When ’s mysterious gameshow The Traitors hit our screens towards the end of 2022, it took the nation by .
We were immediately obsessed with the high-stakes challenges and mind-games that saw contestants as Faithfuls or Traitors.
22 players, including the four Traitors, faced scrutiny around the roundtable, had their and reached in a bid to take home £101,050.
And now, have been put to the test around the roundtables and pointing fingers at one another – and .
There’s just days to go, and after , , and Miles were banished, the only original that remains is Harry, though and Ross have joined him on the dark side.
After and left Ross with Andrew still unsure over the guilt of ‘killing off’ the other players, the final episodes are set to be as tense as ever.
Last season saw , and newly-appointed Traitorrevealed, while made it all the way to the final.
But the Faithfuls took home the win, as , and clinched the prize.
The show, having been developed from Dutch version De Verraders, went on , and season two .
And while much of The Traitors still remains shrouded in mystery, season one contestant has revealed what it was really like being a part of the first series of the beloved show.
‘I had to find out who the Traitors are on the group WhatsApp because no one would tell me’
Even after leaving the game, through being banished or murdered, the contestants were not officially told by producers who the Traitors really were.
So, they had to figure it out for themselves, with Rayan admitting he only found out on a group chat after his exit.
He said: ‘As soon as you come out, there’s sort of like decompression and then once you’re on your way home, you get back and you turn on your , and you get several days worth of texts all at once, and then the others who have already been out have added your Instagram and WhatsApp and stuff, and then you get into the group chat.
‘It was a big surprise for everyone as well because like, I didn’t tell anyone in the show that I was a lawyer so [they] messaged me [afterwards] like Rayan, you didn’t tell us all of that.
‘So you get out and there’s a group chat and I checked the group chat logs recently because i was curious and the first few messages are like “oh my god guys”, like they told us in the group chats.
‘I think Alyssa probably told everyone, but it was Aisha [Birley] who told me specifically because she was online at the time.’
He added: ‘Production will not tell you anything, because they’re so afraid of this leaking out. And let’s be honest, if I’d been told by production on my way out I’d have tried to drop a note to someone, so it’s pretty good thing they did it honestly.’
‘The food was the most shocking secret’
As the new series has begun airing, some former contestants have revealed what life on the show was really like, .
While it all looks pretty mouth-watering, and breakfasts appear to include pastries, eggs, toast, marmalade, and served up with some drama, it’s not all as it seems.
Faithful Ivan Brett wrote on X: ‘I’m sorry guys, it’s time to come clean and leak something shocking about #TheTraitors.
‘It pains me to tell you, but that breakfast is REALLY DRY AND NOT VERY NICE.’
‘We didn’t have any breaks from filming’
While we know shows like Love Island have a day off filming, Rayan shared that The Traitors had no breaks, not even during meal times, which is actually when .
Rayan said: ‘In my last episode, I have a whole chat [after the Traitors started accusing me] with Fay [Greaves], and it just gets frustrating.
‘If you look around, you probably see the plate because I vividly remember eating fried chicken while having a conversation with Fay and Aaron.
‘There’s never really a break, and sometimes they just won’t be filming for whatever reason, if they don’t really need to, and sometimes they will be filming, there’s no set rule.’
Rayan elsewhere said that they weren’t told by producers that they weren’t filming, adding: ‘You can just assume by the fact that if there’s no cameras in the room, you can kind of guess.’
‘There was a pretty strict alcohol limit – but we found a way around it’
Like The Traitors had rules about alcohol, which, according to Rayan were ‘clear’.
He said: ‘You’re allowed one glass of wine or like one drink. It’s a glass of wine or a pint of beer at the end of the day, after the roundtable, after any missions because you can’t do missions drunk, and that’s the only thing you’re allowed.’
However, he did say ‘negotiations’ took place for a further drink in the contestants’ rooms, saying: ‘If you negotiate your way around this, you’re allowed one extra glass once you’re back to your lodgings, you can have a cheeky extra glass but that is it so there’s a pretty strict alcohol limit.
‘And you can’t steal anybody else’s alcohol because we all want it.’
He elsewhere joked: ‘I told the producers after the show, I was like, guys, this would be so much funnier if everyone gets s**t-faced and says “Oh, I’m a Traitor”, while drunk, but they were afraid of people giving something away.’
‘The challenges are just as hard as they look and the tiniest hint would send us spiralling’
Without revealing any details about what the challenges actually entailed, or any of the hints he discovered, Rayan confirmed that they are in fact, just as hard as they look.
One saw the contestants rolling giant barrels up and down hills, while another involved running around sheep.
‘The thing with challenges, is that you don’t have a clue what’s happening,’ Rayan began, adding that the ‘tiniest hints’ would make him ‘hyper aware’.
‘You just spiral over the tiniest hint. But you do not know what you’re getting into.’
‘I didn’t meet any of the contestants until we were all on that train to Scotland – the surprise is real’
‘Literally I did not meet a single person until we were on the train which was scary because I’m a bit of a control freak with information,’ Rayan said.
He continued: ‘I want to know exactly who’s on the cast, I want all the details. I tried stalking everyone trust me, I dug deep. But no, the surprise is real.
‘You see people on the train, you meet them, and the first time you see them, you’ve got two big cameras in their face and you’re like, “Hey, nice to meet you. My name is Rayan” and I’m trying to get the first sentence right.
‘It’s very scary.’
‘It’s not scripted – our reactions in the breakfast room are very real’
Each morning, the contestants walked into the breakfast room to find out who had been murdered the night before, and the only way they did so would be to wait to see who didn’t come in.
‘It’s not scripted,’ Rayan confirmed.
‘That’s the thing. You genuinely do not know. Like, you do not have any clue quite often. Like you genuinly do not know who’s going to come down with you to breakfast in the morning.’
He added: ‘That’s why you see people genuinely surprised when they they knock on the door. You see them genuinely happy because they’ve realised they survived another night.’
‘Claudia Winkleman was so supportive and has a genuine love for the game’ – but was once given a warning by producers
Host Claudia Winkleman, who scored a Bafta for her epic role, was really as supportive and involved in the game as we see.
Rayan said: ‘I think her role is really what you see on TV, she’s been brilliant. She’s just a support, like you’ve got to be detached because if she’s too close, she might risk accidentally giving something away. She’s got to be super stoned face, but at the same time she was brilliant and she was really supportive.
‘Whenever we were all having a bit of a tough time she gave us like a little pep talk. When I’m stressing out and I’m about to be buried alive, you see her on TV, having a really nice chat with me and trying to reassure me and make me more comfortable and just like trying to send you positive vibes.’
He added that she was ‘really a supporter’ which was especially helpful seeing how ‘intense’ the game was.
Rayan continued: ‘She’s very supportive and you can tell she just had a genuine love for the game and genuine love for all of us and it made a difference, but she never gave anything away and trust me, I tried…’
Claudia herself has previously recalled a tense moment during filming,
While speaking at the 2023 Broadcasting Press Guild awards, the Strictly Come Dancing presenter said that she would ‘never forget’ the moment Will and Amanda threw Alyssa to the wolves.
‘I’ll never forget when Wilf and Amanda both evicted Alyssa – when they turned on a fellow Traitor,’ she said.
‘I just heard in my ear, very quietly, “Watch your breathing.” And I thought, “This is something else. I don’t know what is happening, but this is something.”‘
‘The roundtables were so intense that they felt like they could have gone on for 12 hours’
‘It is exactly what you see on TV, it is so intense,’ Rayan said of the roundtables.
He continued: ‘People always ask me how long are the roundtables and I generally can’t tell you because you don’t really have a concept of time because in this room, it feels like it could be 12 hours.
‘It’s clearly not 12 hours but it feels like it could be, you’re really stressing out, you’re hyperaware of everything you’re doing, especially the first round table.’
Rayan added that the contestants were even focused on each other’s hand positions and were ‘so scared of giving anything away’ that they held off from having a sip of water.
‘And like there’s a lot of voices flying around as well. It’s really hard to know when to talk. I was definitely one of these people who was like, I’m just gonna let everyone do the talking because if I talk too much, people are gonna start turning on me.
‘It’s really weird how that creates this element of tension. I can’t describe it, but just the lighting and the mood. You know, Claudia, just hearing her heels tapping against the floor, going around the table, and all of that.’
He continued: ‘[You’re] stressing out trying to look the least guilty possible, which makes you look really guilty. And then there’s this weird feeling as well where most of the time you’re comfortable and then somebody out of nowhere will say your name.’
When Rayan heard his own name, his ‘heart just dropped’. ‘You become super defensive as well, really stressed out trying to explain that it’s not me.
‘You don’t know how to defend yourself because you quickly realise in the game that whatever you say, there’s really not anything you can say to defend yourself because people are going off of nothing so that tension like it’s honestly… like your heart… we needed a glass of wine.’
‘Contestants aren’t allowed to keep anything from the game, but I held on to a secret note from Claudia’
While contestants aren’t allowed to keep the letters revealing they’ve been murdered, which they read out on camera, Claire Barratt has .
Revealing the personal letter on TikTok, she said: ‘So a lot of people have asked if I still have my original letter from the Traitors, from the day I was [murdered].
‘No I don’t! They don’t let you keep them. But I do have this! This is the exact paper that we got, and obviously you heard us on TV say what we said about being murdered but this is a handwritten note from Claude.
‘When we left, she sent the people that didn’t make the final these letters.
‘Mine reads: “Dear Claire, just wanted to write a small note to say a massive thank you for taking part, you were brilliant.
‘Theo especially hated you going. Can’t wait to see you at the launch. Love, Claude.”
‘So yeah, this is what you get, and obviously in the show you have the wax stamp, but I’ve got the wax stamp here on my envelope. Memories!’
‘There were codenames to keep us in hiding’
In a shocking twist during one of the challenges, two evicted Traitors were brought back into the game: and .
Before the game had even properly begun in the very first episode, after they ranked themselves as least likely to win, however, she had been harbouring her own little secret when they were brought back just days later.
During their time hiding out for five days, Kieran and Amos were allowed out of their rooms supervised while the other plays were filming at the castle but when the players had returned, the duo would be individually escorted to their separate rooms and on a strict lockdown so there was no chance the other plays might see them upon their return.
As previously revealed to Metro.co.uk, the pair had no phones, no access to the internet, but were able to watch TV and DVDs and listen to the radio.
They also had the use of hand-held gym equipment to work out in their room, and had small fridges in their rooms as well as ample snacks, and three hot meals a day.
To keep their identities even more secret, a source confirmed to Metro.co.uk that production had code names and referred to them as ‘pigeons’, while Traitors were called ‘peacocks’.
The Traitors is available to watch on BBC iPlayer.
