The Traitors star Harry Clark shares gruelling toll show took on his health

07 March 2024 , 07:43

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The Traitors winner Harry Clark has opened up about his time on the show (Image: BBC/Studio Lamberty/Paul Chappells)

The Traitors champion Harry Clark has opened up about how he struggled with sleep while on the show.

The 23-year-old, who won a whopping £95,150 in the final of the BBC reality show, said he had to keep reminding himself why he was there because it got so tough. Harry tricked his friend Mollie Pearce into thinking he was on her side when really he was a traitor. He asked host Claudia Winkleman if he could be a traitor for the whole second series.

Chatting on the Tom Dean Medal Machine podcast, he said: "At the start of The Traitors, I would remind myself why I'm here every three or four days." But by the end, he was having to do this every five minutes because it was so hard.

Harry has shared the intense toll The Traitors took on him

The contestants could be filming for up to 18 hours a day with everyone else before they all went to bed. It was only when the other contestants were back in their rooms that the traitors would go out to the tower to decide who would be "murdered" that night.

"So you just had to pretend you're as tired as everyone else, but not more tired," he explained. This is why people started to look worn out after a few weeks - they weren't getting enough sleep. But Harry said the show looked after everyone really well, adding: "It's just a game, isn't it? So that's part and parcel of the game."

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The former British Army engineer also shared that he didn't watch the first series as he wanted to enter the show without any preconceived ideas or trying to mimic a previous strategy. He said his plan was to be himself and not overthink things before they happened as he felt that could lead a contestant to "go into a spiral".

Winkleman has hosted two series of the game show, which involves members of the public trying to figure out who among them are "faithfuls" and who are "traitors" since it started at the end of 2022.

Harry admits he struggled to sleep on the show (BBC)

Once the contestants arrive, they can ask to be faithful or a traitor to the host. Clark confessed that he had always wanted to be a traitor but was worried he wouldn't get the opportunity after "crumbling" in front of the "powerful" Winkleman.

"I'd met her and I was like, 'Oh no, she's going to think that he won't be able to handle it' because I just felt like I crumbled," he said. Harry added: Because she's actually such a powerful woman. She was speaking to me and I was sinking down into my chair. I was trying to speak to Claudia and I couldn't. I was like, 'What is happening? ' Because normally I can talk to anyone. But she was such a strong character."

He said that before the selection roundtable, it was his "dream" to be a traitor, but he began to have second thoughts when Winkleman started picking people. Clark said: "It's a lot, the pressure and the intensity of that building up. And then she tapped me and it was like, 'OK, now I need to do that. The game starts'."

You can listen to the Tom Dean Medal Machine podcast on Global Player.

Daniel Bird