How Claudia learned to 'betray' her kind persona

CLAUDIA WINKLEMAN feared she had been given a "personality transplant" when she took on the challenge of hosting back-stabbing reality show The Traitors.

- Marc Baker

BBC bosses said the presenter struggled to shed her squeaky clean Strictly Come Dancing persona to front the series, which sees 22 strangers undertake ruthless challenges in a bid to win £120,000.

They also revealed they had worried about creating a show that featured "murder and banishment", but there is now an "appetite for more shows like this".

With its plot twists, deceit and betrayal in a Scottish highlands castle, the first series took the TV world by storm last year.

Last week saw Claudia back on hosting duties for the start of the second series.

Sarah Fay, executive producer of the show's production company Studio Lambert, revealed: "That brutality - Claudia struggled with it initially. She felt like 'Oh I have been given a personality transplant'.

"But she is so intelligent and wonderful. We always knew that would come.