What you need to know ahead of the first show

Celebrity Traitors is back – here’s what you need to know ahead of the first show

BBC/Studio Lambert/Cody Burridge/BBC Creative

The Celebrity Traitors is back for a second series, and viewers will see the likes of Michael Sheen, Jerry Hall, Richard E Grant and Amol Rajan at the round table along with Bella Ramsey, Leigh-Anne Pinnock, Maya Jama and King Kenny.

There are 21 celebrities taking part in total – two more than last year – and there will be an extra episode after the huge popularity of the previous series.

The extended 75-minute debut episode starts at 20:00 BST on Thursday, with the series continuing every Thursday and Friday throughout October.

Viewers can expect some fresh ideas, and executive producer Sarah Fay said they “always want to push the envelope” with the show’s elaborate tasks.

“We’re always trying to evolve existing ideas to bring them into a new life or coming up with different cultural references,” she told the show’s press launch.

BBC/Studio Lambert/Cody Burridge/BBC Creative

The celebrities will be playing for a £100,000 prize for charity.

The final amount will depend on how well they perform in the tasks, regardless of any possible tensions over who is a faithful and who is a traitor.

This year’s contestants are a mixture of famous faces from TV, film, radio and YouTube:

• Amol Rajan – journalist and broadcaster
• Bella Ramsey – actor
• James Acaster – comedian and podcaster
• James Blunt – singer/songwriter
• Jerry Hall – model and actress
• Joanne McNally – comedian
• Joe Lycett – comedian
• Julie Hesmondhalgh – actor
• King Kenny – content creator
• Leigh-Anne Pinnock – singer/songwriter
• Maya Jama – broadcaster and entrepreneur
• Michael Sheen – actor and presenter
• Miranda Hart – actor and author
• Myha’la – actor
• Professor Hannah Fry– broadcaster and mathematician
• Richard E Grant – actor and author
• Rob Beckett – comedian
• Romesh Ranganathan – comedian
• Ross Kemp – actor and presenter
• Sebastian Croft – musician and actor
• Sharon Rooney – actor

Which days will the Celebrity Traitors air?

There will be 10 episodes of Celebrity Traitors on Thursdays and Fridays, beginning on BBC One and iPlayer at 20:00, with spin-off series Uncloaked airing immediately after.

In the show’s trailer, they are seen arriving in a church, smiling as they greet each other, but looking nervous.

They later travel to the castle in a fleet of black cars, before host Claudia Winkleman chooses her traitors while everyone wears their blindfolds.

They then take part in their first mission in a lake in wetsuits, ending with Winkleman saying ominously: “Fame won’t save them.”

BBC/Studio Lambert/Cody Burridge/BBC Creative

Speaking at the press launch, Winkleman said she is totally focused on the celebrities while she’s in the castle, and is glued to the monitors showing footage of them throughout the day.

“All of them were tremendous, and when we do any series I have this room with the monitors. I’m like a weirdo just applying fake tan, watching,” she said.

The presenter added that even when she’s told to go home, she tells the producers “I am not leaving”, joking that she got barely any sleep.

Ed Gamble, host of BBC One and BBC Sounds spin-off show Uncloaked, added that he watched “hours of footage a day” as well.

“So when they’re eating breakfast, I’m eating breakfast watching them eat breakfast. It’s actually quite sad… I’m normally sat there in my pyjamas eating cereal, watching them eat cereal,” he told BBC News.

Viewers can also look forward to more of Winkleman’s eclectic wardrobe choices.

“I like the fact that it is ‘human crow meets golf caddy meets the Artful Dodger’. We’re pretty happy with it,” she joked about this year’s outfits.

BBC/Studio Lambert/Cody Burridge/BBC Creative

The celebrities have also been speaking about the show before its launch, with comedian and presenter Romesh Ranganathan saying that despite being best friends with fellow comic Rob Beckett, he would have no problem stabbing him in the back.

“I mean, he’s just as easily going to be on my side as he is going to twist the knife in my back given the opportunity,” he said.

The show’s other comics include Joe Lycett, James Acaster and Joanne McNally.

“I think we’re going to be the first ones under the magnifying glass being looked at,” Acaster said over suspicions one will be a traitor.

Comedian Alan Carr won the first series of Celebrity Traitors, which was the most watched TV programme of 2025 in the UK, watched by 15 million people.

The Last of Us and Game of Thrones star Bella Ramsey already has experience of playing similar games at drama clubs and at home, which is why they joined the show.

“I’ve been playing a version of The Traitors since I was 10 years old,” they said.

Mathematician Hannah Fry, who called herself “toxically competitive”, added she has already looked for “statistical patterns” in the data for previous games; while Little Mix singer Leigh-Anne Pinnock said she took advice from singer Cat Burns, who reached the final as a traitor last year.

“She had good advice. She said it might get intense around that round table – but remember, it’s just a game,” Pinnock said.

‘I wouldn’t be a contestant’

The show is also something of a love letter to the Scottish Highlands, where it is filmed, with sweeping drone shots of the scenery and Ardross Castle in Inverness, where the celebrities meet, eat and of course sit at the round table.

“It’s breathtaking,” Winkleman told the press, adding that she and her family were returning to the Highlands for a holiday.

“My husband was like, ‘You’re already there quite a lot, what’s the matter with you?'” she said.

“It’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever been in the world, is the truth.”

After she recently chose to end her recent BBC One chat show, Winkleman is back on familiar ground with Celebrity Traitors.

BBC News asked if she would ever want to try being a contestant on the show, perhaps in the US or Australian versions.

“No, I’m too thick,” she said in typical self-deprecating style.

“I mustn’t play it in public. I must not.

“I’m just being honest – it’s a privilege to play that game and to be at the round table, but I think I would just be too awful at it.”

The Celebrity Traitors series two begins on Thursday 1 October at 20:00 BST on BBC One andiPlayer. The series will air two nights a week, on Thursday and Friday evenings.

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Claudia Winkleman
Reality TV
Television
The Traitors
Celebrity