Rob Rausch went from wrangling venomous snakes on an Alabama farm to walking away with the entire prize on Season 4 of The Traitors, the first Traitor to win the American version of the show since Season 1.
Long before reality TV, Rausch was building an unusual career that had nothing to do with cameras at all.
A Professional Snake Wrangler
Rob Rausch, born Robert Kelley Rausch in 1998 in Florence, Alabama, grew up on a farm and works professionally as a venomous snake wrangler across the southeastern United States, a job that’s taken him as far afield as Bali, Malta, and Algeria. He built a following of more than two million people on TikTok around that work well before reality TV entered the picture.
From Love Island’s Villain Edit to The Traitors
Rausch first appeared on Love Island USA during its Casa Amor stretch in Season 5, then returned for a bigger role in Season 6, where he was given a villain edit that made him one of that season’s more polarizing figures. That reputation, along with his physicality and card-reading instincts, made him a logical pull for a mega-cast Traitors season built around big personalities from across reality TV.
An Original Traitor Nobody Caught
Rausch entered Season 4 as an Original Traitor alongside Lisa Rinna and Candiace Dillard Bassett, and he was never once identified as a Traitor by the Faithfuls across the entire season. His closest bond in the game was with Maura Higgins, who trusted him completely, and he formed a separate trust alliance nicknamed “the Dagger” with Faithfuls Mark Ballas and Kristen Kish, neither of whom ever suspected him either. Midway through the season, Rausch gave Faithful Eric Nam an ultimatum: join him as a Traitor or be murdered. Nam accepted, and the two worked together to reach the show’s final three.
Cutting Nam Loose to Win It All
Rather than splitting the prize three ways, Rausch chose to cut Nam loose in the finale, a calculated move that left him and Higgins as the final two. He won the full $220,800 pot outright, the first time a Traitor had won the American version of the show since its first season. Rausch later gifted Higgins a roughly $22,000 Hermès Birkin bag as an apology for the betrayal that cost her the win, and he appeared on Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show to talk through the season shortly after it aired.