Alex Duggan

**Alexandra "Alex" Duggan** is a Recruited Traitor and the winner of *The Traitors (Australia)/Season 1*.

Alex played her dual roles as Faithful and Traitor impeccably; as a Faithful, she had a knack of knowing where the majority vote was, maintaining a low profile and key alliances that ensured she was targeted by neither Traitors nor fellow Faithfuls. This seeming anonymity made her an apparently ideal Recruitment target for Traitors Marielle Intveld and Nigel Brennan, who thought she could be easily Banished down the road. As a Traitor, Alex adopted a more cutthroat gameplay while successfully maintaing her prior unassuming profile, playing an instrumental role in Marielle and Nigel's Banishments. While others eventually tried to have her eliminated, she was never the biggest target, a position aided by her acting skills. Her alliance with Craig Carr proved instrumental in allowing her to walk away as sole winner of the prize fund.

## Profile

*Retrieved from 10 play:*

A social media coordinator, Alex admits she’s “sassy and bossy with a dark sense of humour”. She’s also a model who accidentally found herself as a national finalist in the 2019 Miss Universe competition when she applied on an impulse. She says: “It was not something I planned to get into. I definitely stumbled upon the opportunity and thought I had nothing to lose but time and it opened up a lot of doors in terms of the fact, it gave me friends across the world and gave me opportunities to explore the more glamorous side of modelling”.

Alex hopes her modelling background will help her through the game and that her fellow players will think she’s just a pretty face and not see the strategy underneath the glamorous exterior saying: “I want people to believe I’m a gentle, sweet and bubbly soul, and I don’t want them to know that underneath my sweetness, I’m actually cutthroat”.

Playing the game of *The Traitors* is not daunting to Alex and she’s excited to take risks that she wouldn’t normally take in real life. She also believes she has the skills to play the game hard. She says: “I think I’ll be good at this because I’m very good at reading people. I feel it’ll be a lot about relationships and connections which I’m good at. I’m also quite good at detecting liars so hopefully I can tell who is not being themselves”.

## Gameplay

Alex's strategy as a Faithful was to deliberately fly under the radar and be thought of as unassuming by other players, all the while playing to position herself firmly in the majority - which she ended up being in throughout the whole course of the game. Her strong alliances with many key players ended up helping her game as well, such as those with the majority makers in the Faithfuls who never ended up targeting her; Craig Carr, who was influential in another key alliance of male contestants; and fellow Adelaidean (and secret Traitor) Marielle Intveld. This allowed her to survive as the Traitors went after more obvious threats, and the Faithfuls after those who were more suspicious.

When Marielle and Nigel Brennan were offered an opportunity to replenish the Traitors' ranks, they wrongly assessed that Alex would be a player they could easily influence before later eliminating to pave the way for their endgames. Though initially surprised to see Marielle, Alex was a quick learner who managed to not break character even when the group was thrown into chaos and accusations at Breakfast, after Rodger announced that one of the Faithfuls had been Recruited. The Traitors then decided to Murder Fi McKay for being an obvious Faithful and an influential force in the group dynamics.

When Kate Williams and Teresa Newton exposed Marielle for allegedly lying about Fi's final words, they concocted a plan to blindside Marielle at the next Banishment. Alex was happy to jump on board, especially with her newfound knowledge on how quick Marielle and Nigel were to turn on their fellow Traitors Angus McNicol and Claire Sawyer. She warned Nigel that she would also be voting Marielle out, as a way of maintaining some goodwill with him while drawing a clear line, successfully masquerading herself as part of the Faithfuls.

As some whispers began to surface about Nigel during the next round, Alex was quick to feed the flames and give them a talking point they could latch on to - that only the Traitors (including Nigel and everyone else who was already Banished) tried hard during the first Shield Challenge. Nigel recognised his impending doom after he lost the Shield Challenge to Lewis Wren, but could do little to avoid his fate except try and deflect the vote to Teresa - with no success.

A wrinkle was thrown into Alex's game when she was forced by Production to Recruit another Traitor two rounds before the game ended. She chose Kate, whom the others long distrusted and had few allies left despite being considered a strong player. Out of the contestants left on Death Row, they Murdered Paul McNeill, whom they were least close to and was part of the male alliance's core remnants. Kate in turn tried to get the others to target Alex, noting how little her name had been brought up, but that was not a compelling enough argument as Teresa went home after being dogged with suspicions throughout the game. Alex channelled the emotions she felt into a display that convinced most of the others she was just an innocent Faithful.

During the final Mission, Alex overcame her well-publicised fear of heights to help the group secure the full prize fund. Kate and Lewis again tried to get Alex targeted, but Craig was close to Alex that this was not a viable option, and Lewis went home instead. Alex and Kate were so distrustful of each other that even though they made an apparent agreement to end the game and split the prize fund, neither kept their promises and instead tried to get Craig on their side. Kate was checkmated in the endgame, casting the only Banishment vote Alex received in the entire game before just falling short of the prize. At the end, Alex was so overwhelmed that she could not bring herself to tell Craig she was a Traitor, only shaking her head as the realisation slowly dawned upon a heartbroken Craig. Alex won the whole A$250,000, which she would use for in-vitro fertilisation to start a family with her girlfriend.

## Trivia

Alex:

* Is the first Faithful from *The Traitors (Australia)* to be Recruited as a Traitor.
* Is the first contestant of Asian descent to win any version of the show.
* Is the first contestant on any version of the show to achieve a solo win.
* Is the only contestant from her season to vote in the majority every single round.
* Is the first Traitor to successfully voting out the most Traitors - five.