‘Going on The Traitors is the best thing you’ll ever do’

Spoiler warning: This article contains details of the new series of The Traitors.

A sweet shop assistant who appeared in the latest series of The Traitors said taking part in the murder mystery show was “the best thing you will ever do”.

Reece Ward, from Sheffield, was “murdered” on Friday after being wrongfully suspected of being a traitor for several days.

Speaking after his elimination, the 27-year-old joked: “I just threw myself in the deep end and saw, clearly, I can’t swim.”

Of his time in the hit show, he added: “You say these things, ‘oh I’m cutthroat’ … [but] as soon as you’re in front of Claudia [Winkleman], it’s like, ‘no I’m not, I apologise for even saying those things’.”

The Traitors sees the group split into Faithfuls and Traitors, with the former looking to find the latter before the traitors can “murder” them.

Ward had come close to leaving the show the previous day when he and former detective Amanda Collier received an equal number of votes from the other contestants at the roundtable.

He became tearful when he then won a game of chance to break the deadlock and stay in the game, while Collier revealed her Faithful status to the group and left the castle.

Later that night, he was murdered by the Traitors, in what they described as a “mercy killing”.

“You do have to have a level of switching off,” Ward told BBC Radio Sheffield, admitting this had been a “struggle” for him.

“I took some offence when people were calling me a Traitor, because I wasn’t,” he said.

“I thought, ‘if I watch it back it’ll be a bit different, maybe I looked at somebody a bit suspiciously or I did something a bit weird’ – but I didn’t do anything.”

The experience had been “scary” and “overwhelming” at times, but the support was “amazing”, Ward said.

“It’s the best thing you’ll ever do – the experiences you get from it and the people. You become such a tight-knit family.”

Now, at the middle point of the series, Ward gets to go from “being a contestant in the first six episodes, to being a fan for the last six episodes”.

He said he had “inklings” of how the season would play out but does not know for certain.

“It’s just as authentic as it looks, what you see is what you get,” he added.

“Nothing is produced, nothing is pushed… it’s essentially one big social experiment.

“[They] put 22 brains together and just see the paranoia take over.

“That’s the beauty of the Traitors.”