Maya Jama has said she expected her fellow Traitor King Kenny to betray her in the final roundtable of The Celebrity Traitors, speaking about their relationship for the first time since the show ended.
In Friday's (October 30) last episode of the BBC gameshow's second-ever celebrity series, the 32-year-old Love Island host, who was on three votes, was ousted when social media star Kenny decided to vote for her to be banished rather than to tie the poll with Romesh Ranganathan, who was on two votes.
Comedian and BBC Radio 2 host Romesh and actor Sebastian 'Bash' Croft went on to win the show, hosted by Claudia Winkleman, after three traitors had been left in the castle until the penultimate episode, when comedian James Acaster was voted out after he admitted being a traitor at the roundtable.
Maya Jama on Kenny's Decision
Speaking about Kenny's decision after the final, she said: "I expected it. I knew that it was going to have to be one of us, and he was a lot more trusted at that time than me, and I felt like it would be selfish for me to expect him to try and save me when it was never going my way."
"Although I didn't expect Leigh-Anne (Pinnock, former Little Mix singer) to vote for Romesh, if Kenny had known that, he could have jumped on that train as well."
In an interview with Variety, Maya, who was the only original traitor left in the game, insisted that she had no bad feelings towards Kenny despite his 'betrayal' at the roundtable. She said: "You know what, I obviously love Kenny to bits. I think he's amazing."
No Hard Feelings
"And he didn't really have much of a choice, so it didn't hurt as much. In hindsight actually, watching back, I'm like, maybe we could have wrangled it."
"But in the moment, it just felt like everyone was going for me. And if Kenny did protect me, then he was going to be finished - even though he did end up being finished anyway. It felt like the only option, so I didn't hate him for it."
Maya also shared how "hard" she found the game once she realised James Acaster didn't want to be a Traitor. She said she had no idea he wasn't keen to be one until after he was recruited.
James Acaster's Struggle
Speaking about his struggle, she added to the publication: "I know, bless him. Never in a game would you expect that you're going to be put in a situation where you absolutely hate being a Traitor. And I obviously had no idea beforehand that he didn't want to be a Traitor, I just thought everyone's kind of up for it."
"But yeah, it was hard. I don't think anybody knows how it would feel once you're in the situation, and that's going to impact everyone completely differently. As he said, for him it was a lot. You're like, 'OK, this is a game, we're playing for charity.' But then these people have real feelings, and trying to find the balance between it is tougher than it looks."
