The Circle contestant says he felt 'humiliated' on controversial reality show

'I was absolutely furious. In my entire life, I have never felt so many emotions at the same time. I felt angry, but I was also very upset and extremely embarrassed'

A contestant who appeared on Channel 4's controversial reality show The Circle has said he is "furious" after being deceived by the winning participant.

Dan Mosaku told BBC Radio 5 Live that he felt "humiliated" after forming a friendship with "Kate", the eventual winner, only to discover that he had actually been talking to a man called Alex.

The Circle follows a group of people who all live the same block of flats. Rather than meeting each other face-to-face, they are locked in their apartments and can only communicate via a custom-built social media app: The Circle.

Alex Horben won the £75,000 prize after becoming the most popular person on The Circle at the end of the three weeks, with contestants ranking each other throughout. He used an image of his girlfriend Millie as his profile picture, explaining that he "wanted to raise awareness that a lot of social media is fake".

Dan said that he may have played a "large part" in Alex's win because he gave "Kate" five stars each time. He added: "I thought my friendship with Kate was as close as it could possibly have been without having physically met. Because of her personality, Kate became more attractive to me. I would definitely have explored something romantic with her."

"I was absolutely furious. In my entire life, I have never felt so many emotions at the same time. I felt angry, but I was also very upset and extremely embarrassed. One of the things that hurt me so badly was that I genuinely wanted Kate to be Kate, and [coming face-to-face with Alex] was kind of like a mirror shattering for me. All of my dreams of who this person was, and potentially could be to me, completely shattered in that one moment, and I'd been living a lie."

The show has drawn criticism for allowing its contestants to engage in catfishing, the act of posing as someone else online, a tactic not only used by Alex.

Jennifer, a 40-year-old ad executive, pretended to be a 34-year-old oncologist. She told the camera before entering the flats that she knew lying about being a “cancer doctor” is “morally questionable” but she was intent on winning. Freddie, who is openly gay in real life, also decided to “play it straight” on the series.

The Circle has drawn comparisons to the Netflix TV show Black Mirror, particularly the Bryce Dallas Howard-starring episode “Nosedive”. The premise of the episode also regards a social media app which allows users to rate each other out of five.

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