Fresh from the mother of all betrayals, Mollie Pearce tells Anna Silverman why she doesn’t bear a grudge
GRAZIA INTERVIEW
SOME MIGHT COUNT the moon landing as the most dramatic TV moment of all time. But that was before The Traitors season two finale. Around 6.9 million people tuned in to watch Mollie Pearce write Harry Clark’s name on her chalk board – before rubbing it out again – unwittingly handing him the £95,150 prize money, before realising he’d deceived her.
Her lapse of judgement over her closest friend on the show cost her, and sparked a patronising joke on social media about how we’ve all been blindsided by a boy with charm. But Mollie is actually the star of the show. At 21, not only was she the last woman standing (a feat when even presenter Claudia Winkleman remarked that it was a boys’ club), she also played a perfect game. She didn’t receive one vote from her teammates. ‘It’s easy for people to say I’m naive and silly, but if being naive and silly got me to the end, there you go,’ she says.
Mollie, now 22, a model and healthcare assistant, explains the final scene was filmed late, after a long day when emotions were running high. Did she feel betrayed?
‘It wasn’t the best moment of my life. But you go in there knowing you probably will be betrayed at some point, mine just happened to be right at the end of the final,’ she says. ‘I never went in there thinking I was going to win anyway. It’s actually funny that Harry did that. Fair play to him, because I could never have done that. I could not have kept that up like he did.’
When the pair saw each other again that evening, ‘I think I swore at him and then we had a hug and went back to normal and I congratulated him.’ There were rumours he even offered Mollie a conciliatory holiday. ‘We had a joke about it but it’s just so silly. He doesn’t owe me a holiday. I’m sure he would if I asked, but he does not need to,’ she laughs.
It’s been hard to ignore the comments on social media, with many speculating a romance had blossomed between t
