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GAME PLAN
I was The Traitors’ smiling assassin who masterminded ‘Red Breakfast’… now I’ve quit job & starred in ANOTHER hit show
Amanda Lovett became a viral hit on the BBC show and reveals why this series will be even tougher
WHEN she applied for the first series of The Traitors, Amanda Lovett never imagined she’d be a star.
The 54-year-old self-styled Welsh “dragon” even went back to her job as an estate agent at first.
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But, from the moment Amanda became one of the Traitors in the BBC show, fans loved her - thanks to her devious gameplay yet cheerful and friendly accent.
And although she didn’t manage to make it to the end of the series, thanks to fellow Traitor Wilfred Webster turning on her so close to the final, she’s had the last laugh.
In May last year, she hosted an episode of BBC Radio 4 show, Woman’s Hour, titled Why We Lie.
More recently, she even bagged a presenting role on Homes Under The Hammer, which she said was a “dream come true” - and she’s well and truly quit her day job now.
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“I don't think any of us expected The Traitors to be as big as it was,” Amanda says in an exclusive interview. “We all hoped that the public would like it but it was just phenomenal, the way it blew up over the Christmas and New Year.
“So life’s been really busy for me.
“ I gave up my estate agency job because I had so many opportunities that came my way, and I've just travelled the UK this year, meeting lots of different people, I’ve gone to other cities, done some TV, been involved in lots of different projects.
“These are things I never dreamt of doing, but the doors the show has opened to me have been fantastic.”
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Travelling the country
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Arguably, one of Amanda’s most iconic moments in the series is when she delivered a killer one-liner to her fellow Traitor Wilf.
After he’d turned on the third Traitor, Alyssa Chan, forcing Amanda and the rest of the group to banish her, she asked him: “What is on the flag of Wales?"
He replied: “A dragon,” to which she then snapped back: “You throw me under the bus, and that is what I will be”.
She laughs: “Twitter erupted after that, and the day after it aired, I went back into work, and said to one of the boys, because he’s gay, ‘What’s all this about me being a gay icon?’
“He says, ‘Because you’re a strong woman, Amanda!’
But after last season lifted the veil on some of the show's brutal tricks and twists, she thinks this year's contestants will have it even tougher.
"I think it's gonna be more ruthless this year, because we all were novices, it had never been played before and we all went on the same journey," she says.
So we all are friends. We've formed a friendship. But I think it's going to be a game to them this year. They're not going in there to look for friends or go on a journey.
"They know the game. They're going in there to play. I'm excited to watch it. But I think it's going to be a lot more ruthless."
The 'Red Breakfast' chaos
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Amanda admits she wanted to be a Traitor from the moment she applied for the BBC show - as did her 18-year-old twin girls, Anna May and Molly and older daughter Katie.
“I'd never done anything like this, never done any drama or TV or anything,” she says. “And I think after watching Love Island for many years with my three girls I wanted to see if you could form bonds that quickly with people, and it's like a game of chess.
“As a traitor, you get to take the pawns out - it's great, and it was fun!
“When we used to meet in the night, we would be giggling and laughing.”
Amanda’s favourite moment of the series was what fans have dubbed the ‘Red Breakfast,’ in which the three Traitors had to pick three contestants to put “on trial”.
One of the names picked was Alex Gray, who - unbeknownst to anyone else on the show, including the Traitors - was the girlfriend of fellow Faithful Tom Elderfield.
As Alex’s name was announced, Tom stood up and shocked everyone - including Alex - by revealing their secret.
“That just totally erupted with Tom,” laughs Amanda. “And we could never have planned something like that.
“So we used to love it because we were just disrupting everything and turning the castle into chaos.
“And then we get to breathe at night, have a good giggle about it, and think ‘Who's gonna be the next victim?’"
Shock ending
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Wilf eventually got Amanda banished, leaving him to be the last Traitor standing.
He went on to recruit Kieran Tompsett as a Traitor, and it looked as if Wilf was going to walk away with the £150,000 prize money, and trick the Faithfuls.
However, he turned on Kieran in the final banishment too, which led Kieran to warn the Faithfuls, Meryl Williams, Hannah Byczkowski and Aaron Evans he was a Traitor, through writing Wilf’s name down as a “parting gift”.
The Faithfuls won in the end, but Amanda found out the news along with the rest of the country.
She says: “I didn't know what had happened at the end until it got aired, because when you were banished or murdered, you're taken away.
“When I left I thought Wilf had won the money.
“But that was an iconic ending, wasn't it? Scriptwriters couldn't have even written that as good!
"I was really shocked.
“Honestly, I felt Wilf would've run away with it because he played his game brilliantly. He was a true Traitor to the end!”
And there’s no bad blood between Amanda and Wilf - or any of the cast they both lied to.
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She says: “We’ve all got together since, and they all laughed about it.
“When you come back into the outside world, you do breathe and you think, ‘Yes, it is a game,’ but when you are in there, it's intense!”
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