We don’t know how they do it, but somehow The Traitors’ casting team manage to sniff out some absolute huns every year. There was Amanda Lovett on series one, Diane Carson on series two and, on series three, that honour goes to Traitors Minah Shannon and Linda Rands.
Although Linda got caught out by the Faithfuls after a series of errors, including the iconic moment she turned to look at Claudia Winkleman when she addressed the Traitors at the Round Table, Minah absolutely bossed it as a Traitor and we were rooting for her to go all the way.
Sadly though, Minah’s downfall came when Charlotte Berman – who she’d recruited as a Traitor just a few nights earlier – turned on her at the Round Table and voted for her to be banished.
Ever since we watched those nail-biting scenes, we’ve been wondering what went down between Minah and Charlotte following the betrayal and luckily we got to catch up with Queen Minah following her banishment to ask her exactly that.
Speaking exclusively to heatworld, the call centre manager turned nation’s sweetheart (yeah, we said it), revealed she’d had a ‘big, long conversation’ with Charlotte to ‘process’ what happened.
She explained, ‘It stung a lot, but you process it and I’ve had months to process it. I've met up with Charlotte a couple of times and leading up to last week, we had a big, long conversation on the phone processing what's about to play out [on TV].’
There’s no bad blood between Minah and Charlotte, as she continued, ‘It's totally fine because, at the end of the day, it is a game. You just don't know who's going to do it to you and as a Traitor, for me, the thing that keeps me from spiralling about what happened to me is I've also murdered loads of people.
‘Those people, their journey ended in the castle as a result of me being a Traitor. You can't be mad when somebody outplays you, I couldn't be mad at the Faithful for catching me because that was their purpose for being there and I'm totally supportive and happy and proud of everybody in the cast.’
As for her decision to recruit Charlotte in the first place, Minah admitted she didn’t expect her to be so ‘ruthless’.
‘She is definitely a different style of Traitor than myself, Armani and Linda, so it's interesting towards the end of this series, like the style of Traitor changing,’ Minah said.
‘I think I try to play more of a team player game as a Traitor and I think she's playing more I’m here for myself and I'm winning at any cost, any expense, and that's a brilliant Traitor to play. It's just not one that I was intending on playing or wanted to play.’
The final episode of The Traitors series three airs on BBC One at 8.30pm tonight (Friday 24 January).
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Nathan Katnoria is heat and Closer online’s senior digital writer. He’s been a huge fan of The Traitors since series one and has interviewed contestants including Paul Gorton, Diane Carson and Minah Shannon.