When Texan supermodel Jerry Hall, 70, joined Celebrity Traitors, an Express reporter who had met her years earlier predicted she would struggle with the game—and believes her behaviour on the show proves it.
The reporter met Hall at an after-party in Dublin following her performance in Love Letters, opposite Starsky and Hutch star David Soul. Hall arrived late, made a dramatic entrance, and seemed detached from reality, behaving unlike any actress the reporter had met after an opening night.
A world of her own
While most actors are still running on adrenaline after a performance, Hall was so laid-back it seemed she had come from the spa rather than the stage. Although friendly and smiling, she appeared to be at a completely different party, having what seemed to be entirely separate conversations from everyone else.
Another journalist asked her about a hill in a Co. Carlow garden sculpted into the shape of her body by celebrity gardener Diarmuid Gavin, but she seemed oblivious to the whole thing—despite having posed for the initial pictures used to create it. She did pose for a few photographs but made a relatively swift exit after a couple of glasses of sparkling water.
By contrast, her co-star David Soul was warm and chatty, though the reporter had met him on other occasions and he already knew her.
Comparisons to Moira Rose
Since Celebrity Traitors began, Hall has drawn comparisons with Moira Rose, the fictional actress played by Catherine O'Hara in Schitt's Creek. Moira, a wealthy former socialite and daytime soap star, became iconic for her melodramatic eccentricity. The reporter can see the similarities, although Moira was still a twinkle in creator Dan Levy's eye when the reporter met Hall.
Fellow contestant Miranda Hart affectionately described Hall as "living in Jerryland"—a world detached from reality where the rules don't apply. That was certainly the reporter's impression. Hall's Traitors anecdotes, including her recollection of wearing a wedding dress every day until Mick Jagger agreed to marry her, sound fantastical and utterly removed from everyday reality.
Why she won't win
Her vocabulary and delivery scream performative glamour, and she was exactly the same during the reporter's encounter. Nobody truly in touch with reality would breeze into breakfast announcing they "hath risen", but Hall did. She may be on Celebrity Traitors, but she appears to be playing an entirely different game in her head.
The trouble is that success on The Traitors requires you to be present and acutely aware of what's happening around you. You need to read people, spot inconsistencies and recognise when something doesn't add up. Hall, however, seems incapable of paying attention to anything that doesn't fit her own narrative.
While her eccentricity is hugely entertaining, refusing to engage properly with the game is unlikely to get her very far, and the reporter can't see her troubling the final.
