A Journey of Self-Discovery and Resilience
Kate Garraway, a well-known presenter on Good Morning Britain, has recently shared her experiences from appearing on the BBC show The Celebrity Traitors. The 58-year-old star made it quite far in the game as a “Faithful,” even though she admitted she didn’t have the strategies or theories to identify the Traitors. After being banished this week, she opened up about her time filming in the Scottish highlands and how a bond with one fellow player led her to explore a possible condition.
“Talking to people like Cat about their music and their life—she’s autistic and ADHD, and I’ve got that in my family,” Kate said. “And actually, I’m in the process of an ADHD diagnosis myself. I think it’s pretty clear I am.”
This revelation came after her conversation with singer Cat Burns, who is 25 and has spoken openly about living with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Cat was diagnosed with ADHD in 2021 and autism in 2023. Both conditions are neurodevelopmental disorders that can affect movement, language, memory, concentration, and social skills.
Cat, known for hits like the TikTok viral song Go, shared her journey: “I knew I had ADHD, but I still felt there was a difference in my brain that I wanted to understand and explore. Once I got my autism diagnosis, that helped me understand myself and just how much I’ve had to do in order to get to where I am.”
She added that she always felt different from others but didn’t have a name for it until later. “As I got older, I really identified with the symptoms.” Cat has proven to be a formidable Traitor in this series, as well as a hit with viewers. She and Alan Carr remain in the game after turning on one of their own, Jonathan Ross.
Despite not making it to the final, Kate had nothing but praise for her time in the castle. She lost her husband, Derek Draper, in January last year, whom she cared for around the clock after he suffered severe complications from Covid.
Before leaving, she gave an emotional speech to the other players, telling them: “I’ve had a lot of years of being very serious and very sad, and you’ve all allowed me to play the most amazing game, be silly, and have fun.”
She also mentioned that her late husband would have “absolutely loved” watching her on Celebrity Traitors, as she bantered with the likes of Alan and failed miserably in trying to suss out who was working against her.
A Transformative Experience
Appearing on the spin-off show Uncloaked, Kate, who married her late husband in 2005, further opened up about finding the whole process “transformative.” “It’s been lovely to meet people from different worlds,” she began.
“After nearly six years of caring for someone you love, your world goes very in, and you’re literally every minute of the day thinking, ‘What about the medication? What am I going to do? What happens next? Where do we need to go?’ And so it’s been looking in, and then after he passed away, very much looking in on the children, worried for them.”
“Suddenly, I was able to look out and jump into other people’s lives, which I felt like I was doing with people that you’ve respected for years. It was amazing. And to just play.”
She added, “I think maybe the one advantage I had was that, even though it was so intense and I felt so pressured and I was so useless most of the time, is that when you live genuinely with life or death for a long time, as we did, particularly for the first two years, it was daily. Then you have the ability to enjoy something that is just a game.”
Grateful for the Experience
Kate said she now feels “very lucky to have had that” as someone who has been a carer, given the struggles millions of others are living with each day. “I just feel incredibly grateful to have been part of it all, because it’s been wonderful.”
The final of The Celebrity Traitors airs on Thursday, November 6, at 9pm on BBC One.
