The Traitors’ Claudia Winkleman names dream celebrity line-up for backstabbing series

Claudia Winkleman given an insight into who she’d like to see cast if a celebrity version of the hit reality TV show The Traitors is given the green light.

Although a celebrity version has not been confirmed, reports in The Sun suggested that the BBC was looking to cast huge names in a spin-off of the show, including football WAGs Rebekah Vardy and Coleen Rooney, football pundit Gary Lineker and the former health secretary, Matt Hancock.

“Bosses want big names as the show is getting big viewing figures, and they know they’ll have plenty to choose from as The Traitors has huge fans within the showbiz world,” a TV insider told the newspaper.

“But they also want stars who are likely to be great game-players and who have great survival skills, the ability to double-cross or a way of sniffing out a back-stabber.”

However, if The Traitors own host Winkleman was given the job of choosing a celebrity line-up, she’d pick Only Connect host Victoria Coren Mitchell, actor and writer Stephen Fry and soap star Adam Woodyatt, who plays Ian Beale in EastEnders.

Winkleman shared the names at a press event tied to the release of the second series. She also pointed out that she’d be a “terrible” contestant herself and that she’d “worked out how to win is to be lovable and inoffensive and close to the traitor”, The Independent reported.

“I can’t say anything else, but that is the smart way to enter the castle. [To think], ‘I don’t want to be a traitor, I’m just going to glide along here and not bother anyone and if I see someone I suspect, I’ll just get closer to them’,” she said.

The second season of the series has pulled in viewers, with many LGBTQ+ fans particularly connecting with retired teacher Diane. With her confessionals, jaw-dropping revelations, and that bob, she has held her audience from the beginning.

Talking about her newfound fame and accompanying “gay icon” status in an interview with Metro, she said: “It’s mental, I’m flattered, absolutely flattered, it’s amazing But it is a bit weird, really.

“I went on for a laugh and it’s spiralling out of control.”

And she told The Guardian, that “all the reasons that keep coming up as to why I might be a gay icon seem to be the qualities that really annoy my family”, adding: “One of them would be that I’m very direct and give my opinion when it’s not wanted, but really that is just me being me.

“I didn’t go in with any strategy. Surviving was my only strategy.”