful, building a core group of allies and steadily positioning herself among the more trusted, clear-eyed voices in the group as the Traitors were picked off one by one. She reached the finale as part of the surviving Faithful bloc and was part of the group that correctly banished the last Traitor, Britney Haynes, to end the game.
A Historic First for Bravo
That finish made her, alongside Dylan Efron, Gabby Windey, and Lord Ivar Mountbatten, part of the first four-Faithful win in the American series’ history, and multiple outlets specifically noted it made Catania the first Real Housewives personality, and more broadly the first Bravo star, to win The Traitors, a distinction that stood out given how many Bravo-verse cast members had already tried and failed across the show’s American run.
Life Now
Off the game, Catania has continued to be an outspoken commentator on both her own franchise and her Traitors experience, publicly defending castmate Dorinda Medley’s emotional reactions during the season by pointing out that emotions aren’t rational in the Housewife world. She has called her time on the show “the best experience of my life” in interviews, and has since weighed in publicly on which of her RHONJ castmates she thinks should be cast on a future Traitors season.