Leigh-Anne Pinnock reveals how 'intense' Celebrity Traitors compares to X Factor
Former Little Mix star Leigh-Anne Pinnock has opened up about her experience on The Celebrity Traitors.
Leigh-Anne Pinnock found The Celebrity Traitors even more "intense" than The X Factor.
The 35-year-old pop star, who rose to fame in 2011 when she auditioned as a solo star for the ITV talent show before winning as a member of Little Mix, made it to the final of the BBC's game of bluff and deception, and she has reflected on the experience in the Scottish castle.
She told Glamour UK: "I did feel a little underestimated on the show. So far, I feel like I've been quite on the nose with things…
"It was such a mad experience. It's the most intense thing I’ve ever done... I mean, The X Factor was pretty intense, but this was another weird level.”
Leigh-Anne was on The Celebrity Traitors with 20 other big name stars, including those cast as the titular Traitors.
Trying to navigate the personalities involved as well as a desire to keep up with the game was a challenge.
She said: "I didn't want to say too much and be too much of a big personality and like put my views out there too much because I was scared of getting murdered.
"Also, you don't know who you can trust. It's such a mad experience."
"Sometimes the lines were blurred between reality and the game. When you feel like people are coming at you, that's not a normal thing to endure.”
As if that wasn't enough, Leigh-Anne, who announced in July that she's expecting her third child with Andre Gray, was pregnant during filming without realising.
She explained: "I thought, ‘Something’s not right’. But I put it out of my mind. I thought, ‘I’m just going to keep going.'
“But when I look back on [The Celebrity Traitors], I'm like, how did I deal with that emotionally? Girl, that needs to be studied. Yeah, the first trimester's not a joke, is it?”
Leigh-Anne made it to the final episode of the show, alongside Traitors Maya Jama and King Kenny, James Blunt, and eventual winners Romesh Ranganathan and Sebastian 'Bash' Croft.
She had actually hoped to be chosen as a Traitor but ultimately felt much happier as a Faithful as she thinks having to lie without being caught would have been much harder than she initially thought.
She told the BBC: "It's so funny because I came into this wanting to be a Traitor, only because I felt like I would have been better at being a Traitor than a Faithful, which is interesting, because I found it really hard, working out who the Traitors were - it's really not an easy thing to do, piecing everything together.
"So I thought being a Traitor, I could just be myself and act like a Faithful. But actually now, having played the game, absolutely not! Having to remember a lie, and not getting caught out, I just don't think was for me.
"I feel like I was always supposed to be a Faithful, and if I was to get recruited, if it was a seduction, I probably would have said no."
