Why Did Amanda Leave The Traitors Season 1?

Based on the Dutch series of the same (translated) name, "The Traitors" debuted on Peacock in January 2023 and quickly joined the ranks of the best reality TV shows of all time. It follows a group of contestants who have to compete in a series of challenges in a Scottish castle in the hopes of winning a large cash prize — though as it always goes with reality competitions, there's a twist. In this case, there are a group of contestants who have been secretly informed that they are the titular traitors, and must make it their mission to eliminate the other players in order to win the prize for themselves while not revealing who they are.

In Season 1 — which provided some reality TV moments that were better than scripted television as well as a storyline we never got to see — there were 20 contestants, four of whom were traitors. One of the non-traitors, which the show refers to as the faithful, was a woman named Amanda Clark-Stoner, a nurse from Pennsylvania. She made it to the fifth episode before she voluntarily left the show, with the contestants and the audience only initially being told, "Amanda has had to leave the castle for reasons beyond her control." Nothing else was said about it for several weeks, leaving it open to speculation by viewers and the media. 

After having heard rumors about her departure that included her being pregnant, as well as that she simply decided to quit, Clark-Stoner finally decided to clear the air on social media. Near the end of January 2023, she explained on Instagram that she was not pregnant — and in fact, that her and her husband planned to start fertility treatments soon — nor did she just quit the show for the sake of quitting.

According to Clark-Stoner, the truth behind her departure just five episodes into Season 1 of "The Traitors" is that she had tested positive for COVID-19. She also insisted that she had taken every necessary precaution to prevent that from happening, including getting vaccinated, wearing a mask on her flight to Scotland, and quarantining before and after the trip. Choosing to look on the bright side of an unfortunate situation, she said that she at least didn't get eliminated by the traitors or voted off by the faithful, which is more than the majority of "Traitors" contestants are able to claim.