The Traitors star Dan Bird was the latest Faithful to be booted from the show (Image: BBC)
Fallen faithful Dan Bird has spoken out about the challenges he faced on as an autistic contestant.
On Friday (January 10), Dan became the latest contestant to be wrongfully banished from the reality show after things heated up in a tense round table session.
Despite many people correctly suspecting Linda of being a traitor, the bank risk manager was evicted from the castle. Now, the TV personality has lifted the lid on one of the biggest challenges he faced on the show as someone with autism.
Speaking after his exit from the show, Dan admitted the rigid thinking, which is a symptom of his condition, was “one of his biggest downfalls” on the strategy-based show.
He told :”As soon as I got an idea in my head, I just ran with it. And that’s a massive strength in some ways in life because, from my experience, my autism means that I’m incredibly determined and focused on our top goal, and I don’t really let anything divert me.
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“But in a game like this, you have to be more flexible than that, and there were certain times when I had suspicions of people and I just wouldn’t let up and I wouldn’t see alternative viewpoints.
The star described his experience on the show as “very compartmentalised”, explaining that he viewed everything on the show from a game-focused and strategic perspective.
He went on: “So I never really took anything personally and my mistake was expecting that other people would feel the same way, but I think that there were definitely times in the game when my empathy did come through.
Dan’s empathy was particularly evident when he defended Kas who he had formed an alliance with in the castle, adding that he “wanted to be there for him”.
He went on to add that he went into the game not wanting to be too emotional and was conscious of the fact it was just a game.
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The bank manager formed an alliance with his co-star Kas (Image: BBC / Listen Entertainment Ltd.)
Dan also praised the ” really, really lovely team” who work on the show for allowing him breaks and space he required to process events as t hey unfolded.
He revealed he took several breaks as he wasn’t used to being around people all the time and needed to recalibrate.
Despite this he says he found it difficult to build “social bonds” with the other contestants, something he feels is an huge part of the game.
He acknowledges this caused him difficulty since he feels “alliances are definitely the most important part” of the game.
The Traitors airs on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays from 9pm on One or catch up on iPlayer.