Who Won The Celebrity Traitors 2026? Winner, Final & Cast

Updated: 31 October 2026

Updated Saturday 31 October 2026, after the final (episode 10). The series is over, so this page now records the result.

Sebastian Croft and Romesh Ranganathan won The Celebrity Traitors 2026. Both were Faithfuls, and they shared the £83,000 pot, which goes to charities of their choice. The final aired on Friday 30 October from 8pm to 9.20pm on BBC One and is on BBC iPlayer, as are all ten episodes. Series 2 began on Thursday 1 October 2026 and aired every Thursday and Friday at 8pm, and The Celebrity Traitors: Uncloaked, Ed Gamble’s companion show, followed the final at 9.20pm.

Seven players were left after episode 9: two Traitors, Maya Jama and King Kenny, and five Faithfuls, Michael Sheen, James Blunt, Romesh Ranganathan, Leigh-Anne Pinnock and Sebastian Croft. Overnight the Traitors murdered Michael Sheen, so six players reached the last Round Table. There Jama took most of the votes and was banished, but her role was not shown, so the five survivors still had to decide whether to end the game. Leigh-Anne Pinnock went in the first vote, and a tie between Kenny and James Blunt was settled by Croft and Ranganathan, who sent Kenny home. Blunt then pushed for another vote and was banished himself. With both Traitors gone, the two Faithfuls left standing took the money. The pot had grown from £64,500 after episode 9 with a final mission, out of a possible £100,000.

When is The Celebrity Traitors on?

Thursdays and Fridays at 8pm on BBC One. The BBC confirmed the slot on 15 September, and it was a change from the first celebrity series in 2025, which aired on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Episodes lasted about an hour, apart from the 75-minute opener and the 80-minute final.

The series is complete: there are no further episodes.

For the rest of each evening’s TV, see the Thursday TV guide, the Friday TV guide or the BBC One TV guide.

Missed an episode? All of them are on BBC iPlayer as soon as they have aired.

How many episodes of The Celebrity Traitors are there?

Ten, one more than the nine of the first celebrity series. At two a week that made a five-week run through October.

Who is in The Celebrity Traitors 2026?

The BBC announced the 21 players on 2 May 2026. Up to £100,000 was at stake, paid to the charities the players chose, and Claudia Winkleman hosted again at Ardross Castle in the Scottish Highlands.

Every role is now known: five Traitors (Jama, Grant, Acaster, Fry and Kenny) and 16 Faithfuls.

A few connections were worth knowing before the Round Tables got going. Rob Beckett and Romesh Ranganathan are close friends who front Rob & Romesh Vs together, Ranganathan and Julie Hesmondhalgh present and narrate The Weakest Link, and Acaster co-hosts his podcast with Ed Gamble, who is now interviewing the players he has helped to eliminate.

Who are the Traitors?

• Maya Jama and Richard E. Grant were picked by Claudia at the end of episode 1.

• James Acaster became the third Traitor at the start of episode 2. The pair had shortlisted him and Amol Rajan, and each had to argue face to face for a place in the turret. Whoever lost would be murdered. Acaster was taken in and Rajan was killed off.

• Hannah Fry joined them in episode 3. Grant had been under suspicion since the first Round Table, where Fry and Joe Lycett were among those questioning him, and when the vote resumed on Thursday he was banished, with Jama and Acaster both voting against him. The remaining pair then recruited Fry rather than commit a murder that night.

• Hannah Fry lasted two more episodes as a Traitor. In episode 5 she drew the most suspicion at the Round Table and the group banished her, with Jama and Acaster among those voting for her.

• King Kenny replaced her that same night. Joe Lycett had spent the day openly asking to be recruited, but Jama and Acaster chose Kenny instead. With a new recruit taken, nobody was murdered before episode 6.

• Episodes 7 and 8 brought no new recruit and no Traitor banishment. The trio carried out the murder in plain sight on Ross Kemp at the start of episode 7, killed Miranda Hart overnight before episode 8, and watched the group vote out Faithfuls instead. In the episode 8 mission all three were among the players judged most trusted, and Kenny came away with a dagger, which gave him a double vote at the Round Table.

• Episode 9 cost them Acaster. After Kenny’s double vote settled the episode 8 tie against Joanne McNally and the trio murdered Sharon Rooney, Michael Sheen named Jama and Acaster as his suspects at the Round Table. Acaster owned up, said he had never wanted the role, and was banished.

• Episode 10 ended the game for the last two. Michael Sheen was murdered overnight, and at the final Round Table Maya Jama was banished without her role being shown. In the closing vote the two Faithfuls who held the deciding votes sent King Kenny home after a tie, so no Traitor was left to take the money.

All five Traitors were banished, and the prize went to the Faithfuls. Jama had also won a shield in the episode 6 mission, which gave her murder protection she did not need as a Traitor but which helped her look like a Faithful.

Who has left The Celebrity Traitors?

That makes 19 players gone: seven murdered and twelve banished, five of them Traitors. Two were left at the end: Faithfuls Sebastian Croft and Romesh Ranganathan, the winners.

The series has ended, so this table is now final.

How to watch The Celebrity Traitors

• Live: BBC One, 8pm on Thursdays and Fridays (the series has now finished)
• Streaming and catch-up: BBC iPlayer, where all ten episodes are available
• Uncloaked: BBC One after each episode, plus BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds, where there are bonus podcast episodes
• Extra: Traitor or Faithful? Claudia Decides, an iPlayer special on how Claudia chose her Traitors, went up after episode 1

For watching on other devices, earlier series and viewing from outside the UK, see our full guide to watching The Traitors UK.

How the first celebrity series went (2025)

The Celebrity Traitors launched on 8 October 2025 and ran for nine episodes. Its 19 players were Stephen Fry, Tom Daley, Jonathan Ross, Alan Carr, Clare Balding, Kate Garraway, Charlotte Church, Paloma Faith, Celia Imrie, Joe Marler, Nick Mohammed, David Olusoga, Lucy Beaumont, Mark Bonnar, Joe Wilkinson, Cat Burns, Niko Omilana, Ruth Codd and Tameka Empson.

The format worked with famous faces because they threw themselves into the paranoia rather than protecting their images. Playing for charity rather than for themselves helped too.

Alan Carr won, and he was a Traitor. In the finale, David Olusoga and Nick Mohammed chose to end the game with him, believing he was a Faithful. When Carr revealed what he was, he burst into tears. His win raised £87,500 for Neuroblastoma UK.

The BBC says the series averaged 14.9 million viewers across the run, with 15.4 million for the finale. No entertainment show had drawn a bigger single-episode audience since 2016. The new series has started even faster: the 2026 opener averaged 8.9 million on the night, peaking at 9.1 million, the best overnight launch the UK franchise has had.

About The Traitors

The Traitors is a BAFTA-winning psychological reality game show that has become one of the BBC’s biggest hits. Based on the Dutch format De Verraders, the show was commissioned by the BBC in October 2021 and first filmed in May 2022. Hosted by Claudia Winkleman, the civilian version puts a group of strangers in a Scottish castle, where they complete missions to build a prize fund of up to £120,000.

The original concept was dreamt up by Dutch television producer Marc Pos back in 2014, alongside Jasper Hoogendoorn, after Pos read Muiterij op de Batavia (Mutiny on the Batavia), a book about a bloody uprising aboard a shipwrecked Dutch East India Company vessel. Pos initially pitched the idea as De Muiters (The Mutineers), set on a ship with gameplay similar to the social deduction party game Mafia. The nautical setting proved too expensive to produce, but after years of refinement and persistence, Pos sold the format to Dutch network RTL, where it debuted as De Verraders on 13 March 2021 with Tijl Beckand as host.

Within months, international broadcasters came calling. The format now runs in more than 40 territories, but the British edition, produced by Studio Lambert Scotland for BBC One, is the one the others get measured against. The show won two BAFTAs in 2023: Reality & Constructed Factual, and Entertainment Performance for Claudia Winkleman. In March 2026, the BBC signed a three-year deal ensuring The Traitors and its celebrity spin-off will remain in production until at least 2030. Not bad for a format that started life as a story about mutiny on a 17th-century merchant ship.

Filming location

The Traitors is filmed at Ardross Castle, a 19th-century estate in Ross-shire, about 30 miles north of Inverness. The gothic architecture and the weather do most of the atmospheric work: turrets, candlelit corridors and a reliable supply of Highland mist. Several international versions now film in castles of their own, but Ardross is the one people picture. The 2026 celebrity series was filmed there in May and June.

How the game works

At the start of the game, a small number of contestants are secretly selected as “Traitors” while the rest are “Faithfuls”. Each night, the Traitors meet in secret to “murder” a Faithful, eliminating them from the game. During the day, all players discuss and vote to “banish” whoever they suspect of being a Traitor.

The Faithfuls win if they banish all the Traitors. The Traitors win if they remain undetected until the end. The surviving players share the prize pot, but if any Traitors are still in at the end, only they take the money. The premise is simple and the tension comes from that simplicity: any conversation might be a lie, and the roundtable vote is the only tool the Faithfuls have.

In the celebrity version the money goes to charity, and the pot tops out at £100,000 rather than £120,000.

When is the main Traitors series on?

The civilian series runs in January and the celebrity edition in the autumn. Series 4 went out Wednesday to Friday at 8pm in January 2026; series 1 to 3 aired at 9pm. Series 5 is expected in January 2027, the slot the show has held since 2024, with Claudia Winkleman returning. The BBC’s three-year agreement, signed in March 2026, keeps both the civilian and celebrity editions in production until at least 2030.

Series history

Civilian figures are consolidated seven-day audiences. The celebrity figure is the BBC’s own number, which includes viewing over a longer window, so it is not directly comparable with the rest of the column.

Series 3 recap (2025)

Series 3 launched on New Year’s Day 2025 with 25 contestants, the most of any UK series, and wasted no time. The opening episode put a twist on the train to Ardross Castle: Claudia made three players, Fozia, Jack and Alexander, step off. It cost the group money rather than earning it. The pot opened at £10,000 and shed £1,000 for every minute the three took to decide, finishing at £7,000.

The original Traitors were Linda Rands, Minah Shannon and Armani Gouveia, a 27-year-old financial investigator, and the first all-female Traitor trio in the UK version. None of the three made the finale, also a first.

Minah was the breakout of the series, a 29-year-old who carried the Traitor role with real nerve. By day she charmed her fellow contestants with warmth and sincerity; by night she plotted their murders without a flicker of remorse. She recruited Charlotte Berman in Episode 8, with an ultimatum rather than an invitation. Minah was eventually banished in Episode 10 after suspicions finally caught up with her, but not before playing the role better than anyone in the UK version had managed.

Linda was banished in Episode 7 after seven players, her fellow Traitor Minah among them, wrote her name at the roundtable. Allies count for very little here.

The Death Match ran across Episodes 6 and 7. The Traitors wrote four names on a painting and those players competed over three rounds of cards, with the card game ending Episode 6 on a cliffhanger and the outcome landing in Episode 7. Fozia Fazil lost and was murdered face to face rather than overnight, going out 14th of 25 with around eleven players still in the castle.

The finale came down to Jake Brown, Leanne Quigley, Francesca Rowan-Plowden and Alexander Dragonetti. In a tense sequence of votes, Alexander was banished first, followed by Francesca. That left Jake and Leanne, both Faithfuls, to split £94,600 between them.

Series 4 recap (2026)

Series 4 premiered on 1 January 2026 and finished on 23 January, the finale taking 9.4 million overnight and roughly 11.9 million consolidated, a record for the civilian version. The first three episodes all exceeded 11 million viewers on consolidated seven-day figures.

The series introduced the “Secret Traitor”, its largest format change so far. Claudia selected barrister Hugo (51), head of communications Rachel Duffy (42) and cybersecurity consultant Stephen Libby (32) as the known Traitors. A fourth, Fiona Hughes, was a hidden Traitor, unknown to the other Traitors and to viewers until Episode 4, when Stephen and Rachel completed a challenge to uncover her.

Among the 22 contestants were a retired police detective (Amanda), a crime writer and, in a first for the show, a mother-and-daughter pair (Judy and Roxy Wilson) alongside a couple who were already together: psychologist Ellie Buckley and Ross Garshong.

Hugo became an early target. Fiona, newly revealed as the Secret Traitor, helped things along by questioning his behaviour after the train. He was banished with 10 votes, which suggests courtroom skills do not always transfer.

The rivalry between Fiona and Rachel was the loudest thing in the series. Amanda’s exit set it off, and her banishment was a mess in its own right: the roundtable tied with Reece Ward, tied again 7-7 on the revote, and was finally settled by the Chest of Chance, a two-chest lottery in which Amanda drew the empty one. Afterwards Rachel told the group that Amanda had confided she was a retired police detective. Fiona, herself a Traitor, accused Rachel of lying and said she thought Rachel was a Traitor. The group split, both women campaigned openly to have the other banished, and it made for riveting television.

In the finale, Rachel Duffy and Stephen Libby became the first pair of Traitors to win the UK version, sharing a prize pot of £95,750. Rachel credited her years of playing the social deduction game Mafia for teaching her to lie convincingly while controlling her emotions. She said she planned to use the money to support her mother, who lives with Parkinson’s disease and dementia. Stephen said he would use his share on his parents, who had gone without to put him through university, and to help his father, a butcher, take his painting more seriously.

Their win made history: the first time two Traitors survived to the end together in the UK version, and only the second time Traitors have taken the prize (after Harry Clark’s solo victory in Series 2).

Viewing figures

A note on the numbers, because they are easy to misread. Overnight figures count who watched live; consolidated figures add catch-up over the following seven or 28 days and are always higher. The two are not comparable, so each is labelled below.

Series 1 (2022): Averaged 3.7 million across the run on consolidated seven-day figures, with the finale at 4.7 million. A decent start for a show nobody had heard of.

Series 2 (2024): Word of mouth did the work. The opener took 5.9 million consolidated and the finale 8.0 million, close to double the Series 1 peak.

Series 3 (2025): Launch episode 9.2 million consolidated. The finale came in just under 10 million on the same basis.

Series 4 (2026): The best figures the civilian show has had. The launch took 11.9 million consolidated and the first three episodes all cleared 11 million. The finale drew 9.4 million overnight, peaking at 9.6 million with a 54.9% share, meaning more than half of everyone watching anything at that moment was watching this. On consolidated figures the finale reached roughly 11.9 million, about two million up on the previous year.

Celebrity Series 1 (2025): The celebrity edition beat the civilian series outright. The BBC puts the run’s average at 14.9 million and the finale at 15.4 million.

Celebrity Series 2 (2026): The opener averaged 8.9 million overnight, with a 9.1 million peak.

For context, 5 million is now treated as a hit. These are numbers that would have stood up in the terrestrial era.

How The Traitors compares to other reality shows

British reality television has had plenty of cultural moments, from early Big Brother to the Love Island summers. The Traitors is doing something different, and it is worth working out what.

For a start, it does not rely on romance or physical attractiveness to generate drama. It runs on whether you can read the person sitting opposite you. That is a puzzle rather than a spectacle, and it gives the show a reach that Love Island and I’m a Celebrity do not have.

The show also pulls in a wide audience. Love Island skews heavily towards younger viewers; The Traitors pulls in families, older viewers and people who would never normally watch reality TV. Part of that is down to its BBC One primetime slot and the lack of anything that might make you uncomfortable watching with your parents. But it is also that the central question, who is lying, needs no explaining to anybody.

Then there is the format itself. Both editions run as short, concentrated bursts, a few weeks of episodes several nights apart, rather than the summer-long commitment of Love Island or Big Brother. That density is what makes it event television.

Compared to I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!, The Traitors offers a different kind of spectacle. I’m a Celeb thrives on the physical discomfort and fish-out-of-water comedy of the jungle. The Traitors thrives on suspicion, betrayal and the slow unravelling of alliances. Both are good television. The Traitors asks more of you and pays it back.

If The Traitors has a weakness, it is the risk of twist fatigue. Series 3 and 4 both introduced new mechanics, the Death Match and the Secret Traitor, and there is a danger each run now feels obliged to outdo the last. The original format is strong enough to sustain itself without constant reinvention.

That is a small complaint about the most successful British reality format of the decade. The BBC deal runs to 2030 and the figures are still going up.

Host

Claudia Winkleman hosts both the civilian and celebrity versions. Her BAFTA-winning style, all black outfits and the fringe, is now inseparable from the show. She delivers each revelation with a mix of glee and real sympathy, and never lets anyone forget that it is a game. Ed Gamble hosts the companion show, Uncloaked.

For tonight’s full line-up across every channel, see what’s on TV tonight.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who won The Celebrity Traitors 2026?
Sebastian Croft and Romesh Ranganathan won the second celebrity series on Friday 30 October 2026. Both were Faithfuls, so they shared the £83,000 pot, which goes to charities of their choice. The two Traitors left, Maya Jama and King Kenny, were both banished, and James Blunt went out in the last vote before the game ended.

When is The Celebrity Traitors on?
The Celebrity Traitors aired on BBC One every Thursday and Friday at 8pm from Thursday 1 October 2026, with each episode on BBC iPlayer at the same time. The series ended with the final, episode 10, on Friday 30 October. All ten episodes are on iPlayer.

What time was The Celebrity Traitors final on?
The final went out on Friday 30 October from 8pm to 9.20pm on BBC One, 15 minutes longer than a normal episode, with The Celebrity Traitors: Uncloaked at 9.20pm. There are no more episodes of this series.

How many episodes of The Celebrity Traitors are there in 2026?
Ten. The series ran for ten episodes, one more than the first celebrity series in 2025, which had nine.

When was the Celebrity Traitors final?
Friday 30 October 2026 at 8pm on BBC One. The final was episode 10 of 10 and ran for 80 minutes, until 9.20pm, with Uncloaked following at 9.20pm.

Who were the Traitors in The Celebrity Traitors 2026?
Five players held the role. Claudia Winkleman picked Maya Jama and Richard E. Grant in episode 1, and James Acaster was recruited in episode 2. Grant was banished in episode 3, after which Jama and Acaster recruited Hannah Fry. Fry was banished in episode 5, and that night the remaining pair recruited King Kenny. Acaster owned up at the Round Table in episode 9 and was banished. Jama and Kenny were both banished in the final, which left only Faithfuls in the game.

Who left The Celebrity Traitors 2026, and when?
Nineteen of the 21 players left before the end, and two Faithfuls won. Seven were murdered: Amol Rajan (episode 2), Bella Ramsey (episode 4), Rob Beckett (episode 5), Ross Kemp (episode 7), Miranda Hart (episode 8), Sharon Rooney (episode 9) and Michael Sheen (episode 10). Twelve were banished: Richard E. Grant, a Traitor, and Myha’la (episode 3), Julie Hesmondhalgh (episode 4), Hannah Fry, a Traitor (episode 5), Joe Lycett (episode 6), Jerry Hall (episode 7), Joanne McNally and James Acaster, a Traitor (episode 9), and Maya Jama, a Traitor, Leigh-Anne Pinnock, King Kenny, a Traitor, and James Blunt (episode 10).

Who is in The Celebrity Traitors 2026?
Twenty-one celebrities: Amol Rajan, Bella Ramsey, James Acaster, James Blunt, Jerry Hall, Joanne McNally, Joe Lycett, Julie Hesmondhalgh, King Kenny, Leigh-Anne Pinnock, Maya Jama, Michael Sheen, Miranda Hart, Myha’la, Hannah Fry, Richard E. Grant, Rob Beckett, Romesh Ranganathan, Ross Kemp, Sebastian Croft and Sharon Rooney.

What time is The Celebrity Traitors Uncloaked on?
Uncloaked, hosted by Ed Gamble, goes out on BBC One straight after each episode. It was at 9.15pm after the longer opener on 1 October, 9pm on 2 October and 9.05pm for episodes 3 to 9. After the final on 30 October it was at 9.20pm. It is also on BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds.

Where can I watch The Celebrity Traitors if I missed it?
All ten episodes are on BBC iPlayer, free with a TV Licence.

What did the winners of The Celebrity Traitors win?
The pot finished at £83,000, out of a possible £100,000. It goes to charities chosen by the winners rather than to the players themselves, and Sebastian Croft and Romesh Ranganathan shared it. Alan Carr won £87,500 for Neuroblastoma UK in the first celebrity series.