Celebrity Traitors star reveals Ricky Gervais turned down show after realising key issue – and he may have been proven right

When Joe Wilkinson and Joe Marler shared their intriguing Big Dog theory, it seemed plausible, and it appears one celebrity guessed the very same before the show even aired.

Jonathan Ross, who was eventually ousted from the game for being a Traitor, has shared that Ricky Gervais turned down the chance to appear on The Celebrity Traitors due to the way in which he could be voted out.

During an episode of his podcast Reel Talk, Ross said: "I had a chat this week with Ricky Gervais. He called me after The Traitors. And he was asked to go in.

"He called me because I think my name had got out there, nothing had been confirmed before we filmed it. He said, 'Are you doing this Traitors thing?' I said, 'Yeah, I'm doing it. Stephen Fry is definitely doing it, and Alan [Carr] is going in…'.

"And he said, 'I'm not doing it. The reason I’m not doing it is, I'm pretty sure that if you go in there, they're going to say it's going to have to be one of these bigger names. You're going to wind up getting voted out just because they think you’re a bigger name in the outside world.'

"So he nailed the Big Dog theory. And I said, "Well, you were right.'"

Read more:

• Celebrity Traitors renewed for a second season as BBC reveals huge impact on Scotland
• Celebrity Traitors final's huge overnight ratings confirmed – and they prove viewers were faithful

The theory concocted by Marler and Wilkinson suggested that Stephen Fry had been chosen to lead the Faithful and Jonathan Ross to lead the Traitors. Though this took a while to uncover, as Ross wasn't banished from the game for quite some time.

In the end, it was a Traitor who won the game, with Alan Carr making it through to the very end, managing to pull the wool over the eyes of the Faithful one last time. Thus, he won £87,500 for his chosen charity, Neuroblastoma UK.

The Celebrity Traitors is available to watch on BBC iPlayer.

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