Sir Stephen Fry has disclosed that the Prince of Wales and his family were completely 'locked into' BBC's The Celebrity Traitors. Speaking on Good Morning Britain, the actor and broadcaster, who appeared as a Faithful on the show, recalled the Prince telling him at the Royal Variety Performance: 'We were locked into it.'
Fry, 68, expressed surprise at the show's broad appeal, saying: 'We had no idea what impact it would have across the demographic. Extraordinary.' The series, hosted by Claudia Winkleman, saw comedian Alan Carr emerge victorious as a Traitor, winning £87,500 for charity after deceiving historian David Olusoga and actor Nick Mohammed in the tense finale.
Fry admitted he told Winkleman he did not want to be a Traitor because he lacked the necessary cunning. 'The tension – I just don’t think I would have been very good,' he said. He also noted that intelligence does not always equate to cunning, remarking on Olusoga: 'David is obviously hugely intelligent, but there are different kinds of intelligence; one of them is cunning. And I don’t have that.'
Jonathan Ross, the first Traitor to be banished, confessed he found the experience 'quite unpleasant' due to the deceit involved. 'I wound up kind of hating it because they’re all such lovely people, and you’re lying through your teeth,' he said, though he described it as a 'once-in-a-lifetime experience'.
The fourth civilian series of The Traitors is set to air from New Year’s Day, with 22 contestants vying for a potential £120,000 prize. The BBC has promised 'even more twists, turns, secrets, epic missions, deception, banishments and, of course, murders aplenty'. Casting is open for series five, and a second instalment of The Celebrity Traitors has been confirmed.
