17 February 2024 , 20:00
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The Traitors star Mollie Pearce says host Claudia Winkleman barged into her room to comfort her after Harry Clark revealed he’d tricked her for the whole series.
Almost seven million people saw the runner-up storm out of the round table room swearing when army engineer Harry confessed he was a traitor to win the £95,000 prize. Afterwards the model, 22, was swept into a meeting with a psychologist – but said Claudia was so determined to check she was OK that in spite of a long filming day, she insisted on waiting until she could see her.
Mollie smiled: “I actually love Claudia so much. I could hear her outside the door. She was like, ‘Let me in! I’m seeing her now...’
“She came in and gave me a hug, and she’s like, ‘You smashed it ’ . . . I love her. I just felt instantly better.
Mollie was gobsmacked when Harry revealed himself as a Traitor (BBC)“She does care about us, she always made sure we were OK. She just makes me laugh, she’s so funny. She reminded me it was
a game, and mine and Harry’s friendship was real.”
Soon after Claudia’s visit, Mollie spoke to Harry – and admitted her first words were, ‘You’re a “d***head.’ She insists now that they have made their peace and he owes her nothing. But, weeks on, she still has nightmares about the show.
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Talking on our Invite Only podcast, Mollie said: “It’s beautiful, that castle, on TV you can’t get the full gist of how amazing it was. But I hope (the round table) doesn’t exist there all the time because it’s horrible. Like, just the vibes of the room is really dark. Even now, I can’t explain how tense it is. I still dream about it all the time.
“You’re lying there thinking, ‘I don’t know what happened but I know I was at the round table’. But it was a great experience, so I’m very grateful for it.”
It was Mollie’s second chance at the BBC show after she turned down a role in the first series. And she said she was kicking herself after her parents were instantly hooked.
She went on: “I was approached for Traitors the first year, but nothing had been shown about it. Me and Max (her boyfriend) had planned to go travelling around Greece, so it just wasn’t the right time really.
“Then my parents said, ‘We’re watching the best show ever – it’s The Traitors ’. It rang a bell, so I went back through my
messages and I was like, ‘No way.’ So this year I went for it.
“Once it all happened, I spoke to my parents on the phone, and I spoke to Max and they were like, ‘Oh my God, we are so proud of you, we didn’t care about the money’. I felt like I’d let people down but they reassured me that was just stupid. They’re so proud of me for getting that far.
“I think they thought I’d be home in two days. That dragged me back into the real world, and made me realise, ‘Well, I’m going to be back with my family in two days. This is not real.”
Mollie Pearce with Laura Armstrong and Nicola Fahey from Mirror’s showbiz team (The Daily Mirror)When the show aired months later, Mollie found herself at the centre of a social media backlash as she was targeted by trolls.
The abuse she received was so vicious that she quit X altogether.
But the star – who suffers from ulcerative colitis and has a stoma bag – has been thrilled by the response from fellow sufferers, many of whom have thanked her for raising awareness. Mollie, who also has a limb difference on one hand, said: “I’m trying to get through hundreds of messages because I want to reply to people.
"That’s been amazing, I think it’s made it all worth it. I had a message the other day from a mum, and her daughter had just had a stoma bag and she’d been really struggling mentally with it.
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“She said seeing me on TV was really, really nice. I also had someone message me who had just come out of surgery. She was two days into recovery and she was watching The Traitors from her hospital bed. I would have loved to have seen
someone on my screen with a stoma bag when I just had my surgery.
“Now I’m quite confident with showing my bag off and I’ll wear a bikini if I want to. I knew Max a year before I had my surgery, and we grew close after it - and he just accepted it. He’s not scared to put his hand, or even his head on it.
“If I’ve drunk too much he knows how to change it. On the show, I would never even think about not doing a mission because of my hand or my bag. It just shows that a stoma doesn’t have to stop you.”
Since last month’s final, Mollie has been besieged by offers for work – from documentary makers to big brands like Pretty Little
Thing, who famously offered Molly-Mae Hague a £600,000 deal after her Love Island exit. And after it emerged Harry had been approached by I’m A Celebrity, she said she would also be open to other reality shows.
She said: “Will I be the next Molly-Mae? At the moment I’m just taking in all the opportunities that come up. And like I’ve said, I really do want to push the awareness and this platform is great.
“I’m very grateful now that I’ve got that and I can hopefully use it to help people.” Not Love Island, because of Max, though I do think it would be great if Love Island did get someone on there with a stoma bag.
“What’s my dream offer? I’d love to do Strictly – I think that would be really, really fun.”
Listen to Mollie’s full chat on podcast Invite Only here.