Claudia Winkleman reveals why she wears £1k boots to pick The Traitors

We are just days away from The Traitors series 4 launch, which means Claudia Winkelman is back, along with her sensational wardrobe choices.

While promoting the new series, which airs just months after the popular Celebrity version of the show, Claudia was asked about the boots she wears during the first roundtable, where she decides who her Traitors will be.

‘This is my favourite question I’ve ever been asked,’ she replied with a smile on her face.

Claudia went on to tell the Daily Mail: ‘The walk around the table is very tense. I can’t tell you how many times I walk around it, but I really try to build the tension, which is hideously mean but also quite addictive.

‘I try and wear clumpy footwear to add to it. It gets a bit flamenco. Alan recently said I walk around the table like a cart horse, and he’s bang on.’

We can reveal that the pair of boots Claudia wore for the first three series, and that she wears again in the first episode of the fourth series, were from Saint Laurent and cost £975.

I’m told these Theo Chelsea boots are one of Claudia’s favourite pairs, so much so that she has them in three different styles: the black smooth leather, the black suede, and the brown suede.

In series one, she wore the heeled ankle boots in brown, while in the following two series, she switched to a black pair.

Going into detail about how she chose this pair for the first and all-important roundtable, she shared: ‘They need to be incredibly loud. I’m thinking of going for a tap shoe next time.

‘I’ve got an old pair of boots that have a heavy heel, and I scrape them along.’

However, the host, who is famous for her expensive taste in clothes and accessories, opted for a different pair of boots for the Celebrity Traitors, which aired in October 2025.

She wore a stylish pair of Givenchy’s Shark Lock buckle knee-high boots in black leather, which retail at £1915.

In episodes further into the series, she is often seen wearing her trusty Bottega Veneta Lug leather ankle boots, priced at £1080.

Claudia’s outfits on The Traitors have become as renowned as the show.

The presenter shared her inspiration for this series and what direction she would like to take her wardrobe for future seasons.

‘We carried on the Cruella theme from celebrities, and next year we are going full Oliver Twist. I said to Sinead, who does clothes, ‘Can we tea stain it?’ She said, ‘Not really, we borrow it.’

‘So I would like to apologise to all of the people we borrow from,’ Claudia added.

The Traitors will welcome in a batch of new contestants on January 1 to battle it out in the ultimate game of trust and treachery.

Twenty two players will be pitted against each other – facing backstabbing and betrayal – as the ‘Faithful’ try to vote out the ‘Traitors’ selected amongst them, all in the name of winning the up-to £120,000 prize pot.

Along the way, they will have to face a series of missions, with the BBC promising ‘more twists, turns, secrets, deception, banishments and of course, murders aplenty’. The new series will play out across 12 one-hour long episodes.

When asked if she could give us a sneak peek of what’s in store, Claudia said: ‘I mean, I’d really love to, but I’d get into enormous trouble. All I will say is there’s something new, and what happens in this series is truly extraordinary, with moments that made me gasp. I can’t wait for people to see it. The producers have the greatest minds on earth.

‘You think you know how to win. Turns out you don’t. The castle has many secrets, that’s all I can say.’

Speaking on if her friends and family ever try to get spoilers out of her, she added: ‘Never. Genuinely I’d lose my job. Plus, there’s no fun in knowing. When Alan won my husband and youngest son couldn’t stop screaming and crying and shouting, ‘but you knew’. They had a toastie and calmed down…’

It comes after the BBC confirmed Celebrity Traitors would be renewed for a second season just days after the record-breaking first series saw more than 14 million viewers tune in to see Alan Carr win. It surpassed its own record-breaking Gavin & Stacey Christmas special finale last year.

While rumours had been circulating that celebrity names were already being thrown into the hat for a second series, the broadcaster has now confirmed it’ll be back on screens in 2026.

Mike said they are feeling the pressure following the success of the celebrity spin-off show. He said: ‘I think we were blown away with how successful the Celebrity Traitor was, we couldn’t believe how many people were watching it. Obviously then there’s a lot of pressure on the civilian version. I think with celebrities, people can easily connect with them, but with our regular version you don’t know them.’

Claudia added: ‘I love this new gang because they play with their entire hearts. After the celebrity one, they were adorable, but they were like at the round table, ‘No after you.’ That is not how this one goes.

‘I don’t mean the celebrities were soft in a bad way, but these players play it rather differently and it gets hardcore. It gets very heated. The money means a lot to them and we get some very juicy roundtables.’

The Traitors returns on January 1 at 8pm on BBC One and iPlayer.