BBC The Traitors' Dan reveals Linda's gameplay viewers aren't seeing

The Traitors star Dan Bird spoke to the Mirror about his co-star Linda Rands, who has drawn much suspicion on the BBC show, following his banishment at a round table

Banished the Traitors contestant Dan Bird has revealed what viewers perhaps aren't seeing of co-star Linda Rands.

Dan, 33, has appeared alongside Linda, 70, on the third series of the BBC show, which concludes next week. He was banished from Ardross Castle on last Friday's episode after some of his co-stars suspected he may be a traitor.

Following his on-screen exit, Dan, who had been a Faithful, spoke to the Mirror this week about his experience. During the interview the bank risk manager shared his thoughts on Linda, who is currently a Traitor with Minah Shannon, 29.

Linda has been under suspicion on the show for some time, though she has so far avoided banishment at the round table. There's been concern that she has exposed herself as a Traitor and although she's amused fans, some viewers have suggested that she's been "rubbish" at the game itself.

Her former co-star Dan said he think she's "underrated" though. Asked what viewers are missing when it comes to Linda, he said: "I think her social game is being completely overshadowed because there are lots of shots of Linda going up to people like giving them a hug and consoling them when they're having a hard moment in the castle."

He added: "And stuff like that's really, really important in the game because y'know you want to find Traitors but you also want to work with people and have people around you that you can trust. And I think Linda's doing an excellent job of building trust with lots of different people in the castle."

Dan went on to describe her as a "very competent player," before saying: "Like I said, I think she's quite underrated." He added: "We'll just have to see how her game progresses but she's got a lot of really great skills as a player."

He also discussed his own approach to the game in our interview. Dan suggested that he was "quite self-interested at times" and his decision to not share information about his actions in his final mission contributed to his downfall.

"I played the game as authentically as I possibly could," he said, before adding: "I don't think I could have played it any other way and I was really proud of how that came across on screen." Dan continued by saying: "I felt like I was very consistently me all the way through. So it didn't work out but I don't think I could have played it any other way."

Following his banishment on the episode last week, host Claudia Winkleman described Dan as "such a strong" Faithful, which he told us was "lovely". He teased: "I think everyone's interpretation of 'strong' is gonna differ in this instance but it was really nice that Claudia felt that way."

Dan added: "I mean, I think I was quite an obvious faithful but I was playing the game differently in that I was being quite self-interested at times, which obviously isn't something that faithfuls do very openly a lot of the time."

The Traitors airs on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights from 9pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.

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