Journalist Amanda Platell has criticised Celebrity Traitors star Amol Rajan, branding him a “smug, self-important attention seeker” after working with him on a documentary.
Platell, who was press secretary to Conservative Party leader William Hague, wrote in her Daily Mail column that Rajan thought he had assembled a masterplan to win the competition. According to TV insiders, he even quit his £320,000 a year BBC Today job to “become a social media superstar”.
Celebrating his exit
For Platell, who worked with Rajan on a BBC documentary about Princes William and Harry, his exit from the Scottish castle was cause for celebration. Rajan was the first Faithful to be murdered in the 2026 series by Traitors Richard E. Grant and Maya Jama.
Rajan said being booted off the show was “absolutely horrible”. He said on The One Show: “Just so people know when you are on The Traitors, it is your world. It's not like a game, you are hundreds of miles from your family, you don't have your phone, it's so intense, it's a little bubble.
“So as you walk into that chapel you are absolutely terrified.”
Documentary dispute
Platell explained in her column that Rajan's documentary The Princes and the Press was pitched to her as a “fair and balanced appraisal” of how the King's sons were treated by the media after the death of their mother Princess Diana.
Despite being interviewed by Rajan for two hours, Platell's parts were cut down to “two minutes of content about columns that I had written which were critical of Meghan [Markle].” She said all of the supportive articles she had written about the Sussexes were excluded.
Platell asked Rajan for a first-look at the interview, but was told: “Alas, impossible to share: we are still working on the programme. I'm so sorry as always want to be fair.”
Threatened boycott
Platell fumed: “Fair? That was an opportunity Rajan declined to offer to the Royal Family who, I later discovered, were so incensed by the biased documentary that they threatened a complete boycott of all future dealings with the BBC.”
Far from having a “little giggle” at his impromptu axe from Celeb Traitors, Platell said her home was filled with “uproarious, jubilant laughter”. The family's cheers, Platell said, were “so loud” they could be heard “from my north London home all the way to Wembley Stadium”.
She branded him a “ridiculously bejewelled, self-styled man of the people”, adding: “He will be the first one forgotten where this record-breaking series of Celebrity Traitors now being watched by nine million folk is already concerned.” Express.co.uk has contacted Rajan's representatives for comment.
