Celebrity Traitors star ‘convinced’ Claudia Winkleman to do series as presenter ‘wasn’t keen’
Claudia is said to have been reluctant to return for the new version of the BBC programme
Claudia Winkleman on The Celebrity Traitors(Image: BBC)
A Celebrity Traitors star had to ‘convince’ Claudia Winkleman to do the series, as the presenter ‘wasn’t keen’ on the programme, according to the BBC’s Chief Content Officer.
The season finale of the star-studded reality show, which took place in the Scottish Highlands, had the biggest overnight audience for the BBC since the final episode of Gavin And Stacey. Airing on Christmas Day, the James Corden and Ruth Jones sitcom’s finale was watched live by an average of 12.3 million viewers.
Hours before Alan Carr was seen winning the series, the finale was accidentally leaked online following a mistake by Canadian streaming site Crave. In spite of this, the BBC reported earlier in the month that the final was watched by an average of 11.1 million people, with a peak of 12 million tuning in.
Speaking to Richard Osman and Marina Hyde on The Rest Is Entertainment podcast, Kate Phillips, the Chief Content Officer at the BBC, lifted the lid on how the Strictly Come Dancing presenter wasn’t sure about the series. Prior to the celebrity version launching, Claudia hosted all three episodes of the normal Traitors.
“Yeah, well, I mean, it’s interesting that Claudia wasn’t keen, so she didn’t want to do a celebrity version. She’s very protective of it and Claudia is all in. If you go in the dressing room that Claudia has in the Traitors Castle, she has a feed, she has screens and she’s watching it all the time.
“She was reluctant. I think the good thing we did was because we had civilian versions first, I think when we started booking the celebrity one, they just wanted to play the game. If you’d had a celebrity version first, you wouldn’t have got the names you did. The names were fantastic,” Kate said.
Claudia Winkleman on Celebrity Traitors Uncloaked(Image: BBC)
Kate went on to praise former rugby player Joe Marler for being ‘such a star’ and for being ‘cleverer than any of them at seeing who the traitors were’. The BBC employee went on to share that Alan initially ‘said no’ as he ‘doesn’t really do reality shows’.
She recalled: “When he was offered it first, they came back to me and said ‘Alan’s a no’. So I thought, ‘OK, what do I do to change this’ because I knew Alan would be good. So he was filming in Bromley and I live in South East London.
“And I know his agent Danny very well, who did think he should do it. So I said to Danny, ‘let’s take Alan out for lunch. Let’s do a pincer movement and get him signed up’. I remember walking into the restaurant and he just went ‘I know why you’ve asked me for lunch Kate and I’m not doing it’.
“And I sort of said to Alan, ‘OK, This is why you should do it’. I just talked to him about what a great show it was, how he’d be looked after.”
According to Kate, the person who was key in getting Claudia, Alan and the rest of the contestants to take part was former QI presenter Stephen Fry. Stephen was a fan favourite on the programme, but was sadly eliminated by his fellow faithfuls due to the ‘big dog theory’.
“Stephen Fry was actually the first person to sign up for it. Stephen signed up for it because he wanted to play the game and he did say ‘look, use me to get others’. So that helped… So then we sort of talked him [Alan] around and he was coming around to the idea. I said ‘you’ll have fun. It’s amazing. You know, it’s a proper game. I think you’d be really good and and I think you’ll really like the others’.
“We couldn’t really say who else was signed up at that point. But the thing he said to me was ‘I think maybe I will do it on one condition;. I said, ;what’s that, Alan?’ He said ‘you’ve got to promise me l won’t be a traitor’. And I was like, well, ‘first of all, I can’t promise that because it’s the format and I’ve got no control’.
Despite Alan ‘sweating’ at the idea of being a traitor, Kate revealed that the power of choosing the traitors rests largely in Claudia’s hands.
“It’s the other thing I’d say those interviews that Claudia does are very key in the civilian version and the celebrity version. And they normally have one, possibly two people in mind for the traitors.
“Claudia had said, ‘OK, these are the three we’re going to go for’. I think because of those interviews with Claudia, if someone really doesn’t want to be a traitor, we wouldn’t make them. We do look after people on it. We don’t want them to have an awful experience. I think by the time Alan got to Castle he changed his mind,” she stated.
