Lancashire Traitors star amongst most influential ever as popular BBC show returns
The Traitors is back with a new season on New Year’s Day but will any of the contestants be as influential as one of our Lancashire stars have been crowned to be?
The BBC show of detection, backstabbing and trust has proven to be a huge hit with audiences since it debuted over the festive period in 2022.
On Wednesday night at 8pm, the third series of The Traitors will launch and see presenter Claudia Winkleman welcome a fresh batch of faithfuls and traitors into the castle.
Ahead of the show’s new series, a new study has looked at all of the contestants to find out who is the most influential to this day and one Lancashire star is up there amongst the best.
Online casino website Casino Zonder Registratie analysed the Instagram followings and potential earnings per sponsored post of the 44 contestants who have taken part in the first two seasons of The Traitors UK. Only one cast member lacked an Instagram account.
Featuring in the top 10 is Lancashire mum of three Diane Carson, who appeared on series two of the show last year.
64-year-old Diane, a retired teacher from Ansdell, is in 7th place with 68,862 Instagram followers and the potential earnings of £948 per sponspored post.
Following her appearance on The Traitors- alongside her son Ross- Diane has gone on to appear on Loose Women, Celebrity MasterChef and even the Beauty and the Beast pantomime at Funny Girls, Blackpool in the summer.
You can take a look at the full top 10 here
| Rank | Name | Instagram handle | Instagram followers | Earnings per sponsired post |
| 1 | Aaron Evans | aaronevans97_ | 361,362 | £3,400 |
| 2 | Alex Gray | alexogray | 166,394 | £1,900 |
| 3 | Claire Barratt | claireabellafounder | 148,389 | £1,700 |
| 4 | Harry Clark | harryclarky | 141,670 | £1,700 |
| 5 | Wilfred Webster | wilfredwebsterofficial | 133,033 | £1,600 |
| 6 | Mollie Pearce | mollie_pearcee | 105,799 | £1,400 |
| 7 | Diane Carson | dianeakamum | 68,862 | £948 |
| 8 | Kieran Tompsett | kieran_tompsett | 57,017 | £870 |
| 9 | Amanda Lovett | amanda_lovett25 | 51,184 | £764 |
| 10 | Evie Morrison | evie.eleanorr | 48,631 | £734 |
Elsewhere in Lancashire, Dr Paul Seager, senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Central Lancashire in Preston has some words of advice for those entering the Traitors castle.
Speaking to PA media, Dr Seager, who has worked at UCLan for over 20 years, outlined three give away signs that someone is lying: vocal pitch, response time and vague answers
He explained: “If possible, listen carefully to the vocal pitch of someone’s answer. It’s common for lies to be of a slightly higher pitch than truths. This higher pitch is often down to stress or nervousness, which increases tension in the vocal tract.
“Ask a question and then mentally gauge how long there was between the end of the question and the beginning of their answer. A longer time indicates more thinking time, which might prove some form of mental editing and deception. Quicker responses are more likely to be truthful.
“Honest answers tend to contain more specific detail, whereas deceptive answers are likely to be more vague and general. Re-asking the question at a later time is a sneaky but useful way to check if the answer matches up to what was said earlier.”
Other examples of give-aways that someone is lying include fidgeting, using filler words (’um’,’uh’, like’ etc), providing unnecessary details, having sweaty palms or a croaky voice and intense eye contact.