Those Traitors producers really have a tough job; you know, keeping secrets under wraps for months on end amid Instagram, TikTok and endless fan sleuthing.
WARNING: POTENTIAL TRAITORS SERIES 4 SPOILERS AHEAD
Cue eagle-eyed viewers thinking they've blown open a massive one from series 4: psychologist Ellie Buckley and sales exec/personal trainer Ross Garshong could be a real-life couple hiding in plain sight.
While there are no blatant on-screen hints yet, online detectives have unearthed telling receipts fuelling the theory away from the chokehold of show bosses.
Can we just say something? If Ellie and Ross are a secret couple, the millennial team at heat are outrageously here for these Mr. & Mrs. Smith vibes...
It all started with a June 2024 group photo from Ross's employer, Damo’s Personal Training in London (now deleted, btw) showing Ellie standing next to him with his hand on her back.
The players also overlapped at the same Tenerife hotel last summer, Ross has liked and commented on her LinkedIn job promotion posts (now scrubbed), they 'met' acting like strangers in the same train carriage on episode one – oh, and Ross already faced early suspicion after admitting a pre-show link to banished Faithful Netty ('coincidental' casting via social follows, per exec producer Mike Cotton). It's giving red herring if you ask us.
Comments online are, naturally, exploding. One viewer wrote, 'Secretly already a couple! It was odd when they ‘met’ and both said they lived in London but neither asked any further questions.'
Interestingly, some online fan posts have mysteriously vanished in the last day or so, but the buzz is only growing. Will producers address it, or is this the next banishment bombshell?
As soon as this story began to blow up, heat naturally reverted to the potential couple's pre-show press interviews with producers to see if we missed any initial clues. While these interviews don't traditionally give anything juicy away, this answer – in hindsight – now has us thinking that Ross might be playing a VERY good game, with his secret girlfriend backing him up secretly in plain sight.
When asked whether he thought he had a good poker face, Ross replied, 'No, but what I do have that would be good is mixing lies with the truth. For instance, I have got a good poker face when talking about something that is true, that might help conceal something else that’s being alluded to.'
Something else like you're one half of a secret couple?
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Ben Pulsford is a digital writer and producer at Bauer Media, creating content for Closer online and heatworld. Beyond his journalism, he is a presenter, singer and podcaster, co-hosting the Spill the Fizz podcast with Traitors series 2 star Diane Carson.