{"id":40274,"date":"2026-02-16T07:59:31","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T07:59:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/demo4.dedicatedhost247.com\/news\/claudia-winkleman-revealed-her-favourite-moment-in-traitors-tv-radio-showbiz-tv\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T07:59:31","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T07:59:31","slug":"claudia-winkleman-revealed-her-favourite-moment-in-traitors-tv-radio-showbiz-tv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/demo4.dedicatedhost247.com\/news\/claudia-winkleman-revealed-her-favourite-moment-in-traitors-tv-radio-showbiz-tv\/","title":{"rendered":"Claudia Winkleman revealed her favourite moment in Traitors | TV & Radio | Showbiz & TV"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\"Harriet<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/p>\n

Traitors star Harriet Tyce photographed exclusively for the Express (Image: Jonathan Buckmaster \/ Daily Express)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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She set the \u201ccat amongst the pigeons\u201d in an explosive Traitors showdown that became one of the most watched TV moments of the year, before daring fellow contestants to vote her off Claudia Winkleman\u2019s hit gameshow \u2013 which they duly did.\u00a0Now she\u2019s publishing her devilishly twisty new courtroom drama, which taps into themes of falsehood, deception and, most fittingly, the perils of sitting in judgement upon others.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But criminal defence barrister turned bestselling author turned standout Traitors star Harriet Tyce creases up at suggestions she planned it all. In fact, she insists, it\u2019s been a \u201cbonkers\u201d series of happy accidents coupled with her growing confidence as a writer having ditched binge drinking, of which more shortly. \u201cThere’s been a lot of synchronicities with regards to the show and me and the book and everything else,\u201d she admits with a smile.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Harriet<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/p>\n

The author in The Traitors… she was banished in episode seven after a dramatic breakfast bust-up (Image: BBC)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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Read more:<\/strong> Alan Carr to front new show with star-studded cast after Celebrity Traitors win <\/a><\/p>\n

Read more:<\/strong> ‘I was on The Traitors \u2013 the BBC show will be impossible to top next year’ <\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“Everything about this book has been gloriously bonkers. I handed it in on Halloween 2024 and my first contact with The Traitors was December 13 before months and months and months of auditions then filming in early summer. But in a way, there have been thematic similarities with my experiences of the last year\u2026 I feel this book has a life of its own!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Despite having four bestselling novels to her name, Harriet, 53, whose 2019 debut, psychological thriller Blood Orange, became a major lockdown hit, was an unknown quantity when series four of the TV phenomenon arrived in January.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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(If you\u2019ve been stuck on the International Space Station for the past six months, the show features 22 contestants in a Scottish castle divided into traitors and faithfuls \u2013 the latter of whom have to attempt to identify and banish the former, who can “murder” everyone else one at a time.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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By the time Harriet, a faithful, was banished in episode seven after blowing her top at breakfast in a jaw-dropping showdown, following a series of startlingly accurate interventions, she was a household name. And a slightly fearsome one at that.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Today Harriet is warm, chatty and mortified about losing her cool in front of ten million viewers when, having correctly fingered (ultimate joint-winner) Rachel Duffy as a traitor, she shouted down fellow faithful Roxy over coffee and croissants \u2013 telling her it was all about setting \u201cthe cat amongst the pigeons”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The run-in was TV gold, as was the moment she correctly called out Rachel after being picked to take part in a confessional box. No wonder The Traitors has been one of the few genuinely blockbuster shows in recent terrestrial television history.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI hadn\u2019t lost control but I had lost a bit more control than I\u2019d like,\u201d she admits today of the breakfast showdown. \u201cI don’t like criticism, though I obviously put myself out there every time I write a book or open my mouth, but people were upset with how I spoke and I was upset too \u2013 I didn’t like watching it back.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cSince then, I’ve been asked a lot about whether I\u2019d have done things differently. The answer is no, it is what it is \u2013 it’s a clich\u00e9 but you can’t change things \u2013 but I feel happy I’ve apologised because it is only a game, even though, while you’re in, it feels very real.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Harriet<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/p>\n

Going head to head against Rachel at round table (Image: BBC)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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Despite her meltdown, having voted four out of four traitors, she left the show with an enviable record and a lot of fans. \u201cThe whole confessional thing, the moment I told Rachel, \u2018I know you’re in there\u2026\u2019, a lot of people say that was my favourite moment in the show and Claudia said it was her favourite moment across the whole series.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Harriet blames lack of sleep and the show\u2019s high-pressure environment for sending her brain \u201cwhizzing\u201d and talks warmly of fellow contestants, with whom she\u2019s become good friends, having travelled to Northern Ireland to hang out with Rachel. And it\u2019s worked out well timing-wise for her stunning new novel, Witch Trial, published on February 26 and already enjoying rave reviews.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIt isn’t the book of the show, and the show was not the book,\u201d she insists, having applied on a whim to appear on the Traitors, one of more than 300,000 hopefuls. \u201cThey didn’t have a round table where they said, \u2018We’re gonna have a police officer, we’re going to have a barrister\u2019,\u201d continues Harriet, who gave up practicing the law two decades ago after becoming a mother-of-two. \u201cFor whatever reason, they liked me.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Witch Trial \u2013 focussing on a juror, respected heart surgeon Matthew Phillips, sitting on the murder trial of two Scottish teenagers who think they\u2019re witches (it\u2019s hard to reveal more without spoilers) \u2013 had an equally storied creation. Having been fascinated by the idea of people thrown together by chance on a jury to make a momentous collective decision, she set the story in Scotland where juries are 15-strong and there are no opening speeches \u2013 all the better for keeping readers guessing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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She also developed an interest in witches. \u201cYou can buy spells on Etsy, you can buy hexes, it\u2019s genuinely a thing,\u201d she says. \u201cI can’t pretend I didn’t think, \u2018Well this feels like it’s a topic of current interest\u2019, but it wasn’t a deliberate marketing decision.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Then she took her son, Freddy, 22, to see a production of The Crucible, which used the notorious Salem Witch Trials of 1692 as an analogy for the pursuit of Communists in fifties America. Arthur Miller\u2019s iconic play felt utterly relevant in the midst of modern cancel-culture, social media pile-ons and general groupthink.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"The<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/p>\n

Harriet Tyce pictured in Scotland outside the Traitors’ castle (Image: PA)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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\u201cI went away thinking you can see \u2018witch hunting\u2019 across the board,\u201d says Harriet. \u201cThere are people who manage to avoid being infected by the hysteria, but it\u2019s definitely something we’ve seen in modern times. So I read about Salem and the pieces fell into place.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In a slightly nutty twist, having learned to use a ouija board and tarot cards for research, Harriet asked the spirits if the omens were good to start writing. \u201cI’m really bad at it, but the three-card hand basically said, \u2018Absolutely not. Move away, go nowhere near this!\u2019,\u201d she chuckles. \u201cI asked again the next day and the conditions were slightly more favourable. But I’d done 100 words or something and I took the dogs for a walk and fell over and smashed my elbow.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In too much discomfort to type, the book on hold, she read The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg, an iconic gothic crime novel from 1824. It inspired the final bits of the jigsaw for her own story.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI grew up in Edinburgh and the whole history of witch trials is something that’s so fraught in that part of the world,\u201d she says. \u201cI remember as a child going to the then Museum of Scotland and they had a calf’s heart full of lead nails which was some kind of talisman against witches. I’d never gone near ouija boards or tarot cards before and I can’t read horror. I scare myself so easily that even looking into all of this was quite nerve-wracking.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Following the extraordinary success of her debut Blood Orange \u2013 a \u201cMarmite book\u201d she calls it \u2013 had been hard. \u201cIt is a bit of a poison chalice,\u201d she admits. \u201cThough I appreciate that sounds a bit like, \u2018How hard is my golden throne?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Arthur<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/p>\n

Crucible playwright Arthur Miller with then wife Marilyn Monroe in 1956 (Image: Getty)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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An entire second novel was thrown away after disagreements with her US publishers \u2013 \u201cI was calling it The Rose Garden and they said it had to be titled The Body in the Rose Garden, and I was like, \u2018But there isn’t a body\u2026 and that sounds like Agatha Christie\u2019. In the end, I had a pile up of five bodies which was indirectly a \u2018f**k you\u2019\u201d \u2013 before she found her m\u00e9tier again with The Lies You Told.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Now on her fifth novel, she\u2019s growing in confidence as a story-teller. \u201cI think Witch Trial is my best book by a long stretch,\u201d she says. \u201cIf I never write another one, at least I’ve got this. And I hope that it reaches readers. It entertained me hugely. By the end, I was cackling.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Cutting out drinking, which she now believes she abused as a young barrister, has been key to her current contentment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWhen they’re drunk, people are boring, angry and repetitive \u2013 it doesn’t do anyone any good \u2013 but at the same time I\u2019ve derived a huge amount of pleasure from it. It was good until it was bad. Some people can drink in moderation \u2013 I’m not one of them \u2013 and I didn’t like how I was when I drank too much and I drank too much all the time. If I went out for lunch for a glass of wine, it would turn into three bottles.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Did she consider herself an alcoholic?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI think it depends how you define it. I couldn’t control how much I drank, so that would say I was an alcoholic. But if you think an alcoholic is somebody who has lost everything then I was very high-functioning. There wasn’t a physical dependency, but there was a psychological dependency and a social dependency.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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She pauses: \u201cI was just an arse when I was drunk.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Having stopped, she\u2019s delighted to have lost five stone in weight and the difference in photographs from five or six years ago is extraordinary. \u201cI feel like myself again. I’d lost sight of who I was. But I have worked hard to lose five stone. The ambassadorship I’ve been offered off the back of TV exposure was for diet food. I’m like, \u2018Yeah, f**k off. Give up drinking, mate!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Traitors<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/p>\n

Traitors host Claudia Winkleman enjoyed Harriet’s confessional accusation (Image: BBC \/ Studio Lambert \/ Cody Burridge)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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As a former barrister, Harriet, who lives in London with her financier husband Nathaniel, is appalled at the state of the criminal justice system. “Lack of money, lack of investment, lack of care, people don’t see, until it actually happens to them, why people should get Legal Aid or whatever, but it\u2019s brutal.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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She\u2019s also concerned about moves to end the automatic right to jury trials.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cObviously, it’s time consuming and if you’re accused of having a forged travel pass and you elect trial by jury, given you would only ever be able to get six months and you wouldn’t go to prison, is that really a good use of money? On the other hand, for the defendant personally, it’s going to have a catastrophic effect on their future reputation. I see both sides, but it’s been a cornerstone of our justice system forever.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Witch Trial is dedicated to her father Bill, a former High Court Judge in Scotland who also pops up in a cameo. Was he disappointed she left the law? \u201cI think he understood. It’s really hard if you’re the primary carer for kids… I’d be going off and staying in a Travel Lodge for three weeks at a time and that was just not a runner. I think he’s pleased I\u2019ve ended up with a fulfilling career.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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And you can\u2019t get more faithful than that.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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