Clare Balding<\/a> said she would have \u201cruined\u201d Celebrity Traitors<\/em><\/a> if people listened to her early suspicions of Alan Carr<\/a>.<\/p>\n Carr proved an incredibly successful contestant on last year\u2019s hit celebrity version<\/a> of the BBC game show, as he was chosen to be a Traitor in the show\u2019s first episode but managed to evade suspicion throughout the contest \u2013 all while killing off his fellow stars. He ultimately proved victorious<\/a>, winning the season in a nail-biting final episode.<\/p>\n While appearing at the annual Hay Festival today (26 May), sports presenter Clare Balding said she was one of the few contestants on the show to suspect Carr of being a Traitor \u2013 but absolutely no one listened to her.<\/p>\n \u201cI hated the roundtable,\u201d she said during a panel, of the setting for each Traitors<\/em> episode\u2019s climactic face-off between the show\u2019s contestants. \u201cUntil I thought I was onto something,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n Clare Balding at the Hay Festival (Hay Festival)<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n \u201cI was onto Alan quite early,\u201d she continued. \u201cI\u2019m very glad no one came with me because God he was entertaining, and he was a brilliant winner and it would have ruined the programme. But it was purely on circumstantial evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n Balding said that she was suspicious of Carr\u2019s motives after the \u201cmurder\u201d of pop star Paloma Faith in the first episode of the series<\/a>, who came into the series allied with her real-life friend Carr.<\/p>\n \u201cWho was with Paloma?\u201d Balding remembered asking herself. \u201cWho was with her, but no one would suspect would do that? And that was my theory. But nobody listened.\u201d<\/p>\n Balding also held aloft a notebook that she had bought long in advance of appearing on Celebrity Traitors<\/em>, but which she used on the series to make notes on her fellow contestants. Across the front of it is, ironically, the words: \u201cTimes I was right and nobody listened.\u201d<\/p>\n Alan Carr in last year\u2019s \u2018Celebrity Traitors\u2019 (BBC)<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n The broadcaster, who has hosted sports events and shows on the BBC and Channel 4 since 1995, added that she found the experience of appearing on Celebrity Traitors<\/em> \u201creally difficult\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cI am a very trusting person,\u201d she said. \u201cIf people are either dogs or cats, I am very much a dog. I go up to people with my tail wagging. I want to be friends with everyone. I\u2019m a pathetic people-pleaser. I just want to get along with everyone. So to be put into a position where you\u2019re forced to not trust people, I found that really difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n Balding was ultimately banished from the series in its fourth episode, after (incorrect) suspicion fell on her via her fellow Faithfuls.<\/p>\n Balding was appearing on a panel at Hay alongside author Harriet Tyce, who sparked a minor storm in the civilian version<\/a> of The Traitors<\/em> last year, along with the historian David Olusoga, who appeared in Balding\u2019s Traitors <\/em>series.<\/p>\n The new series of Celebrity Traitors<\/em> is currently being filmed in Scotland<\/a>, with stars including Richard E Grant, Jerry Hall, Miranda Hart and Michael Sheen all confirmed to appear.<\/p>\n This week\u2019s Hay Festival, which is running in Hay-on-Wye until Sunday (31 May), previously saw the actor Ashley Walters discuss allegations that his series <\/a>Top Boy<\/em><\/a> \u201cglamourised violence\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.aol.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Clare Balding said she would have \u201cruined\u201d Celebrity Traitors if people listened to her early suspicions of Alan Carr. Carr proved an incredibly successful contestant on last year\u2019s hit celebrity version of the BBC game show, as he was chosen to be a Traitor in the show\u2019s first episode but managed to evade suspicion throughout […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2432926,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25177],"tags":[352452,351325,351428,477082],"class_list":["post-2432925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrities","tag-alan-carr","tag-celebrity-traitors","tag-clare-balding","tag-hay-festival"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Clare-Balding-says-her-suspicions-of-Alan-Carr-could-have.com2Fen2Faol_the_independent_us_8772F3154ec08372a952b9a0a678592339303.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2432925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2432925"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2432925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2432927,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2432925\/revisions\/2432927"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2432926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2432925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2432925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2432925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/div>