Celebrity Traitors' Amol Rajan reveals what really happened when the coffin lid closed – and gives verdict on Ross Kemp's paranoia

The Celebrity Traitors returned in classic jaw-dropping style last week, as Claudia Winkleman welcomed audiences back to the Scottish Highlands, along with a new group of 21 celebrities braving the ultimate game of back-stabbing and deception.

Among the group of famous faces was broadcaster Amol Rajan, who entered the game completely enamoured with the jeopardy and drama the show provides, but those very themes were what ultimately worked against him.

In the opening episode, Winkleman chose Richard E Grant and Maya Jama to be her Traitors and their first mission was to choose between two Faithful players to recruit in a face-to-face meeting, meaning that one player evidently knew too much and would have to be murdered.

Unfortunately for Rajan, he was the player who knew too much...

Following his exit, Radio Times sat down with Amol Rajan who discussed all about his time in the castle and which players audiences should keep an eye out for.

How does it feel to be the first celebrity to leave The Celebrity Traitors season 2?

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"It's a mixed bag. It's a sort of overwhelming frustration because I'd have been a great Traitor. I would have been a great Traitor but, you know, it was filmed a little while ago, as as I think most people know, and I have had a bit of time to get over it.

"And my kind of feeling now is one of like, what an amazing privilege to be part of this incredible TV programme. I had a lot of fun and, you know, I feel like I got the golden ticket to get invited onto The Traitors. It would have been nice to get the deluxe version and be an actual Traitor, but overall, I've had a wonderful time, and just getting all the messages over the weekend from people that watched it was was really nice."

Let's talk about the moment you're face-to-face [with the Traitors], did you have any idea that it could have been Richard or Maya?

"I can't in good conscience say I suspected Maya. I was getting on with her so well, but she's obviously got this just extreme villain energy because she was not giving away anything. Richard... I mean, the main clue with Richard was the fact that when asked if he was a Traitor, he did in fact say that he was a Traitor. So we all had some suspicions about him.

"By the time we got to the chapel, it was late at night, and I was so exhausted. I didn't really think I was going to see Richard. It was very, very dark and it was a tall figure – I actually thought it was King Kenny. So there was this weird moment where I was like, 'Oh my God, it's Kenny! It's Kenny! It's Kenny!' And then it was Richard and Maya, and it was like, 'Wow.'

"I mean, that was genuinely a moment I'll never forget because they were fully in Traitors mode. People shouldn't think you get a second take and it's all chilled out. They were staring at me very intently, not blinking, being evil, plotting my death. And so, though I didn't suspect them, once I kind of clocked it was them, I was like, 'Ah it all seems so obvious when they take their hoods down.'"

Getting that coffin slammed down, can you talk us through that moment? What were the emotions that go through your head?

"It's very hard to explain the degree to which you have to hold two alternative scenarios in your head at the same time, and you so desperately want one, and you so desperately want to avoid the other. And so I said my little speech, my little kind of, you know, my three pillars or whatever, thinking I've got a chance here, and I got into that coffin just being like, 'Please let it not be me because this is literally my worst nightmare.'

"And almost the only thing that I wanted out of Traitors, I wanted to be myself and come across as I actually am. I wanted to make some friends, but I didn't want to be the first out. So getting into that coffin, first of all, I'm really claustrophobic. I hate coffins. Secondly, I was really exhausted. Third, it was cold, and I just really, really, really, really didn't want that coffin lid to shut. And so, when Claudia was patrolling, it doesn't necessarily always come across on TV, but she's got these very loud boots.

"When she was doing that noise and walking towards James [Acaster], I was like, 'Yes!' And then the same noise again. I was like, 'Oh God!' And then she did it twice more, and it felt like 1,500 hours. And in the end, she just came back to me and went bang! And it was like, 'Oh my God! The worst has come to pass.' So it was terrifying walking into the coffin, but the moment the lid closed it was dreadful."

Was it worse watching it back?

"It was very, very bad. And in fact, I've now watched it back twice. It's a weird thing [because] you've experienced it once, you've thought about it a lot. When you watch it on screen, you're obviously interested to see what the edit looks like. But watching it back, my heart was pounding. I watched it the night it went out, I watched it with a bunch of neighbours. They all came round, and you know, this was like, 'I've literally been there.' I've watched it on screen, and this is the third time I'm kind of living through it. And my heart was pounding. And I think it's just that good TV that even if you know what happens and sadly I do know what happens – it's still completely gripping, and there is this sense of jeopardy."

You looked back and said you played the wrong game – what would you have done differently in hindsight?

"I think I'd have been a little bit more alert to the fact that I was obviously going to be cast as the journalist, right? And, you know, it's easy with hindsight, which is a glorious thing. You could be like, 'Oh, I played it wrong because that meant that Richard sort of went after me.' But I did come really close to being a Traitor, and if it was a sort of 51/49, if me being a journalist – I sniff out lies for a living, I ask good questions, you want me on your side – might have actually persuaded Maya and Richard, that tactic might have worked.

"In retrospect, it didn't. So maybe I did a little bit too much of that. I just wish I kept a little bit more quiet, you know. And I think in the end, having a bit of a go at Richard in the castle was kind of stupid. But it's easy to say that with hindsight."

You said you'd have been a good Traitor. Given the chance, what would you have brought to the turret?

"Two things above all. One is that I would have been a wicked Traitor. And in fact, if there's another series, a kind of back from the dead or an all stars, I would like to put my hand up now to be a Traitor in that series. So two things: one is because I love the show, I'm obsessed with the show. It's an incredible TV production – even better, I think, when you get celebrities involved because they come with these weird reputations. I think I would have been not that good a Traitor if I'd been picked from the beginning in the first roundtable when Claudia gives you the tap on the shoulder. But having been a Faithful, if I was then recruited, I think I'd have been really good because I knew what it was like to be in the mindset of a Faithful.

"And I think my tactic would have been – you can tell I've thought about this a bit – you've been recruited as a Traitor, just carry on like you were yesterday, just carry on being like you were Faithful, because I'd inhabited that thing. So, I think that would have been quite good because I'd actually been a Faithful. But the second thing is my analysis of previous series is that you've got to do the random and unexpected things, and I think, if I may humbly say – and we'll see how this plays out on Thursday's episode – but I think that Richard and Maya did quite an obvious thing, as Hannah Fry said at the roundtable and got rid of me.

"It's quite straightforward. What I would have loved to have done in the turret is just thrown a curveball, just do something completely random, just nominate Bash [Sebastian Croft] or Sharon [Rooney] or Bella [Ramsey] or something, just be like, 'Yeah, let's just do that because then we're going to confuse them.' And then to watch these Faithful go, 'Why have they done that?' That would have been so good."

Hannah and James said you were the biggest threat to the Traitors, and that's why they got rid of you. Do you agree with that analysis from them?

"Was I the biggest threat? I think I was the most obvious surface-level threat because of my, sort of, professional casting, and it's true to say that if I'd gotten to the roundtable, I was going to nominate Richard. I mean, I was going to try to keep a low profile but, you know, there wasn't much to go on at that stage, except for the fact that Richard had literally said he was a Traitor!

"So I think I would have. I think I was a big threat. I think in general on the programme, and I'm definitely not going to give anything away here, but in general, watch out for the sneaky ones. I think sometimes the obvious people, the big dog theory, it's sometimes a bit too obvious, and I think sometimes the people that you don't suspect can often be the bigger threat, which is one of the things that makes it such great telly.

"So I think my reputation or my job cast me as a threat, but obviously I would say that, and actually I was going to nominate Richard, but I would say that, you know, there are other people that you might not think are a threat that are very, very dangerous."

I feel like we had a big dog immediately when Julie [Hesmondhalgh] came in and everyone said she was the most trustworthy. Would you say she's a big dog Faithful?

"No, I think Julie, in those first two episodes, has come across as the nicest person in the world, rather than the big dog, and if anything, I think Richard E Grant has got a kind of big dog energy, but he's also got a mad dog energy, and that might cause him some problems. There is something which I to this day have not quite worked out, and I'm honestly fascinated to see what the implications of it are. There's a kind of weirdness about the shields in that church. I don't know what that was about, but there are other people who have a kind of big dog energy.

"I think Jerry Hall has a kind of big dog energy, and I think Julie is kind of partly because that's how she's played it. I think Julie is in there more as a lovely person rather than a kind of marauding character. In a way, that was Joe Marler’s theory about Stephen Fry that he said he had that kind of big personality.

"There's a few of those: Ross Kemp, Maya, Jerry, people who are kind of self-aware about it. I'd say more them than Julie, who's the kind of wonderful human being from Coronation Street that, for some reason, has got a shield."

What was the atmosphere like in there? Was everyone second guessing everything because they'd watched the show before?

"Do you remember when you studied geography at school and they would teach you about microclimates? I think Ross Kemp created this kind of microclimate around him, and there was this kind of rain cloud that followed him. And I just think Ross Kemp is quite a unique character. I think possibly because he spent slightly too much time being a hard nut on TV and in war zones, he was uniquely paranoid. I think I'm not giving anything away in saying that.

"The atmosphere, it's an amazing thing. One thing about this year's show, which I think is great, and again, you know, props to Studio Lambert for it, is everyone in there is really nice. Everyone. I mean, I'm sure the previous series the same, and maybe the civilian series, as they call it, the same. But like, I can say this hand on heart, everyone in there was so nice until the Traitors were picked, because then it goes from nice to nasty. Because then suddenly all these people that you've been getting to know a little bit, having a little bit of breakfast and downtime with and chatting to in the castle, suddenly you're like, 'Are you trying to kill me?'

"So there is this sudden atmosphere. Sadly, I didn't get to experience very much of it. But in my time, there is this very sharp moment from which nice becomes really nasty, and I would say that nastiness is quite evenly distributed because even people that you think of as really nice, the Romeshes, the Robs, the Joannes – I love Joanne McNally so much – even them you kind of suspect that maybe they're trying their best to kill you."

Why do you think we all love The Traitors? What is it that we love about watching the lies and the backstabbing of it all?

"I cannot think of any psychological game that is better or offers a better insight into human behaviour, and human behaviour in very particular and extreme conditions. And I think that basically, what is so clever about it is this is true of all kinds of comedy through history, is the viewer, the audience is godlike in knowing everything, and you feel this strange kind of power in knowing what is going on, but watching people who know less than you kind of play out this game. So you're kind of like omnipotent as a viewer because you know everything that's happening, and these people are just like, 'Oh, they're suspicious, and you can see the mistakes that they make.'

"It's also just like all great television and all great formats in the end are about watching a group of people go on a really satisfying emotional journey to some fantastic conclusion. This is an incredible group of people. The emotional journey is wild. It's all over the place, and the conclusion is like, who wins? So it's got absolutely everything. There's human psychology. It puts the viewer in a position of tremendous kind of omnipotence and godlike kind of knowledge of what's going on. It's got the kind of secret ingredient of all great formats, and then there's also Claudia Winkleman in a tartan skirt. And I don't mean that in a way that sounds anything other than affectionate. She is like the greatest broadcaster in the world right now. She oozes mischief and aura, which is incredible because she's actually the nicest person in the world.

"I'll tell you how nice she was when I got out of that coffin – it meant the world to me. She sent me a very nice message, and she is a phenomenon who kind of holds it all together, and there's also you know, bluntly, Studio Lambert who have created this kind of camp gothic horror in the Highlands, and the whole atmosphere of it is hard to resist. So it genuinely is, like, I think of it as the last great TV show. I went to a wedding this weekend, and the amount there was loads of kids and young teenagers, 13, 14, 15, who are just obsessed with the show, and that's what TV should be. That's something for everyone. And Claudia Winkleman – those two things."

Celebrity Traitors continues on Thursday 8 October at 8pm on BBC One and iPlayer.

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