Richard E Grant admits Traitors mistakes: ‘I never thought they would take me seriously’

Richard E Grant has said his early exit from The Celebrity Traitors was due to his failure to realise his fellow contestants would take him seriously.

The Withnail and I actor was voted off as a traitor after brazenly admitting his status to other contestants.

Speaking to the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, Grant said revealing his true identity so early was a mistake. “I never thought they would take me seriously,” he said.

“It was a completely catastrophically idiotic thing to do. I can only imagine the faces of the producers looking at each other and mouthing ‘he said what?!’. The strategy of no strategy is the strategy, clearly.”

He revealed that his daughter told him before filming that he would be “slaughtered” as he was “incapable of hiding what you feel about people or anything”.

During the first episode, Grant appeared to be thrilled to be selected as a traitor. His enthusiasm for the role appeared to get the better of him when he was asked by his fellow contestant Joe Lycett which side he was on.

When Grant confessed to being a traitor, Lycett said: “I think you’ve done something that’s never been done in the game. It’s a bold strategy.”

Grant said he now realised he should have made a joke of his admission. He said: “What I should have done in retrospect is go round everybody and say ‘are you a traitor? Yeah. I am a traitor, I am Spartacus. I am a traitor,’ to try and make light of it, but that may have dug my grave even deeper.”

Explaining the context, he suggested contestants were treated like children and prisoners. He said: “You are so institutionalised in that thing within 24 hours, because you are isolated, kept in a room, there is a guard outside your door, your food is delivered and there’s no internet access, so you are kind of shut down.

“You are also not told what time it is and are also proscribed on a daily basis what you are going to wear. So, you are kind of infantilised and institutionalised at the same time.”

He said he had chosen to avoid watching the series. “It’s a weird thing because as an actor it is very uncomfortable to watch yourself, and if you watch yourself unscripted – which Traitors is – there’s no place to hide. That is unequivocally you.”