'I was genuinely myself,' the winner of the $100,000 prize tells ET.
ALERT! The winner of The Circle has been chosen. Do not proceed unless you have binge-watched all 12 episodes of the popular Netflix series.
Circle, open circle chat. The winner of the reality competition show (and most-liked player of the game) is... Deleesa, aka Trevor! *Send message*
ET exclusively spoke with Deleesa about what it was like catfishing as Trevor (her real-life husband) and ultimately winning the $100,000 prize. She also explained whether she took any tips and tricks from watching other versions of The Circle, and why playing the game as a guy was her strategy for success.
"I've watched every single season of every other country. I've watched them all, but that didn't make me determine my game plan in any way," Deleesa told ET's Ash Crossan. "That was strictly just me trying to figure out what works for me, because everybody's different. Everybody's going to have a different experience, a different idea of how they want to play the game. It's fun to see how everything turned out for everybody else, but I definitely didn't take anything away from anybody else's game at all."
As for what made her want to play as Trevor, Deleesa revealed that she originally intended to go in as herself... but decided that a version of her personality mixed with her husbands would get her even closer to the finals.
"I do have a bubbly personality and in real life I get along with anybody. I can go to the bar, I can be cool and have fun with anybody at all," she said. "However, when I look at my life and I look at how situations played out with groups of female friends versus Trevor and his group of guy friends, I just think my personality -- and combining with a little bit of his -- would just have gotten me further in the game, and it did."
"I think if I would've came in as a girl, instantly girls look at other girls sometimes as threats. There's just a lot of cattiness that can go on and people misconstrue certain things," she continued. "So that's kind of how I came up with the idea, like, 'You know what? I want to go as a guy. Guys aren't involved in gossip as much. It would just be a little bit easier for me.'"
Deleesa told ET that she did get her husband's approval before joining the show, and tried to play the game as her authentic self as much as possible.
"Me and Trevor spoke about it. He was just like, 'You got this, babe,' because he's literally the most supportive person ever," she gushed. "And I don't think I lied about anything. My personality was me. It was all me, I was just using Trevor's face. I had to use his face and I had to just be a male, but my personality was me. I was genuinely myself."
ET also spoke with season 2 runner-up Chloe, who formed a special bond with "Trevor" in The Circle. As fans saw on the show, the former Too Hot to Handle star clearly had a crush on who she thought was an attractive gentleman named Trevor. Needless to say, she was obviously shocked when she learned Deleesa had been catfishing as him all along!
"I was sitting in that room, waiting for Trevor to come down. I was just like, 'I just want to get it over and done with because I've been driving myself crazy for the past three weeks,'" Chloe recalled. "I had been overthinking and having really deep, genuine connections and chats with Trevor. And then I think towards the end, I kind of said to myself, 'No, do you know what? He's got to be real because things just don't add up if he wasn't real.' Like, the conversations we've had, they're just so genuine.' Then at the end [when we met] I was like, 'Wow.' I didn't know what to do. What do I say? I was shocked, but I wasn't angry."
Chloe revealed that despite "Trevor" not being who she thought he was, her and Deleesa do talk from time to time now. At the end of the day, they will always have each other's back, just like they did in The Circle.
"Me and Deleesa did have a FaceTime the other day and it was nice to just jump back on that wave of feeling like we are friends. And we are friends. It is genuine. It's not fake," Chloe shared. "I'm not talking to her just because we've been on a show together. She's a really nice person to know and someone to confide in if I ever needed any advice."
"And I'm glad that she's a woman," she added, "because if I have any problems or issues or boy drama, I can just give her a call and be like, 'Babe, help me. What do I do?'"
Seasons 1 and 2 of The Circle are now streaming on Netflix. Hear more from the cast in the video below:
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