Amanda Lovett interview – Traitors, Pontardawe
I know you’re local but where are you from exactly and can you tell us a bit about your background?
Trebanos, near Pontardawe. I moved to Trebanos at 11 and went to Bishops Vaughan school in Morriston. Then onto Neath college before I started working. I married a boy from Trebanos and have stayed here ever since. I love our little village, I tell people when I go away, that we have a petrol station, which is our shop, our post office and everything and they find it mad.
How and why did you get involved in the Traitors?
We all love reality TV, and this advert came up on social media when I was down the caravan in Newquay. I had had 3 or 4 gins at the time and so I thought that’s something I’d like to do. You have to be young for most of the reality TV shows like Love island etc.. but this was different and so I thought let’s go for the over 50s.
I know that you said on the show that you wanted to be a Traitor. Did you really and why?
Oh yeah. Absolutely. I thought that it was more exciting. You get to murder people at night; not literally but it was exciting. I definitely wanted to be a Traitor.
When you knew that you were one. I assume that you were looking around and trying to find who the others ones were, did you have any idea or was there anyone that you hoped were also traitors?
No, I didn’t. Claudia (Winkelman) had gone round the table a couple of times; we were blindfolded and she was going to tap the three chosen traitors on the shoulder. My daughter said to me when I left, ‘go and be a traitor’ but I was the last one to be chosen and so I thought that she hadn’t chosen me. I had no idea who the other three were, I only found out when we were revealed to each other. It was exciting and so much fun.
What was it like in there, could you contact home?
We couldn’t speak to anyone at home when we were there. If you were in there for more than a week then you would get a pre-recorded video message from people at home. We were in lodgings and so when we were in the room at night, there was nobody to talk to and no link with the outside world. The only time that we could talk to one another was in the castle while we were mic’d up. We didn’t even know which room any of us were in.
Alyssa. Can you clear up how that voting went. You were the last one to vote and it was either Alyssa or Wilf that was going to go and you had the deciding vote. Had you already voted for Alyssa?
I was shocked with how the vote went. People were discussing people every day and Alyssa’s name had come up once or twice but as traitors we were supposed to cover each other. I thought that we were a team. Obviously when we sat on the table and Wilf went for Alyssa, I was gobsmacked. You could see that the table was going for either one or the other and it turned out that I had the casting vote. I thought Alyssa was fab, but I thought as she was younger, Wilf would be the stronger.
What you do is that you write down a name on your board and then its locked in. You get a feeling of who is going to be going as it is very much a herd mentality. Some of the contestants just follow, they gravitate to how others vote. You could tell in that meeting that it was either going to be Alyssa or Wilf going home and we would be down to two traitors.
Do you regret that decision?
Yes, I do. My mother is Irish, God help her, she’s upstairs with the father, as I say. I knew the moment I put Wilf down that Alyssa would be thinking ‘why didn’t I go with the Irish?’. I do regret it, but I did think at the time that Wilf would be the stronger player. Although Alyssa was young, she played a good game, she played on the naive girl, maybe a bit too much at times. It was a hard decision either way. It is very hard to keep it up, you know that you’re a Traitor but you have to play as a Faithful.
You seemed to be cruising. Nobody was expecting you, you had nothing to worry about and then bang – you were out. Did you have any idea going into the room that you were in any trouble?
I had a feeling that day that Kieran and Wilf had become an alliance and Hannah was very close to Wilf and so I had a feeling that something might be up. Everyone questioned me as to why Theo was my 100% faithful and then I voted him off but of course I knew who all the Faithful were because I was a Traitor.
Wilf was more deceitful than he let on. Were you impressed with his game or simply furious?
I think that I was more hurt than anything because I thought we would always protect each other. That is what we discussed and as I told him, ‘if you throw be under the bus I’d be the Welsh dragon’. We discussed going through and wining together and how we would share the money, but he had a game plan and he played it well. Every decision that we all made, people can say that we should have done things differently and we shouldn’t have done that but it’s a game and its different when you are in it.
How hard was it? you seemed to have a very relaxed approach to it. The burden of being a traitor didn’t seem to hit you as hard as the other two.
I think that I was 54 when it was filmed. I’ve gone through a lot of turmoil’s and learned life skills; I played it as a game when some people took it personally. The smaller the group the closer you get and then it gets more difficult. When I had to banish Theo – that was hard. I was close to him, but it was between him and Aaron and I knew that Aaron couldn’t take it again and so I voted Theo and he was really upset.
When I went, I was ready to go. I don’t know if I could have taken the money, I think I would have shared it. I can’t imagine being able to stand there with Maddy, (who I had become close with) and then revealed that I was a traitor and that I would take all the money. I think I would have had to share it but then my kids would have gone ‘why did you share it?’. I was ready to go and I think I’m glad that I did when I did.
Did your Welsh accent help you?
I think so. A lot of people outside of Wales see our accent as warm and gentle and that we are honest, which helps when the game was about being dishonest. We do get underestimated as well; I think they think ‘they’re from Wales – they are safe’.
When was the show recorded?
In May. The time between it being filmed and it being aired was strange. My family knew and my best friend knew but I hadn’t discussed it with anyone else and so nobody in the village knew. Its quite mad that I used to see people on the canal, and nobody knew but then when it came out; everything went berserk.
Once I was out, I went home, and I didn’t know about the final until 2 weeks before it aired. So, I watched the final like you did. When I left, I knew Wilf and Kieran would be an alliance. I thought that he would bring in another traitor and him and Kieran would form a partnership. The end was epic. I think they all knew there was another traitor and because the other two had both been ladies, I think they were pretty sure that it would be a man. Wilf thought they knew it wouldn’t be Aaron and so he went for Kieran and the end was incredible.
Claudia has said that if there was to be a second one, she’d want the same contestants in it. Would you do it again?
No. I don’t think a lot of us would want to either, especially the ones that went to the end. It was fantastic but I don’t think it would work again with the same people. I’d be banished straight away, Wilf would too, who would trust us now? it wouldn’t work with same contestants. It was such a good series and sometimes its best to leave it there. There will be a series 2 and I think it’s great for other real people to have a go. There will be another Kieran, another Wilf, another Amanda. It is all real people’s emotions, there is no acting. If you meet anyone outside of it, we are all exactly as we were on there. My sister and my partner Justin have met a few people from the show and said ‘they are exactly the same’.
How are you adjusting to the celebrity lifestyle?
Oh my god I love it. I feel like I was born for it. In school, I was the quietest person. In Drama, I’d be the tree, just stand there, say nothing and do nothing. But it is my years as an estate agent, talking to people. People ask me if I get nervous when meeting people, but I always think that they are meeting me too. It has given me a fantastic opportunity, to travel around and meet people. I absolutely love it.
