Latest banished Traitors contestant grateful to leave on own terms but ‘gutted’

The latest contestant to be banished from The Traitors has said her gameplan was to use “the invisibility cloak of the middle-aged woman and just try and keep my head down”.

Harriet, 52, who was banished on Wednesday night’s episode of the BBC show, had earlier revealed that she was a published author of psychological thrillers and a former criminal barrister, causing her fellow contestants to be suspicious of her.

But after receiving the most votes and being told that she would be banished, she revealed that she was, in fact, a faithful.

Asked why she had come clean about her career, she said it was because the traitors knew what she did.

“I didn’t want the traitors to have a single piece of information on me that I hadn’t shared with my fellow faithfuls,” she said.

“You have very little control in that environment as a faithful and I was bloody well going to control my own narrative and not give that to anybody else.

“People could choose not to believe me, but I was not going to leave anyone the opportunity to spread lies about me before I had told the truth.”

She said although she was “gutted” to leave, she appreciated that she “could not have asked for more action”.

Harriet added: “I was given some opportunities there, I created other opportunities for myself and as I said, faithfuls have very little control.

“In all of that I managed to find a way of fighting as myself and leaving on my own terms and I really don’t think many other people who’ve been through the game can say that.”

Harriet, who said she had watched all the other series “more than once”, said she had gravitated towards Rachel when she entered the castle.

“We’re not that dissimilar in age, we’ve both got kids – we had a lot in common,” she added.

“She likes reading – I thought she’d actually caught me out because she was talking about her love of psychological thrillers at one point.

“It’s amazing how quickly you find people to talk to and, due to the vast number of applicants, I figured there was going to be something fascinating about every single person there.”

Harriet said her plan had been to go in as “the nice lady with the jumper who was not a published author”.

“Not too much on anyone’s radar – the invisibility cloak of the middle-aged woman and just try and keep my head down and watch what was going on.”