The Traitors' Leon: 'Claudia Winkleman smells amazing'
The Traitors star Leon spoke exclusively to Yahoo about his experience of being on the BBC show.
The Traitors banished contestant Leon told Yahoo of his admiration for BBC show host Claudia Winkleman, saying: "Make sure everyone knows... She smells amazing."
Winkleman has previously said she "only wears" Yves Saint Laurent Opium EDP. She told Grazia in 2023: "It smells of pure filth. It's the best smell — it’s musky and it's dirty."
As the show's final airs on Friday, Leon shared his rewarding experiences of filming The Traitors and the importance of the friendships he made in the castle.
I have probably two massive highlights of The Traitors experience.
How aesthetically beautiful the castle is and Scotland as a whole, absolutely beautiful. If I was going to renew my vows, I'd probably go there [to Ardross castle]!
When you see it on TV and you're like, 'Oh there's the billiards room. There's the kitchen.' It’s just amazing just to be around there — seeing all the pictures on the wall and the round table and to be able to sit at the round table, as stressful as it was sometimes. When you sit back and think, 'I can't believe I'm here.'
And the second one was how beautiful Claudia smells. Absolutely amazing. She smells radiant. She smells like a summer breeze.
Seeing Claudia coming into breakfast with her outfits, I was always looking forward to what she was gonna have on. Everything to do with Claudia was amazing but the key fact is that she smells amazing. So make sure everyone knows that.
Taking part in The Traitors
The Traitors was an experience of a lifetime but it’s not for the faint hearted.
You go in there and sometimes it might get a bit hard in terms of whether that be people turning on you or that feeling of if someone doesn't trust you. It's not a very nice feeling, especially when you're trying to be as honest as possible.
This journey is something that you'll never regret, so if anyone's looking at thinking, 'Can they do it?' Just do it, man, because you never know what life will bring.
It's such an amazing experience and I'm so glad that I have got this to look back on. Even just looking back at my journal and thinking about how I felt at certain points, it's absolutely amazing. I've not got one bad word about it. No regrets.
Even being involved in the death match, the amount of people asking me: 'Am I alive? Did I make it?' It was so crazy!
To come through that, down to the final round and I picked the card that I picked. The winning card that was based solely on what my son would pick. My son's autistic and he's very literal, so if I said pick a number between one and 10 — he'd pick one. So at the time I was facing what would be number one and I just thought it's got to be that one. The joy I felt! You could probably see it how I jumped up.
But then to get gifted with the joy of being in a coffin. What kind of reward is that? It just felt like I was in there forever.
It was tough being away from home. My missus, she probably enjoyed the break from me!
Building those relationships in the castle was almost like a home from home because you had someone to kind of confide in about things, about your feelings, about missing home, and also about the game and who you think is a Traitor. It was definitely hard but it was rewarding when I came back to see my family’s faces. They were proud of me for even just achieving being on the show. That’s massive to me!
Special friendships
I just wanna say that every single member of the cast will have a place in my heart forever.
We've shared something special and even like watching it, it warms my heart in terms of obviously what I'm watching because so many people said to me, 'This has been the best one yet'. (I'm biased because I'm in it.)
But when you're in there and you get to know these people, you realise what they're there for and what it would mean for them to win or you like the same music or someone likes sport.
You grow these relationships and they mean the world to you while you're in there. Especially when you're in this game of suspicion and you're trying to build trust with people and you want people to be on the same side and we're all trying to aim for the same goal: getting the Traitors.
This is why I feel I quickly grew close with Leanne, Livi and Tyler — obviously the infamous clique situation. It wasn’t a clique!
We were having a laugh together and it just so happened that we'd be on the journey to the missions together and stuff like that. I love them all and I'm so proud of Leanne obviously to make it as far.
I feel sorry for Tyler because I really love Tyler. I love Livi. Amazing people and probably Livi was taken out of our hands being murdered, but I do feel sorry for Tyler because obviously we (Leanne and I) were a part of him being banished. I have apologised since then!
Traitor or Faithful?
Honestly, The Traitors is the best game in the world.
I think being a Traitor looks like it would be more fun than being a Faithful but it looks like it would be stressful. Being a Faithful is stressful enough!
It's probably the easiest role to play, cause I suppose if you take Minah who was just being herself, and that's why I think she's done an amazing job. As a Faithful, all I tried to just be was myself. I'm normally quite an outgoing chatty person. As a faithful, you could just be true to yourself.
I'm so proud that my son got to see me play the role that he wanted me to play but I think as a Traitor, you could be a bit mischievous.
Leon told his story to Lily Waddell.
The Traitors final airs on Friday at 8.30pm on Friday on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.
What is Claudia Winkleman's perfume?
In 1977 Yves Saint Laurent introduces Opium: a boundary-pushing perfume, which is said to be sultry, provocative and addictive.
YSL describe the perfume as "spicy and floral", as it opens with notes of mandarin, bergamot and lily of the valley, before revealing middle notes of jasmine, carnation and myrrh. The deeper notes of vanilla, amber, sweet myrrh and patchouli then melt onto your skin, with the luxurious fragrance turning heads wherever you go.
The fragrance does come with a high-end price tag, with a 30ml bottle retailing for £50. You can also get bigger bottles, with a 50ml bottle costing £79 and a 90ml costing £105.
The popular scent regularly sells out, however you can currently pick it up from high street stores such as Boots, Debenhams and John Lewis.
Shop now: Yves Saint LaurentOpium Eau de Parfum | £50 from YSL
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