The Traitors winner Harry Clark has said telling “little white lies” as a child stood him in good stead to triumph on the show, but added he might be a “psycho” because he convinced himself his deceptions were the truth.
The 22-year-old British Army engineer, from Slough in Berkshire, took home the whole £95,150 prize pot after he deceived disability model Mollie Pearce, 21, into thinking he was a fellow Faithful when he was really a Traitor.
The dramatic series finale episode on Friday, which also saw Faithful veterinary nurse Evie, Traitor insurance broker Andrew and Faithful account manager Jaz all banished, had an average audience of 5.5 million, soaring past last year’s average of 3.3 million.
'The best way to tell a lie is with a little bit of truth in it'
Harry Clark spoke to #BBCBreakfast about the strategy he used to win the latest series of 'The Traitors' https://t.co/RZU60A5sA6 pic.twitter.com/orBDwyrJ0D
— BBC Breakfast (@BBCBreakfast) January 30, 2024
Harry told BBC Breakfast on Tuesday: “I never thought I had a poker face, because my family and my mum and my dad know when I’m lying.
“They would ask me ‘How many beers did you have?’ ‘Oh, I only had two.’ ‘No, you didn’t, you had a few more than two.’
“So I was always lying as a kid. But not in a bad way, just little white lies.
“I’ve got so many brothers and sisters I always had to sort of get ahead. But I never knew I could do that, to be honest.”
Harry, who has three sisters and two brothers, revealed he only received the prize money on Monday, when a bank transfer notification popped up on his phone.
He said: “I was just screaming in the back of the Uber, I just can’t believe it, just because then it made it feel so real as well.”
Asked how he held his nerve to betray Mollie in the final minutes of the show to take the money, he said: “In that moment I’ve come this far as a Traitor.
“I can’t just turn around now and be like ‘I am one and give up on the game’, because I’ve done so much to get to that point. Why would I have just thrown it all down the drain there?
“Mollie’s been amazing, she’s given me that reassurance that it’s just a game and, like, you played it so much better … She believes I played it so much better than her and I deserved it.”
He added: “Maybe I’m just a bit of a psycho because I would just tell myself ‘You’re not doing anything wrong, you’re Faithful anyway’.
“So I convinced myself I’m a Faithful, because at the end of the day, I’m the game master that has to murder to keep the game going. So I was just an open book who was a Faithful and I still believe in Faithful now, which is probably some traits of a psycho.”
Harry, who has been boxing as an amateur for years, is now keen for the chance to get in the ring for a celebrity fight.
He said: “I would love that thing. That would be amazing. It would just be wicked to see how I fare against them guys.
“I’ve boxed my whole life. So it’d be a good challenge for them, I think, not bigging myself up.
“Taking the boxing back to the game, I think that helped massively.
“My granddad always brought me up as a gentleman. But he always said ‘You’re a gentleman outside the ring and then, as soon as you get in there, you have to turn into something you’re not.’
“When I was in the game I believe I was a gentleman through the day and a Faithful, and I had to turn into something I’m not just for a little while, just to get me to the end and win the money.”