When Penny Met Claudia …

20th October 2026

Like nine million other people in the country I’m obsessed by The Celebrity Traitors. I was late to the party last year, seeing Alan Carr break down in tears when he won, but this year I’m right in at the beginning. Scroll down to see my thoughts about what could happen after episode six’s cliffhanger, with (spoiler alert!) Ross Kemp and Jerry Hall both up for yawn murder, a pivot of the childhood game wink murder…

Claudia Winkleman image courtesy of BBC/Studio Lambert

My very tenuous claim to Traitors fame is that I interviewed The Traitors’ presenter Claudia Winkleman back in 1999, when she was a presenter on BBC TV’s Holiday programme and I was the website producer. I got the gig because I’d loved working as a TV researcher on the programme and when I moved to the beeb’s budding online service, then in its infancy, an assistant producer job on the Holiday website came up. The producer left a while later and bingo, I got promoted.

Claudia came to the office one evening to do a live chat with visitors to the website. I say live chat but this was back when most people used a pay as you go dial up to access the internet through their home phone line and the chat was text based typed onto the screen.

I’d done my homework and knew that she was a very intelligent woman, having graduated from Cambridge and been successful navigating the shark-infested waters of 1990s TV presenting. In the flesh she was lovely, very friendly, very beautiful (she had yet to have that famous fringe cut) but it struck me that she was very self-deprecating. Her persona was very much girl next door. Why so, I thought, when she was clearly so successful?

Then I coined my Miss Marple theory that her persona was part of her intelligence. The late 1990s was the era of lads mags, girl power and female young (for the vast majority were) TV presenters expected to pose in a bikini for the media looking like they’re up for it. Anyone remember FHM magazine projecting a nude picture of Gail Porter onto the Houses of Parliament to promote their 100 sexiest women feature? It’s unthinkable today.

Claudia though, very savvily stayed clear of all that. She didn’t do a glamour shoot or market herself based on how much the ‘lads’ might fancy her. Her girl next door persona was friendly, unthreatening, and appealing to all viewers. Then there were the producers who have the power to make or break a presenter’s career. My few years working in TV taught me that few presenters have the power we think we have: it’s the producers who decide who goes on screen and a new producer coming in to a series often meant a complete refresh, out with the old presenters and in with some new ones.

Not all presenters were like their on screen characters. A minority could be difficult to work with, diva-like (and the male equivalent) or unpunctual. Claudia, however, was pleasant to everybody and a delight to work with. She made herself the presenter that the production team wanted to be around. I suspect she knew that in TV things move quickly: the runner on one programme could be the producer in a few years’ time. Smiles, pleasantries and please and thank yous go a long way.

Few other young female TV presenters from 1999 have survived and thrived in their career to the present day. The only other one I can think of is Davina McCall. Those who went down the ladettes route have faded into TV history. Claudia, however, has been incredibly clever in building her career and picking her projects to become the national treasure she is today on our screens. That young woman I had the pleasure of interviewing (she’s a couple of years older than me I think) was playing the long game, and now she has arguably the best TV job in the world hosting The Traitors to show for it.

My thoughts on the ending of The Celebrity Traitors episode six

Contains spoilers, do not read further if you haven’t watched it!

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James A, Maya and new traitor recruit Kenny had to spray a perfume in a room then ‘bore’ one of the faithfuls to death by getting them to yawn. The words ‘Am I boring you?’ would then seal the unlucky faithful’s fate.

The three gathered in the library but Sharon popped in and asked Kenny to go and talk with her. James A and Maya remained, with Ross and Jerry joining them. Cue performance yawning from James A and Maya, in the hope that yawning would be catching, and James A attempting to bore Jerry by asking her about Texas.

We won’t know until Thursday 22nd October which of them yawns first, but surely James A and Maya are now highly suspicious. Kenny will fly under the radar because he wasn’t in the room. Whether it’s Ross or Jerry left, they’ll tell the faithfuls that James A and Maya’s yawning was highly suspicious. Maya probably has a stronger following than James A, therefore I suspect he’ll be next to go at the round table. Will Maya vote for him to save her own skin? Kenny I think will protect Maya, but she’ll still have a lot of heat on her. Could Kenny be the one to go all the way and take the Traitors’ crown? My other prediction is that Miranda could triumph. No-one thinks she’s a traitor or that she’s capable of skulduggery. Sadly though, she told Kenny that she’s sure he’s a faithful. What will happen if it’s the two of them left at the round table at the end of the series? I can’t wait to find out, but most likely, like some of the celebrities in the castle, I’ve got it all wrong!