Traitors to trailblazer ‘I’M 50 AND UNSTOPPABLE!’

Cheating and lying on a TV show has taught Jill how to be true to herself

- Fiona Terry

Ask Jill Braithwaite what turning 50 has been like and she’ll say it’s been completely life-changing.

With her youngest daughter having left for university and her relationship of more than 30 years just ended, receptionist Jill was determined to seize life by the horns and show her two girls how empowering independence could be.

As an avid fan of reality TV, applying to be on the third series of Three’s popular show The Traitors NZ was among her first bold moves.

“It was surreal and so exciting to find out I’d been cast because it was a dream come true!” she exclaims. “I’ve always wanted to do reality TV, especially The Traitors. Watching it had been my form of escapism. Never in a million years did I think I’d be picked – I’m just a nobody, a mum with an ordinary job. I’m nothing extraordinary.”

Like all the contestants, Jill was committed to secrecy about being picked, but luckily filming coincided with the time she’d booked off work for a solo trip to a retreat in Thailand to celebrate her birthday.

“It was crazy because five days before flying to start filming, I’d moved house. It was the third time I’d moved after leaving our family home five months beforehand, so I almost didn’t end up taking up my place on The Traitors because everything felt so overwhelming.”