‘The Circle’ season 7’s Heather and real Andy talk Madelyn’s betrayal

Warning: This article contains spoilers for the The Circle season 7, episode 7, “Dawn of the Circle Dead.”

There’s no encore for The Circle season 7’s rocker “Andy,” a.k.a. Heather Richardson.

The tattooed music industry professional catfished as her friend, We Came as Romans bass guitarist Andy Glass, but ultimately put her trust in the wrong person. After flirting with OnlyFans model Madelyn Rusinyak, Heather thought she had strong alliances in the game. But Madelyn decided to betray her Circle boyfriend and came up with a plan to get “Andy” ranked last and automatically blocked from the game in episode 7 of Netflix’s social media reality competition series.

“It’s been crazy watching it back — episodes 1 through 4 were so lighthearted and fun, and then this drop was just intense,” Heather tells Entertainment Weekly of her exit in episode 7. “I did know what I was about to watch, but not to the extent of everything that was happening behind the scenes with those chats and how it really was Madelyn’s master plan. Seeing that was a shock, but it’s all good gameplay on their end. Clearly they’re still in the game and I’m not, so all I can do is just applaud them for coming up with this plan, even though I don’t understand it.”

Below, Heather breaks down her exit and reveals if she gave the real Andy’s phone number to Madelyn like she promised. Plus, the real Andy joins the interview to share his thoughts on Heather catfishing as him and what’s next for his band.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How did you learn the truth about what Madelyn did to engineer your last place blocking?

HEATHER RICHARDSON: Actually, it was a week ago. I grabbed drinks with Antonio — “Tierra” — because we both live in Nashville and these episodes hadn’t come out yet. I straight up asked him, “What am I about to see? From what I’ve gathered, I think I heard it was Madelyn’s fault.” I didn’t know what happened, and he straight up says, “There was this plan that was brought to me to just get Andy out and it came from Madelyn’s mouth and I was on board because I was a new player.”

That was a couple days before the episodes dropped and then I pulled an all-nighter and watched it by myself, and then I flew to Detroit to watch it with Andy. I’m like, “Oh, this is a whole thought-out thing that four people were in on. This actually wasn’t an accident. I wasn’t just rated lowest for no reason. S—.”

What surprised you the most after seeing how Madelyn betrayed you?

Actually watching Madelyn and I meet in person, and everything leading up to the way she talked to me in person and seeing how I was essentially lied to. I know that from her game standpoint, that was to save her from me from exposing her in my video message, which is smart. You saw how Savannah outed Kevin and I. But that was shocking, especially the way they edited it with me saying, “I would’ve always rated you No. 1,” and they zoom in on her face. That was TV gold.

They have to cut it down, obviously — we talked for 40 minutes just about everything, and it felt like a genuine exchange there. And I left her apartment thinking we were going to be the best of friends and I was so excited for her. I thought she was playing the game really well. And so watching that back and seeing that she was withholding some information, that was so shocking to watch.

What is your relationship with Madelyn like now that you’ve seen the episodes?

We’re all cool with each other. Before the season [premiere], we’ve had a group chat for the last year since filming, and we all agreed the night before the episodes came out that no matter what we’re about to watch, we are in this together. No matter who’s about to get some hateful messages, no matter who’s the villain in the season, no matter what happens or that we don’t know about, we are in this together. We’re a family, we’re a team. So I’m sticking to that.

Yes, watching it did give me some conflicting emotions of like, “Oh, that’s how you played,” because you do see the different strategies going on. I chose to play as true to myself as I could. And you hear Jadejha say a line that I really appreciated: “I want to show that you can win this game by playing with your heart and not just with strategy.” That was my mentality also. So regardless of the choices some of my castmates made while playing the game, the overall conclusion is that it’s a game. I have to remember that as cutthroat as our cast is, I just got outplayed. It’s not my fault for not keeping up, I guess. So Madelyn and I are cool. No hard feelings, whatsoever. Oh, Andy’s about to walk in. I’m at his house right now.

Andy Glass enters the house and waves on the zoom.

ANDY GLASS: Hi!

Andy leaves the room.

HEATHER: So yeah, I messaged her yesterday after she was getting some messages and I was just like, “I’m backing you a hundred percent. I don’t necessarily agree with how you played the game, but we’re different people, different strategies, so okay.” We all love each other regardless. That’s more important to me. She made a move and it worked. It really sucks what happened to me, but I signed up for it. I’m a fan of Big Brother, The Challenge, all of those shows, so just being a part of this one is more meaningful and more important than any negative feelings I can associate with it.

You said you were going to give Madelyn the real Andy’s phone number. Did that happen, especially after Madelyn ended your game?

HEATHER: [Laughs] Listen, they both have free will. They are their own people. If one of them wants to reach out to the other, that is all on them. I was the wingman in the game, and I am resigning from that role. I don’t think they have yet, but that’s their business. I’m supportive of whatever they choose to do.

Why did you decide to catfish as Andy? How did your friendship begin?

HEATHER: Long story short, we met three years ago. We’re in the same industry — he plays in a band [We Came as Romans], I worked for bands. The lighting guy for his band is now my roommate, we’ve been best friends for years, so when Andy’s band rolled through my town three years ago, I went to go see my friend and we all hung out and him and I swapped info and chatted for a little bit. [We] ultimately decided to keep it neutral and be friends. We kept an industry friendship going on and popped in see each other at festivals. Whenever we rolled into each other’s towns, we would grab drinks. And then this came up and it was kind of like a no-brainer to catfish as someone in my industry, because you don’t really see too many alternative tattooed people on these shows.

When choosing the person who I was going to catfish as, the most important part to me was to have somebody that I knew would have this experience with me instead of just sending their photos, signing the permission slip, and then letting me take control. I wanted this to be a memory with somebody and that person would be a full part of it. … Our friendship is just very deep and meaningful, so I knew we would be partners in this, and here I am in Detroit now and we wear matching circle rings. I made the right choice a thousand percent. He’s been a full player in this. He’s helped me prepare. We took notes before I went off to film, and this whole past year, he’s just been involved in it. So without a doubt, best choice I could have made.

What does he think of how you played as him?

HEATHER: Do you want to ask him? [Walks to get Andy in the next room.] Hey, yeah, come be a part of this.

ANDY: I was listening to music in my room. What’s up?

I was just asking Heather what you’ve thought of the way that she catfished as you on The Circle now that you’ve seen the episodes?

ANDY: Oh, she crushed it. The first initial shock of seeing everything and then not knowing how it was going to be edited was a little nerve-racking. And some of the stuff she told me that happened with the spicy DM talk, I was like, “Well, we’re going to see how this goes.” But I thought it went great. She worked really hard. She kept so true, just being genuine to herself, but also kept me in mind and my persona and image of myself, which was so sweet. I’m just really thankful. I love the way it turned out. I mean, we definitely both had tears during the second wave of episodes that came out. She had to do most of the legwork, it was just pictures of me while she was doing the work, so I just try to help and be good support system for it. That’s all I can do.

HEATHER: Yeah, it’s definitely brought us a lot closer together because when I got casted over a year ago, at that point, we were just industry buds. But now this is a whole thing for us. This is something that we will carry with us and forever remember. Thanks, dude.

ANDY: Yeah. We’ve got to get a circle tattoo now.

What was it like watching your emotional blocking?

HEATHER: In the game, I knew it was coming and that wasn’t a great feeling. You see me break down and that was one of many moments that I broke down. I cried watching it back, not going to lie. My only strategy was to be me and stay loyal to Darian, Kevin, and Madelyn, which whoops. But I never thought of being scheme-y, and I’m glad that it shows that. Of course I wanted to win, but more than anything, I wanted to do this guy proud and I wanted to do myself proud, and I think we accomplished that.

ANDY: 100 percent.

What is something that didn’t make it in the episodes that you want people to know about?

ANDY: Great question.

HEATHER: I did fall off my coffee table once, which wasn’t shown. And then in episode 2, when they’re doing the b-roll of all of us doing activities in the rooms, you see me do a cartwheel, but what you don’t see is I kicked the camera and broke it. They had send someone to fix the camera.

Andy, since you’re also now a Circle star, what’s coming up next for you and your band?

ANDY: We are writing a new record — we’ve been writing it for the past year now. And we’re planning for a new release to come out soon, it should be out in the next couple weeks. We’re doing a U.S. tour with Architects a week from now, and then we do Japan, Australia, Hawaii two weeks after that. But yeah, definitely new music is coming.

You’ve got to capitalize on your new Netflix fame.

ANDY: Yeah, a lot of people have been like, “I love this band,” and then there’s a lot of people that have never heard of the band, and so it’s been cool. And our industry, it’s pretty small, but there’s a lot of passion and love behind it. And I’ve been in it for 19 years now —

HEATHER: Grandpa Andy.

ANDY: [Laughs] I’m my chiropractor’s favorite client. Yeah, it’s just cool to have it be recognized, for such an underground thing. Heather really did everyone, me and the band and just our music scene, really proud.

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