The Traitors: Everything you need to know about Faithful favourite Harriet
The crime novelist is the bookies’ choice to win the BBC One show but what is she really like?
The crime novelist is the bookies’ choice to win the BBC One show but what is she really like?
Just when we thought nothing could beat Celebrity Traitors, along came series four of the civilian version and it’s surpassed all expectations – and we’re only two weeks in. There’s been backstabbing, hidden relationships, the Secret Traitor and huge showdowns with two Traitors already banished.
There’s no doubt the casting this year has been nothing short of genius but our stand-out star is Harriet Tyce. The 53-year-old Faithful is playing a great game so far with her calm manner and analytical skills making her the bookies’ favourite to beat the Traitors and take home a share of the prize pot.
So, as we enter the third week of the BBC One show, here’s everything you need to know about Harriet.
After gaining a degree in English from Oxford University in 1994, Harriet – who was born in Edinburgh – qualified as a lawyer and worked as a criminal barrister for almost 10 years. She gave her legal career up when she became a mum to Freddie, 21, and Eloise, 17, in order to focus on parenthood.
But as a big Agatha Christie fan, Harriet decided to indulge her passion for writing and in 2017 won a place on the University of East Anglia’s creative writing MA course where she graduated with distinction. Since then she has released four crime novels, including Richard and Judy’s Book Club recommendation, Blood Orange.
“[For years] I’ve either had to be someone’s mum or wife,” she said in a newspaper interview. “Now I’m Harriet.”
Her appearance on The Traitors seems to be working wonders for her career - she’s seen a 96% increase in book sales since the new series launched on 1 January.
According to NielsenIQ BookData, weekly sales across all of her books are up from 181 copies to 354, mostly driven by sales of her most recent publication A Lesson in Cruelty, which was published in April 2024.
Furthermore, The Lies You Told, published in July 2020, sold 263 copies last week – 93.4% more than the previous week.
While Harriet is set feel the benefit of appearing in The Traitors – from books sales and perhaps even a share in the potential £100,000 prize money – she is already financially secure.
Her husband Nathaniel Tyce is a multi-millionaire City trader and is said to earn around £3.5 million a year at Japanese bank Nomura, where he is head of global markets for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The couple have been married for 25 years and live in a large townhouse in Islington, North London.
Before joining Nomura, Nathaniel worked for Barclays and some have suggested the couple have a joint worth in the region of £15 million, with one friend joking to a newspaper, “They’re absolutely minted!”
Another added: “Her husband is coining it in but so is Harriet. The Traitors pays – look at her sales. She is not a stupid woman.”
But if she does win the show, Harriet will donate her prize money to Breast Cancer Research Foundation. She said: “Many dear friends have been affected by the disease, including one of my best friends who sadly died in 2021 from secondary breast cancer.”
By her own admission, Harriet used to be a heavy drinker and would take it too far so decided at the age of 49 to stop drinking altogether.
“However respectable your dinner parties or expensive the alcohol you knock back, there are only so many blackouts a middle-aged mum should have,” she revealed in an interview.
“I was just lucky that the structures of my life were enough in place that my alcohol-use disorder remained highly functional and that I’ve been able to address it without too much drama.”
Harriet – who is also a trained chef and can play the flute and piano – says she quit before she turned 50 as wanted to give herself as big a chance as possible to try and erase some of the damage she has done to her body.
“A couple of friends have already succumbed to addictions, their premature deaths awful to see,” she said. “I’ve maybe left it too late to undo the damage I’ve done to myself, but I’m giving it my best shot. Yoga, weights, running. I might even give cold water swimming a go…
“I’ve faced up to it. Some of my friends might argue you weren’t that bad. But my name’s Harriet and I’m an alcoholic. I don’t go to meetings, but I go to therapy every week. I repeat the mantras. One day at a time. Keep my side of the street clean. In my own way I’ve worked the steps. I’m at peace with the shame of the past; I love waking up each morning with a clear head, clearer conscience.
“If I die tomorrow, I hope I’ll be remembered, but without a glass in my hand.”
Last November, Harriet and some of her fellow crime writers went to Covent Garden to take part in the live version of The Traitors and she emerged victorious.
Author Cally Taylor wrote on her Instagram, “Last night I travelled to London to take part in the Traitor’s Live Experience in Covent Garden with 12 crime writing friends. It was SO MUCH FUN!
“I expected it to be like a board game but it was so much more immersive with graphics and sounds and blindfolds and tasks. I was a Faithful and was genuinely nervous I might get murdered when we put our blindfolds on each ‘night’, and fought not to get banished at each round table.
“I was onto one of the Traitors (Harriet Tyce!) and survived one attempted murder by having a hidden shield but also falsely accused Clare Mackintosh and Jenny Blackhurst and helped get them banished (sorry about that, Faithfuls!). Harriet finally murdered me.”
When asked why she applied for the real show, Harriet said, “I’ve watched the show and love it – it’s one of the very few TV shows that I think I have a skill set that could be useful for.
“I’m a crime writer and used to be a criminal barrister. I spend my life making up horrible ways for people to die and killing people on the page. The idea that I might get to actually plot to kill people or to track down a murderer, but, you know, without actual blood being shed, it’s the closest that I’d get to that experience in real life. So quite honestly, what’s not to like?”
Hero Image credit: BBC/Studio Lambert/Euan Cherry
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