The Traitors season three winner Jake Brown has said how proud he feels about “inspiring” people with hidden disabilities by being outspoken on the show about having cerebral palsy.
An average audience of 7.4 million watched project manager Jake and former soldier Leanne Quigley triumph as faithfuls and receive a prize pot of £94,600, during the tense BBC One final on Friday.
Jake, who disclosed his condition, which affects movement and co-ordination, towards the end of the series, told the PA news agency that he was “ashamed” of having cerebral palsy when he was younger, because he “didn’t really like how I looked or how it made me feel”.
“I had such lovely comments and posts about me, and it’s people like saying things like, ‘I’ve inspired them’,” he said.
“Some people have cerebral palsy themselves, or (their) children have cerebral palsy, and it’s like, ‘oh, my four-year-old son’s got cerebral palsy, and I’m worried about his future, but seeing you on TV, being so open and so confident with it, kind of gives me hope that my kids are going to be fine’.
“So that fills my heart, really, because that’s the impact I’ve had.
“It’s such a hidden disability, people don’t always know about it, and I just don’t think there’s always a massive representation on TV of people with my disability, or even just disability general.
“So it’s nice to actually spread awareness and and show people that it’s not a negative.
“I think there’s this stigma around disability, like it’s a negative, like you’re not able to do things.
“I always say, disability does not mean inability, from my experience, it’s (opened) doors in my life, not closed doors.”
Jake said that he would spend the money taking his wife Shannon on holiday “because she’s my biggest supporter”, and help his mother and father, who supported him with his condition.
Jake, 28, from Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria, said he experienced “next level” paranoia by keeping his participation on the show a secret.
“I’d be thinking people are staring at me, even though they’re not staring at me, because at this point, the show’s not even out, so they don’t know who I am,” he said.
After watching the series on TV, when he could see traitors discussing murdering him, Jake said: “I’ve got a lot of luck, because the smallest change in the game and I would have, probably, would have been murdered or banished”.
The game involves the faithfuls attempting to banish the traitors, who murder during the night, and if left at the end undetected can take the whole prize of up to £120,000.
From the beginning, Jake spotted that retired opera singer Linda Rands was a traitor, after she turned her head to look at host Claudia Winkleman, shortly after being made one of the treacherous contestants.
He long campaigned to have her eliminated from the show, but he thinks he and “the whole nation would have been gutted if she’d gone (on the) first episode” because of how endearing she seemed.
“I didn’t want to vote for her in the end, because I just really enjoyed, like, the conversations we had, and the whole like, back and forth, and it was quite nice,” he said.
In a change from previous years, contestants no longer reveal if they are faithfuls or traitors during the finale, so players do not know if there is a deceitful contestant still in their group.
This led to interior designer Francesca “Frankie” Rowan-Plowden, and former British diplomat Alexander Dragonetti, being banished, as their fellow faithfuls did not believe that they were not traitors.
They had banished business director and traitor Charlotte Berman, but this was not revealed until the end of the finale, when Jake and Leanne made it to the end.
Last year, 5.5 million people on average watched British army engineer and traitor Harry Clark win the whole prize of £95,150, after deceiving his friend Mollie Pearce in a dramatic finale.
The third Traitors finale had a peak audience of 7.6 million, while series two’s last episode reached a peak of 6.9 million, according to figures from the BBC.
According to the NHS, cerebral palsy is the name for a group of lifelong conditions that affect movement and co-ordination, and develops before, during or soon after birth.
The show, made by Studio Lambert, has won a host of awards, including at the Bafta TV Awards in 2023 for best reality and constructed factual.
A celebrity-version of the UK series is in development.
