Jennifer Saunders on Turning Down Celebrity Traitors: ‘People Don’t Really Know Who I Am’

Jennifer Saunders has revealed why she turned down the chance to be on Celebrity Traitors.

The Absolutely Fabulous actress, 67, has told that she was offered the TV job which saw the likes of Alan Carr, Cat Burns and Jonathan Ross take part this year.

It was a huge success with millions tuning in every night to see who would be banished and murdered. 

But speaking to The Times she explained why she turned down the offer, saying: ‘Because if I’d done it, I couldn’t have watched it! And I wanted to watch it soooo badly.’

She added that she would never go on Strictly or I’m A Celebrity, and that she doesn’t reckon she’d be any good on Traitors.

Jennifer told the publication: ‘I’m not very good at disguising embarrassment or excitement or things.

‘But I think I’m quite good at reading people. I’m very good at getting energy from people. I can immediately tell when someone’s pissed off or frightened or whatever.’

In the interview she also said that her public image is very different from her private persona as she mused: ‘People don’t really know who I am…’.

And while going on Celebrity Traitors would have given the public more of an insight into her personality, she said people often assume she is ‘grumpy and a bit brusque’ when really she isn’t at all.

She told how people often tell her that they think she is ‘frightening’ but in fact she has just always had a ‘blank’ face even when she was a kid.  

It comes after back in September Absolutely Fabulous stars Jennifer and Joanna Lumley reunited for the Burberry show at Kensington Gardens which closed London Fashion Week with a spectacle of Brit nostalgia.

In a power move which would have delighted the fame obsessed, Bollinger-guzzling  Eddie and Patsy, the actresses rubbed shoulders with the likes of Elton John and Naomi Campbell on the packed front row.

Jennifer and Joanna decided against channelling their characters’ more flamboyant fashion sense, instead opting for classic Burberry trench coats and the brand’s signature check accessories. 

In another nod to their nineties series, the duo were sat next to model Twiggy, who famously guest starred as herself in two episodes of the show. 

Twiggy looked fabulous in a chic black suit and tie as she cosied up to her long-time pals for photos inside the star-studded tent before the trio were spotted giggling together on the front row.

It’s been nine years since Eddie and Patsy were last on screen, with creator Jennifer insisting she would not revive the characters following the 2016 movie. 

Last year Gold aired Absolutely Fabulous: Inside Out, a two-hour tribute to the ground-breaking sitcom that ran for six series between 1992 and 2012, which saw Jennifer and Joanna reunite to reveal behind the scenes secrets. 

Ab Fab grew out of a French & Saunders sketch in which Jennifer played an Eddie-like character called Adrianna and her comedy partner Dawn French her priggish, studious daughter. 

When Dawn was unable to commit to another series of French & Saunders after adopting her daughter, Jennifer decided to grow the sketch into a sitcom. 

Old friend Ruby Wax helped hone the scripts for Jennifer, who up until then had only written short sketches with Dawn for her comedy series. 

And it was Ruby who suggested Joanna for the party of former model turned booze-addled magazine fashion director Patsy Stone.

‘I saw her in a play, went backstage and said, ‘You should be in a comedy’,’ Ruby once recalled. ‘She was thrilled because her career had plummeted – she doesn’t mind me saying that – it was under the floorboards. So I put her on my show, and then when Jennifer and I were talking about Ab Fab I said, ‘I have Patsy!’ 

Joanna wasn’t convinced. While making the pilot episode in 1991 she found herself frustrated by both Jennifer’s script for Patsy and her attitude on set.

‘As there was no description of what Patsy was like in the script, I didn’t know,’ recalled Joanna in an interview for Weekend Magazine last year. 

‘And because Jennifer was not at her most communicative in those days, she gave me no hint, except she looked sadder and crosser at every word I uttered.

‘I thought, ‘This is a dead loss.’ I didn’t know what she wanted. I rang my agent and said, ‘I don’t think Jennifer wants me, but she’s too polite to say anything. Do you think you can get me out of this?’ My agent said, ‘It’s a pilot. Just do it. It might not take off.’ So I nearly wasn’t Patsy!’

Jennifer agreed, explaining ‘We didn’t know each other,’ she says. ‘It’s hard, isn’t it. I didn’t quite know what I wanted.’

Another stumbling block was a comment from a BBC comedy boss who declared that ‘he didn’t find drunk women funny’.

Speaking in last year’s documentary the sitcom’s producer John Plowman revealed: ‘We do the pilot and I see Robin Nash, Who was the then head of comedy and I said, ‘What do you think?’

‘And he said, ‘I’ve never found women being drunk very funny.’ And I thought, ‘Well, that’s it, it’s over.’ 

‘But we did it in the evening. The audience was wonderful and my most binding memory was at the end of it I saw Ben Elton [comedian] and he said, ‘Well, I’ve seen the future of comedy and it’s that.’.’

Absolutely Fabulous ran for five successful seasons from 1992 to 2003 and one film, boasting a hoard of A-list guest stars.