Michael Sheen reveals "poison chalice" that worked against him on The Celebrity Traitors

Michael Sheen has admitted that being voted head of the roundtable on The Celebrity Traitors as a "poison chalice" that left him exposed, as the actor reflected on his murder at the hands of the Traitors.

Sheen became the final celebrity to be murdered by the Traitors, in a toss up between him and Sebastian Croft. In the penultimate episode, it was clear that the actor was onto the Traitors having almost correctly guessed the murder in plain sight, which prompted James Acaster to reveal himself as a Traitor.

Speaking after his exit, Sheen said he knew the moment his fellow players singled him out that it would make him a marked man, caught between the suspicions of the Faithful and the strategic calculations of the Traitors.

"As soon as I found out that that had happened, I immediately got concerned, because anything that puts your head above the parapet, anything that makes you stand out, is an issue for you one way or another, either because of how the Faithfuls will react to it, or if the Traitors might see it as a threat," he said.

Sheen added that the role made it increasingly hard to explain why he had survived so long. "I think it did make me vulnerable, and increasingly as time went on, it was harder to answer the question of, well, why haven't they got rid of you or recruited you, and I couldn't really answer that."

The Welsh actor began the series as a Faithful, a role he admitted he had expected to find less stressful than being a Traitor, but he couldn't have been more wrong. "The experience of being a Faithful is incredibly stressful, just in different ways. I hadn't anticipated how much being a successful Faithful is all about survival," he admitted.

Sheen explained that the early success in rooting out Traitors became a double-edged sword, because each departure triggered fresh recruitments. "In a way, we were a victim of our own success," he explained, noting that recruitments "throw a complete spanner in the works, because you don't know when someone became a Traitor or not."

Knowing his time was likely up, Sheen said he decided to go out on the offensive, vowing at breakfast to make life a "living hell" for the Traitors. He described it as "partly true, and partly heartfelt, but it was also a tactic", reasoning that an all-out assault might rattle a Traitor group he sensed was "a bit nervy, and a bit skittish".

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"I figured that my time had run out anyway, so I might as well go down in flames on the last day, and it worked well," he said.

Reflecting on his suspicions as he left, Sheen shared that Maya Jama and Leigh-Anne were the players he believed were Traitors, pointing to a "murder in plain sight" that he felt was "off the Richter scale in terms of a suspicious move".

Looking ahead to the finale, Sheen tipped Romesh Ranganathan to win but said he would not be surprised to see James Blunt go all the way, citing something "extraordinarily relentless about him". Only time will tell!

The Celebrity Traitors is available to stream on BBC iPlayer.

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