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The Traitors: 'I took one for the team'

BBC/PA Media Presenter Claudia Winkleman is dressed in black and flanked by two hooded figures. They are standing in front of a large, ornate round table.BBC/PA Media
The show, hosted by Claudia Winkleman, is based on a party game where players must uncover the killers before time runs out

Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Traitors

A contestant who sacrificed himself in the first episode of the new series of The Traitors said he was "gutted" to miss out on a chance to be reprieved.

He was one of three people to leave the train en route to Ardross Castle, Scotland, to help secure a prize pot for the other contestants.

In Wednesday's episode, Jack Marriner Brown, from Bridlington, East Yorkshire, was given a chance of a return, only to be left suspended in a cage in a forest as fellow contestants chose to save Alexander and Fozia instead.

Jack said after hearing why people needed the £120,000 prize money, he felt it was the right thing to "take one for the team". He also joked he "needed a pee".

"It was really tough – but you've just got to roll with the punches," the 24-year-old told BBC Radio Humberside.

"To be honest, £120,000 in the bank wouldn't be terrible."

BBC/Studio Lambert A smiling Jack Marriner Brown pictured in front of a mocked-up image of the castle from The Traitors. He has blonde hair in a mullet style and is wearing a blue jacket with a tartan pattern inside and a white shirt.BBC/Studio Lambert
Jack says he enjoyed the experience, despite not reaching the castle

Jack, a landscape gardener and market trader who acts in his spare time, said he believed he would have been good at the physical challenges in the show, but accepted that his fellow contestants had opted for the intellect of Alexander and Fozia.

Commenting on his decision to leave the train, he told BBC Morning Live: "If there is one thing I hope doing that has done, [it] is that everyone takes a second out of their day to be a little bit kinder."

Despite being "completely gutted" to leave the contest, he said it meant a lot to hear that fans had posted messages of support for him on social media.

Jack, who was one of about 300,000 applicants for the show, said he had been a fan "from the get-go".

It was thanks to his mum's encouragement that he gave it a go, though he described being selected as a "fluke".

The show sees contestants attempt to identify who among them are "faithfuls" and which are "traitors", with the traitors plotting to murder the faithfuls, and the faithfuls trying to identify and banish the traitors.

Finalists have a chance of winning part of the £120,000 prize, but if a traitor survives until the very end, unidentified, they take home the lot.

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