After 12 episodes, eight “murders” and 14 banishments, the winners of The Traitors were revealed after a nail-biting finale.
More than 7 million viewers tuned in to see project manager Jake Brown and former soldier Leanne Quigley triumph and share a prize pot of £94,600.
The pair revealed their identities as faithfuls after interior designer Francesca Rowan-Plowden, former British diplomat Alexander Dragonetti and business director Charlotte Berman were banished from the BBC One show.
Berman was the first to be banished after she aroused suspicion from her fellow competitors when Rowan-Plowden told them she was a traitor.
Earlier in the episode, Rowan-Plowden, who was granted the power of the “seer”, attended a secret meeting with Berman and opened an envelope containing a card printed with the word “traitor”, revealing her friend’s status.
As Berman watched from across the table, Rowan-Plowden became emotional and Berman said: “You realise, this doesn’t leave this room. As in, I’m not a traitor on the outside of this.”
“Oh, my God, Charlotte, you’re gonna say that I’m the traitor, aren’t you?”, Rowan-Plowden said in response.
At breakfast the next morning, Rowan-Plowden told the contestants that Berman was a traitor but she threw the same accusation back at her, leaving their fellow players confused.
The contestants had been whittled down to five after rounds of banishments and “murders” on the BBC One programme, hosted by Claudia Winkleman, who welcomed 22 strangers to a castle in the Scottish Highlands.
The game involves the faithfuls attempting to banish the traitors, who murder during the night, in order to win a prize pot of up to £120,000.
If any traitors are left undetected by the end of the show they win the money earned during team challenges.
The contestants added £21,000 to their prize fund after completing their final challenge during Friday’s episode.
The mission involved four of the players hanging from a helicopter while attempting to drop bags filled with money into a burning ring of fire in a field.
After Berman was banished, the remaining contestants chose to banish twice more, despite all four of them being faithfuls, leaving just Jake and Leanne to share the £94,600.
This year the finalists were no longer able to reveal whether they were a traitor or faithful after being voted out making it more difficult for the contestants to know when they should stop banishing.
After their win, Quigley revealed to Brown that she had lied about her identity as a nail technician and was actually a former British army soldier.
Berman had also lied about her identity on the show and pretended she was Welsh.
She told spin-off show The Traitors: Uncloaked: “I literally did it on my audition video, to try and stand out …
“And I mean it got me on the show, and it got me to the end, and it gave me the biggest headache ever.”
Last year, 5.5 million people on average watched British army engineer Harry Clark win the whole prize of £95,150, after deceiving his friend Mollie Pearce in a dramatic final episode.
The show has won a host of awards including at the Bafta TV Awards in 2023 for best reality and constructed factual.
