Letterkenny’s Kelley Higgins was her ‘true authentic self’ on Traitors Ireland

Letterkenny woman and Traitors Ireland winner Kelley Higgins has said that she was able to be her “true authentic self” as a faithful on the hit reality show.

The 23-year-old Dublin City University Business graduate joined fellow winners Oyin  Adeyemi and Vanessa Ogbonna and finalists Nick O’Loughlin and Ben Donohue.

Faithful Kelley, along with 23-year-old model and gamer Oyin and 28-year-old content creator Vanessa, shared a total prize fund of €42,900, meaning €14,300 each. 

They successfully guessed that 30-year-old estate agent Nick and 33-year-old member of the Irish Defence Forces Ben were the remaining traitors left in the game.

Kelley, who is the daughter of Brian and Denise Higgins (Duffy), made it through 11 gruelling episodes to reach the final. Kelley was among the 24 players who entered Slane Castle, where three traitors were chosen by host Siobhán McSweeney in the first episode.

Each day, the group embarked on missions as they worked together to add more money to the potential prize pot of €50,000, which stood at €42,900 for the final.

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Then, at the evening round table, the contestants would debate and then vote off who they believed were traitors, with mixed results at best. The traitors were also permitted to murder some hopefuls and thus eliminate them from the game. Then, the final was where only two traitors and three faithfuls remained, meaning a series of votes until one team remained.

“I think when you’re a traitor, you kind of have to play a different sort of game and hurt people that you don’t mean to hurt,” said Kelley. “Obviously, you’re cautious of everything you’re saying, like we saw it with the boys. Even Ben had a few slip-ups that were easy to see.

“You’re just second-guessing everything you’re saying and just being so aware of it, whereas at least when you’re a faithful, everything you’re saying is your true, authentic self. So yeah, faithfuls for the win!”

Kelley has spoken out this week against hateful messages she has received online. The negative comments came after banished faithful Joanna Masiarek called the remaining women “mean girls” on her exit from the show. 

Kelley had voted to banish Joanna at the roundtable, despite Joanna gifting Kelley with a shield which protected her from being murdered by the traitors. Kelley has jokingly thanked Joanna for the shield as she revealed her vote.

“I’m never making a joke ever again!,” said Kelley. “That was a joke. Anyone who knows me knows that I laugh things off. The tension at that roundtable was insane and from my point of view, obviously, the edit shows it in a different way, but the roundtable was silent. 

“I was like, ‘Jo is going to think if I vote for her, it’s coming out of nowhere and I need to let her know I do think she’s a traitor’ and it’s so funny the amount of people who’ve said to me like ‘I understand it’s a joke and if you had of been right and you had got her, that line would be on t-shirts’.

“It’s just the fact we got it so wrong that obviously it came across so much worse. I don’t think I could have switched my personality that quick and gun for Jo for no reason and intentionally upset anyone. There was no malicious intent behind anything I said there and Jo knows that and that’s all that matters.”

Asked about how she has dealt with online comments, Kelley said: “That side of things is crazy because obviously coming from my background and my job I wasn’t in the public eye or anything like that. People in Donegal knew me but that was about it, it wasn’t the whole country by any means. 

“So just for people to be able to make those assumptions and especially because of some of the comments that were made and obviously the whole situation was just completely blown out of proportion. The mean girl comment as well - we have nothing but love for Jo, she’s amazing and we’re all the best of friends outside of it.”

Kelley also appeared on the Traitors Uncloaked after the final where she revealed to host Kevin McGahern that she managed to pay off her parents’ mortgage, as she promised she would do if she won the prize money

“I’m a woman of my word, no doubt about it,” said Kelley. “Turns out - and I didn’t know this - it was a whopping €50!”

Revealing how she managed to keep her appearance on the show a secret from friends and family, Kelley said: “To be honest it was kind of easy for me. I told them I was just going to work in Galway. None of my friends would believe that I would go off my phone for two weeks willingly and I couldn’t say I was going on a retreat because they wouldn’t believe that either, so I started planting seeds really early on.

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“My dad would challenge me, so I was like ‘girls, my dad has been saying I bet you like 200 quid you can’t go off your phone for two weeks and I was like you know what, I’ll take that bet!’ Now they think I’m €200 richer, little do they know it’s a little bit more than €200!”