The Chase star Paul Sinha has cleared up speculation about one of viewers’ most frequently asked questions about the celebrity version of the show.
Paul has been part of the long-running ITV gameshow since 2011, with host Bradley Walsh usually referring to him by the nickname ‘The Sinnerman’.
While regular contestants team up and compete on The Chase for a hefty cash prize, the celebrity version sees famous faces answering general knowledge questions to accrue a donation to a charity of their choice.
Because of this, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the show’s resident Chasers might take their foot off the gas a little when it comes to the celebrity contestants – but it seems this is not the case.
Writing on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday afternoon, Paul said: “People who ask us if the Chasers play as hard when we’re doing the Celeb shows – with two seconds to go, I once prevented Rachel Johnson from winning 15k for Parkinson’s UK. A quiz is a quiz.”
As more people began paying attention to his post, the Celebrity Gogglebox star – who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2019 – added: “This was a jokey tweet about one of the weirdest ironies of my Chase career. Fact is though, we are contractually obliged to always try our best."
Paul is one of The Chase’s six resident Chasers, alongside Mark Labbett, Shaun Wallace, Anne Hegerty, Jenny Ryan and newest recruit Darragh Ennis.
In 2020, Anne spoke candidly about why welcoming new Chasers into the fold was something of a double-edged sword for herself and her teammates, with whom she also appears on spin-off show Beat The Chasers.
She said: “We, The Chasers and Bradley [Walsh], we get paid a flat fee for every [show] that we do. So, any show that I’m doing, is a show for which I’m being paid and the other Chasers aren’t. And that applies to all of us.”
She added: “If you’re going to divide the shows by six rather than five, then, you know, do the maths.”