The Traitors’ Harriet is the bookies’ favourite to scoop the prize cash… but she could already afford to buy the castle

It was with all the requisite drama The Traitors demands that host Claudia Winkleman announced on Friday night’s episode that the prize fund for its eventual winners had reached a ‘staggering’ £52,000.

Amid the wide eyes and joyful grins, it would not have taken a super sleuth to notice that one of the contestants barely blinked.

To be fair to Harriet Tyce, now favourite to take this year’s crown on the hit BBC show, she is not prone to emotional outbursts.

Indeed, as a calm member of the Faithful, her quiet – and yet eerily accurate – analytical skills have proved a crucial tool in helping them nab two Traitors so far.

But there is another reason, perhaps, for her understated demeanour when it comes to the prize pot.

Namely that, for Harriet and her husband, the sum is small change.

Along with a successful career as a barrister–turned–bestselling crime author, The Mail on Sunday can reveal that Harriet, 53, is married to a multi–millionaire City trader – with friends quipping that they’re ‘absolutely minted’.

Nathaniel Tyce is said to earn around £3.5million a year at Japanese bank Nomura, where he is head of global markets for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Married to Harriet for 25 years, Nathaniel worked for Barclays for decades before making the switch, and some have suggested they may have already built up a fortune of more than £15million.

That’s nearly enough to buy Ardross Castle – the stunning Highland location for The Traitors.

But the couple instead live in a large townhouse on a beautiful tree–lined street in the North London enclave of Highbury, known for its high concentration of so–called ‘champagne socialists’.

And being on the show has certainly not harmed Harriet’s coffers. Sales of her crime novels have rocketed 96 per cent since the show launched on January 1.

One friend said: ‘Her husband is coining it in but so is Harriet. Traitors pays – look at her sales. She is not a stupid woman.’ Indeed not. On Friday night, an impressive 7.9million viewers tuned in to watch as Harriet turned her forensic attention to another of the programme’s favourites, communications executive Rachel Duffy, who has been a Traitor since the start.

Her suspicions were raised after a public spat between Rachel and her fellow Traitor, Fiona Hughes. And when Fiona was banished and unmasked following the show’s Round Table, Harriet pondered to the camera – correctly – that emotions could have run high because both were Traitors, paving the way for what promises to be another tense episode on Wednesday night.

As Harriet said on the show: ‘I feel that was a question of Traitor on Traitor tonight. Rachel is my number one suspect, and the person I will be keeping my eye on.’ Thanks to winning a task, Harriet has also been given the unprecedented chance to ask the Traitors two questions in scenes yet to be aired.

But given her background, and the fact that she has already been instrumental in ousting Traitor (and fellow barrister) Hugo Lodge, they are likely to be incisive ones.

Born in Edinburgh, Harriet has a degree in English from Oxford University and worked as a criminal barrister for nearly a decade.

She gave up her career when she had her children – Freddie, 21, and 17–year–old Eloise – saying it was impossible to juggle the law with being a mum.

A fascination with Agatha Christie inspired her new career as an author. In 2017, she won a place on the University of East Anglia’s creative writing MA course where she graduated with distinction.

She has now published four crime novels, the first of which, Blood Orange, was picked up by former This Morning hosts Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan for their book club.

Abbey Clancy, wife of former England footballer Peter Crouch, is also a big fan, telling Grazia magazine that she ‘couldn’t put [Blood Orange] down’.

It is understood Harriet has also bonded with Louise Minchin over her books as the ex–BBC Breakfast presenter commented ‘OMG this is brilliant’ under her announcement that she was to appear on Traitors. Now, though, she is winning many new fans.

Weekly sales across all her novels are up from 181 copies to 354, largely driven by her most recent publication, A Lesson In Cruelty, published in April 2024.

Alex Call, founder and owner of Bert’s Books and The Bookseller charts editor, said: ‘We at Bert’s have put her books front and centre on one of our tables, and have sold a few more copies because of that, but readers haven’t quite made the connection between The Traitors and her books yet.’

Meanwhile, Jane Streeter at The Bookcase in Nottinghamshire told The Bookseller magazine that Harriet’s Traitors appearance was ‘definitely generating interest’.

The author has many other talents – she is also a trained chef and can play the flute and piano. But life hasn’t always been so easy. She has been sober for three years after admitting her struggles with alcohol – and it was following the death of a close friend from cancer that she decided to give it up.

Her last drink was in June 2022. In one interview, she has said: ‘There are only so many blackouts a middle–aged mum should have. One of my best friends died in April 2021. It was cancer, it was terrible, and it was emphatically not alcohol–related in any way.

‘But we were born within two weeks of each other and seeing her life cut so short was a moment of reckoning for me. It was time to take care of myself. A couple of friends have already succumbed to addictions, their premature deaths awful to see. 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.’

She has previously said that she is so grateful for her second chance at life that, if she wins Traitors, she will donate her prize to a breast cancer charity.

‘That’s the perfect way for Harriet to remember her friend,’ says a companion.