Why did Amanda leave Traitors? Her exit had nothing to do with the game
Amanda Clark-Stoner vanished from The Traitors US midway through season 1 in early 2023, with host Alan Cumming telling the remaining players only that she'd left "for reasons beyond her control."
The truth had nothing to do with banishments, murders, or strategy. She tested positive for COVID-19.
What happened
Amanda — an emergency room nurse from Carlisle, Pennsylvania — was playing as a Faithful, and playing well, when she disappeared in episode 5 without a ceremony or an explanation. Weeks after the season dropped in January 2023, she cleared it up herself on Instagram: despite being vaccinated, masking on her flights, and quarantining before and after arriving in Scotland, she caught COVID and was pulled from the game on the spot.
"It was like the rug got pulled out from underneath of me," she said in the Instagram video.
The irony wasn't lost on anyone: a nurse who worked the front lines of the pandemic, taken out of a game show by the virus.
The rumors she shut down
Two theories filled the silence, and she knocked down both:
- "She was pregnant" — false. She addressed it directly, noting she and her husband were only planning to start fertility treatments later.
- "She quit" — emphatically false. She insisted she was no quitter, and said she'd have hobbled around that castle on two broken legs before walking away voluntarily.
Did it change the game?
Arguably, yes. Amanda was one of the sharpest Faithfuls in a cast that mixed reality TV veterans with newcomers, and she left in 12th place with every Traitor still hidden. Traitor Cirie Fields went on to win the season and its $250,000 prize — an outcome a healthy Amanda might well have complicated.
Amanda said afterward that she had unfinished business at Ardross Castle and hinted at coming back for revenge. As of mid-2026, that return hasn't happened — though she did share bigger news in January 2025: she'd become a mom.