‘I was a notorious Traitor – a secret Traitor is the best thing to happen to the show’

Claudia Winkleman has pitched up at Ardross Castle for another season of The Traitors. This time though, there’s an extra, secret Traitors’ cloak in her suitcase – and it’s a red one.

As the six million – six million! – viewers saw during the first episode last night (1 January), season four of The Traitors has introduced a massive twist. While there are three Traitors, revealed as cyber security consultant Stephen, head of communications Rachel, and barrister Hugo, for the first time ever, there is also a fourth, secret Traitor in the castle. Neither the Faithfuls nor the Traitors, or the people watching at home, know who it is.

They have more power than the other three Traitors, selecting a shortlist of the players to murder each night. They can cause chaos and spread narratives in plain sight, and no one but them will know they are the source. It’s changed the game forever.

Online, there are many thoughts from fans. Does the new twist make the known Traitors redundant? Or is it the best, most engaging twist in TV history? PinkNews chatted via WhichBingo to notorious Traitor Paul Gorton, who caused carnage with his unfettered evil streak on season two in 2024, for his take.

PinkNews: Let’s get straight into it: the secret Traitor. As a former Traitor, what are your thoughts?

Paul Gorton: The secret Traitor is the best addition to a television show I’ve ever seen in my entire life. It is that good. Studio Lambert have just created –  six million people watched last night – six million Faithfuls that have to sit and now find a secret Traitor. Everyone before last night would say, “I [would] know who the Traitors are.” Well, you have seen them in the first five minutes pull their hood down, so it’s easy. Now people go, “Well, I think it’s…’ The amount of theories! Everyone now looks as bad of a Faithful as the Faithfuls do in the actual show. I think people are finally realising in the most genius way that it is almost impossible to watch people and go, “I think you’re a Traitor because of this and that.”

The classic examples [of who the secret Traitor could be are] the detective Amanda and Sam. Sam did a pitch to Claudia about being a Traitor in a similar way that I did where I was almost just going, “I’m an evil person. Just just let me do it. I’ll be horrible.” ‘Cos you really want that job. I’m hoping it’s not Amanda or Sam. I’m hoping it is just a completely random person that no one’s even talked about, who people don’t even know their name yet. 

You’ve been in the shoes of a Traitor. Is there anything at all the Traitors could be looking for to find the secret Traitor?

You can’t! There’s three civilian [series] and one celebrity Traitors that have happened. All of [the players] always go, “Who’s behaving differently? Who’s doing this? Who’s doing that?” If you watch back all of the seasons, I can only think of two that behave differently: Linda, who turned [when Claudia said “Traitors”] and Alan Carr. Alan Carr was really funny, dry as a bone, next minute he’s sweating and people still didn’t pick up on that. It doesn’t matter who changes; you won’t be able to notice it. It’s almost impossible to sense that someone is gonna be a secret Traitor. I would put a lot of money down to say no one will ever know until it’s revealed.

Body language, behaviour, all of that type of stuff doesn’t come into it because you’re already stressed and actually showing emotion and being scared and maybe changing [behaviour anyway].

How would the addition of the secret Traitor have changed your behaviour on your season? The Traitors this season aren’t happy about the twist – how would you have felt?

I would have loved to have been in this one with the secret Traitor, with everything else kicking of. Oh my god, it would be epic. It’s the best role in the um in the entire castle.

Obviously there’s going to be a fourth [Traitor] now but [the three Traitors] immediately see it as if they’re a rung down and there’s a secret Traitor and they’re better, instead of thinking, ‘Well there’s still three of us, so we can still control the narrative around the table.’ I think they’ve gone very insecure very quick. Hugo’s leading that and I think that’s then being bled into the other two.

I would have been different actually. I would have been more under the radar. I think if it was me, I wouldn’t be distracted by it and I would have carried on. I just don’t think I would have been as brash.

I think Rachel has the best strategy so far because it feels like she doesn’t care and it feels that she seems more, ‘I’m gonna backstab you two.’ I think it’s even more important now to to backstab. I think she should backstab Hugo, and then her and Stephen should dominate the game as a two.

There’s definitely a vibe from Rachel and Stephen that they aren’t thrilled with Hugo being a Traitor.

Rachel’s got that inner strength and she’s a head of communications so she’s got a corporate feel to her and a no nonsense, no bulls**t feel to her. Hugo – we’ve not seen any warmth or soft edges, so he might be one that if you were gonna throw any of them under the bus, you’d throw Hugo under there. You got to remember these people are doing long days together so you never know how he’s behaving [away from the cameras]. You’ve got to be very selfish and you’ve got to think of longevity and you’ve got to think, ‘Is he a good Traitor?’

I think the first half of the game is about relationship building and friendships. [Faithful player] Fiona said, “I’m just going to focus on being friends with everyone.” That works! Non-threatening friends – you’ll get straight to the middle of the game really quick. People who go out there and say, “I’ve got all these theories, I know who it is, blah blah blah.” You are going to get yourself banished or killed very quickly.

The Celebrity Traitors was a switch up to the regular Traitors format. For season four of the civilian series, do you think the producers felt they had to shake up the game to keep the show interesting?

They were always going to throw something in there, but I think they’ve really nailed it. I don’t think they needed to. I’m a bit of a purist where I think you could just carry on putting 22 people in that room and it will always throw up similar patterns but also absolute chaos. I don’t think they felt pressure that they needed to do it, because the celebrity one had a lot of warmth. It had a lot of humour. It’s all for charity. So you don’t see war. You don’t see bitterness. Season three was very serious and very heavy at a lot of points. Our season had a mixture of funny humour but then also very serious bits. I did think, how are people gonna respond to the normal one after the Celebrity Traitors. But I do think there was enough of a [pull for] the people that want to see normal people do terrible things to go and win and be under stress. [The first episode of season four] is the most-watched first episode out of any of the four seasons. The recipe worked. 

It definitely adds a whole new dimension to the game. We are the players now, too.

The Traitors is probably the most immersive game show that’s ever been. It’s so intense and you’re so invested and you’re so almost irritated at like, ‘How have you not found this person?’ But now we are all part of it. We are fully immersed in who is the secret Traitor. It stole the show because the Faithfuls are almost way down the pecking order now. 

The Traitors continues on BBC One and BBC iPlayer at 9pm on 2 January.

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