I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! 2024 contestant Maura Higgins has revealed she turned down the chance to appear on The Traitors and Love Island: All Stars.
The 34-year-old, who was a finalist on the standard version of Love Island in 2019, said she would “probably do” the BBC reality game show if her I’m A Celebrity campmate Coleen Rooney “wasn’t in there”.
Speaking on ITV’s Loose Women, she said: “I actually turned down The Traitors before, maybe a year ago.
“Because I always was like ‘people will work me out’, and I’d probably rather be a traitor than a faithful. I like to be a bit devious, but yeah, I don’t know if I’ll ever do it, I mean, it’s a great show.”
“But yeah, I’d probably be figured out.”
In the show, whose third series is currently airing on BBC One, contestants attempt to identify who among them are “faithfuls” and who are “traitors”, with the traitors plotting to murder the faithfuls, and the faithfuls trying to identify and banish the traitors.
Finalists have a chance of winning a chunk of the £120,000 prize but if a traitor survives until the very end, unidentified, they take home the full prize pot, and any faithfuls left go home with nothing.
Celebrity Traitors was announced by the BBC at Edinburgh Television Festival in August last year, and will see famous faces take part in the show.
As attention turned to whether she would appear on Love Island: All Stars, which currently has its second series airing on ITV2, Higgins told the panel “my dating show days are done”.
She added: “I don’t want to go on a dating show, like I’ve turned down All Stars before, I’ve done it once.”
The star was then pressed on whether that meant she was no longer single, but replied: “No, I know what you’re doing, I never said anything.”
In the Love Island spin-off show, former contestants return to the villa to try to find love.
She was then asked about last year’s Strictly Come Dancing star Pete Wicks, who she has been rumoured to be in a relationship with, to which Higgins replied: “There’s not really much to tell, I know that’s very boring, like we’ve known each other for what six years, we spend time together.
“We get on very well, our personalities are very, very similar, and he’s a great person, but there’s actually nothing to tell.”
But Higgins, who finished sixth on the ITV jungle-based reality show, said that despite turning down the other programmes, going on I’m A Celebrity was not a “hard decision”.
She added: “I felt like I was ready for something like that.
“It’s weird because, I (did) a podcast talking about mental health, and I really struggle about opening up, and I did that, and then I was like, ‘oh, maybe this is the year for change and taking myself out of my comfort zone’.
“And wow, did I do that.”
