Joe Marler said he was paid £30,000 for his stint on The Celebrity Traitors but almost left filming due to the death of his wife’s grandmother.
The former England rugby international reached the final of the BBC show, only to be banished in dramatic style when his fellow contestants did not believe that he was a faithful.
However, Marler, 35, was well-received by audiences thanks to several highlights, including his “Big Dog Theory”, with which he deduced that Jonathan Ross would be one of the game’s traitors.
In a wide-ranging interview with The Times, Marler denied that the celebrities all received a flat fee of £40,000 for filming.
“Yeah, Daisy read that too,” Marler said, explaining that his wife had also heard that he would be receiving £40,000.
“She said to me, ‘Hold on, I thought you only got 30?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I did’. So no, I don’t think everyone got paid the same. But I’m not bothered. It was 30 grand whether you lasted two days or three weeks – a no-brainer.”
Marler lasted the entire three weeks, putting on 1st 6lb thanks to a routine that included plenty of box-sets in the evenings. He “couldn’t be a—d” to use the gym at the contestants’ hotel, partly because the “weights weren’t heavy enough”.
However, the death of Daisy’s grandmother almost caused Marler to leave. “The producers already knew she was terminally ill, so I went to them and said, ‘That’s me done’,” Marler explained.
“They were great – I was leaving. Then Daisy rang back and said: ‘Look, there’s not a lot you can do right now, so just stay up there until you get kicked out.’
“That was the moment that I was like, ‘right, I’ve had enough of this impostor syndrome. I’m gonna ramp it up, go hell for leather and if I get banished or murdered, it’s a win – I can go home’.”
Marler, pictured with actress Celia Imrie, was the breakout star of The Celebrity Traitors – BBC/Euan Cherry
Mixing among a wide cast of recognisable figures was described as “bonkers” by Marler. He said that “most of [the other contestants] thought I was a production guy lugging stuff around. That played in my favour.”
“Whatever status you have outside the game, you’ve still got that status inside. It’s so hard to ignore,” Marler added.
His original strategy had been to mirror Stephen Fry, but that went out of the window as faithfuls continued to be voted off and the three traitors – Ross, Cat Burns and eventual winner Alan Carr – stayed in the game.
“Well, my game plan originally was obviously ‘I’ll just do what Stephen does, because he will be good at this’,” Marler said. “Then after a couple of times, I realised, he’s not good at this. This is not a good plan.”
The Big Dog theory was forged because Marler suspected the producers would not sell the show without one of its more prominent personalities as a traitor.
Despite branching out with various media appearances, Marler is still coming to terms with retiring from rugby union a year ago.
“It used to be, ‘Hi, I’m Joe. I play rugby’,” he said. “Now it’s, ‘Hi, I’m Joe… What?’ I need to earn a living without selling my soul.”
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‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com ’
