The Traitors series 2 contestant Ash has defended her co-star Paul from accusations that he is a "real-life villain".
Both Ash and Paul were initially selected as Traitors – but when Ash started to arouse suspicion, Paul wasted no time in throwing her under the bus and joined the Faithfuls in voting her out, making himself look like the most Faithful of all along the way (until Harry did the exact same thing to him several episodes later).
While lying and backstabbing is all part of the game for the Traitors, there has been a lot said about Paul on social media, with plenty of unpleasant accusations.
On a now-expired Instagram Story, Ash was asked by a fan if she thought Paul was a real-life villain and if she actually hates him – she categorically denied both suggestions.
Related: The Traitors' Charlie and Evie respond to viewer confusion
"This is a question I'm getting quite a lot," she said. "I really just want to make something very, very clear. This is a TV show and Paul is not a real-life villain."
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This series of The Traitors could have gone very differently, as Paul recently revealed that he had a major medical emergency weeks before filming started.
"My lung collapsed four weeks before going on the show," he explained. "I was recovered in time for the show but it was from a football injury, someone banged into me.
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"My lung collapsed. I was outside A&E, screaming and crying, and I was on morphine and CAT scans and all that type of stuff.
"I nearly had an emergency operation to re-inflate my lung because it had depressed so much, and yeah, it was chaos.
"I went through all this type of stuff, and then in the back of my brain, I was going, 'Oh my God, in four weeks I'm actually going on The Traitors.'"
The Traitors series 2 airs on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights at 9pm on BBC One.
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Joe Anderton is a freelance news writer at Digital Spy, having worked there since 2016. In his time, he's covered a host of live events and interviewed celebrities big and small. A big fan of TV and movies both mainstream and obscure, Joe also enjoys video games and in particular PlayStation. Joe currently does not use Twitter, but he only ever used it to tell people to watch the film Help! I'm a Fish.
