*Warning: Contains minor spoilers for The Traitors Series 3, Episode 1*
The Traitors made a triumphant return to our telly screens tonight after a year-long hiatus (January 1), with fans finally getting a glimpse of the 22 contestants battling it out for a whopping cash prize of up to £120,000.
Three of the hopefuls have been chosen to play as Traitors, tasked with ‘murdering’ their fellow players and making it through the game without being found out. The rest of the group are playing as Faithfuls, whose job it is to catch the Traitors before the game concludes.
If a Traitor manages to stay under the radar, they’ll walk away with the entire prize fund. However, if the Faithfuls succeed in eliminating them, the prize money is divided equally amongst them. In a twist from previous series, this year’s contestants won’t have to reveal their true identities as they leave in the final, reports the Mirror.
Among this year’s cast is Charlotte, who is hiding one of the biggest secrets of the series. Fans of the show will be familiar with secret relationships between players coming to light as the series unfolds, like mother and son duo Diane and Ross in the second series.
While this year sees two sisters among the contestants, they’ve been open about their relationship with the other players. But in a shocking twist in the first episode, it was revealed that Charlotte isn’t quite who she appears to be.
In the confession room, the 32-year-old business director, who had claimed to be from Abergavenny, dropped a bombshell revelation. While mingling with another Welsh contestant earlier, Charlotte played up her local connection, but later admitted in private: “I kind of thought in the past there has only been one person from Wales but this year Claudia has decided to bring two of us here, which is so nice.”
She then revealed: “Though actually, it’s a bit of a spanner in the works because I’m not actually from Wales.” Ditching her accent, she continued: “I’m from London where I am born and bred. I’ve been putting on a Welsh accent because my mum’s from Wales and it’s one of the most trustworthy accents so in a game where we need people to trust each other, I need an accent that people can trust.”
It remains to be seen whether any of the other contestants are hiding something major, although we do know that 28-year-old former soldier Leanne is pretending to be a nail technician in the game.
The Traitors continues tomorrow night at 8pm on BBC One and iPlayer