Amol Rajan reveals reason Richard E Grant gave for murdering him first on Celebrity Traitors
While we’re still waiting to find out who is the first banishment, we’ve had our first Faithful murdered.
Poor Amol Rajan was killed off by Richard E. Grant and Maya Jama on Friday’s (2 October) episode of The Celebrity Traitors.
And with the choice being between him and James Acaster to murder or recruit, the University Challenge presenter says he recently asked Grant ‘why he killed’ him – receiving a ‘compliment’ as an answer.
Writing on his newsletter for The Amol Rajan Connection, the 43-year-old admitted that while he had suspected the actor with his ‘Lord of Chaos routine’ he was still taken aback to see he was a Traitor.
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Rajan describes Grant as having very ‘intense eyes’ and a ‘deep, cadaverous voice’ which were in ‘full, violent alliance’ when he revealed himself in the chapel.
Why did Grant murder Rajan first?
Rajan said he met up with the actor for lunch with a close mutual friend a few weeks ago.
“We had a lovely time, and made up,” he recalled. I asked him why he killed me.”
And quite simply, Grant apparently confessed: “To protect myself and that’s a compliment!”
“But if you really wanted protection, you should have recruited me,” Rajan responded. “That would have been a compliment!”
While Grant admitted that ‘makes sense’, he apparently said: “But I think I just went mad.”
Rajan’s plea to the Traitors
When it came to pleading his case to be recruited rather than murdered, Rajan confessed he felt it was Richard he needed to convince.
But found him giving him ‘hell with his stare’.
“I suggested James go first just to buy myself some time,” Rajan wrote. “An old ruse - though a fat lot of good it did me. I thought James gave a formidable account of himself.
“Of course I wanted to nick his best lines.”
The journalist decided to structure his argument around ‘three pillars’.
So for him, that meant focusing on ‘that I was trusted, I’ve got great relation ships’ and then ‘who knows’, but ‘some version’ of the first two.
“I did think as I finished that I had a fighting chance,” he added.
And he admitted on Talk of the Townsends podcast that when Acaster used the word ‘deflect’, he reckons he ‘cinched it’.
Of course, Rajan soon found himself in the coffin with the door banging shut – something that’s solved his dilemma of whether he’d rather be cremated or buried.
“I never want to go anywhere near a coffin again,” he wrote.
When is the next episode of Celebrity Traitors?
The next episode of Celebrity Traitors will air at 8pm Friday (2 October) on BBC One and BBC iPlayer, then as follows:
- Episode three - Thursday, 8 October at 8pm
- Episode four - Friday 9, October at 8pm
- Episode five - Thursday, 15 October at 8pm
- Episode six - Friday, 16 October at 8pm
- Episode seven - Thursday, 22 October at 8pm
- Episode eight - Friday, 23 October at 8pm
- Episode nine - Thursday, 29 October at 8pm
- Episode 10 - Friday, 30 October at 8pm
Topics: BBC, The Traitors, Celebrity
Jess Battison