A star of this year’s Celebrity Traitors has revealed he was raging after bosses allegedly initiated a drug search in his belongings ahead of the show starting.
Comedian Joe Wilkinson is among the starry lineup for the first showbiz edition of Claudia Winkleman’s wildly popular BBC reality show.
The actor, 50, is a Faithful, while presenter Jonathan Ross, singer Cat Burns, and chaotic comic Alan Carr have been recruited as Traitors, having already murdered Paloma Faith in plain sight, much to everyone’s shock.
Last Thursday’s episode ended on a huge cliffhanger, as viewers were left in suspense not knowing if Niko Omilana or Kate Garraway would be banished in the first tense roundtable.
But while we eagerly await discovering their fate, Joe has been spilling the beans on the drama taking place off-screen.
Speaking on the Chatabix podcast, he confessed to throwing a bit of a strop when producers wanted to check his bags as he arrived for filming in May.
The celebrities stayed in a budget hotel an hour from the lavish Ardross Castle in the Scottish Highlands, where the show is based.
‘This man said, “I’m going to go through your bag”,’ Joe recalled of his arrival. ‘I was like, “I don’t think you are, pal.”
‘All the producers came.
‘I was like, “You’re going to have to trust me,” but they were like, “Well, you have signed up to this, you p***k”, and I was like, “OK, carry on”.’
Thankfully, with no drugs to be found, everything could go ahead as planned.
‘They were polite, and it was fine in the end.’
Offering further insight, Scottish actor Mark Bonnar said things ‘got weird as soon as [they] arrived’ for shooting.
‘There’s six people in your room as soon as you’ve checked in, and they’re going through every item of your luggage,’ explained the 56-year-old Casualty star.
‘Just to check you haven’t got any secret recording equipment or illegal drugs.
‘We’re celebrities—we wouldn’t do drugs!’
The Celebrity Traitors launched to a staggering audience of 6.5million earlier this week, with other cast members including Clare Balding, Sir Stephen Fry, Charlotte Church, Tom Daley, and Joe Mahler.
Social media was quickly set alight with commentary and memes, while theories are already rife over how the series will progress.
Viewers have been loving Chatty Man’s Alan and his inability to conceal his Traitor identity, while Good Morning Britain host Kate surely looks set for banishment next time after her fellow players started suspecting her ‘over-the-top’ remarks were a sign of something more sinister.
Speaking after the launch episode, which was hailed as ‘TV gold’, presenter Claudia explained why the three Traitors were chosen, in particular Alan, who people are already branding the ‘worst’ Traitor in the show’s history.
‘I do those chats with them, and they’re much longer than you see,’ Claudia told Radio Times.
‘Then I go into a room with the bosses from the BBC, the brilliant casting group, and we sort of work [it] out together.
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‘We don’t have long, but Alan said he wanted to be a Traitor, and they were compelling. So how could you not?’
Alan also said to the BBC prior to the series’ release: ‘Well, people have asked, “Would you like to be a Traitor?”
‘The answer is, I don’t know. I’m fascinated to know how I would cope with it if I was.
‘I’m not known for my poker face, but you’ve just got to adapt. I’m indecisive, and that’s the problem. But I think that’s probably good because I’d say it’s best to have an open mind.’
The Celebrity Traitors continues on Wednesday on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.
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