The Traitors’ Amanda says the show quite literally saved her life
The Traitors’ Amanda. (BBC)
The Traitors' Amanda. (BBC)
The Traitors star Amanda Collier has said the show saved her life after being diagnosed with a “quite serious heart disease”.
Spoiler alert, but Thursday’s (8 January) episode saw the former Metropolitan Police detective banished. The 57-year-old was one of a few queer contestants, as well as Stephen and Matt.
Speaking to BBC North West Tonight on Monday (12 January), Collier, who comes from Farnworth in Bolton and now lives in Brighton, said she’d already been diagnosed with some slight damage to her heart in 2019 after her sister had a heart attack.
The Traitors‘ producers asked her to get another CT scan prior to filming “just to be sure”, which identified the seriousness of the condition.
“It has got a lot worse in the last five years,” Collier went on to say explaining there’s a genetic factor involved. The former detective said medication, lifestyle changes, and regular NHS check-ups have put her “in a good place”.
The former detective, who’s previously run a marathon and shown off her love of hiking and being outdoors on social media, says the diagnosis has “changed [her] life”.
She added: “I am on the right path and I will hopefully live as long as I can.” But she maintained, had it not been for The Traitors‘ “due diligence” she “would never have noticed” any change.
Still able to exercise, Collier also expressed her thanks to the show saying: “I’m very, very grateful.”
Collier works as an advocate for the British Heart Foundation (BHF), and wants to use her public profile to “tell people that heart disease doesn’t have an age, young and old people can get heart disease”.
But she also wants people to know: “It doesn’t have to stop you doing what you love.”
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