The BBC has responded to complaints about the charities chosen by the winners of the Celebrity Traitors final, which aired at the end of last month. Comedian Romesh Ranganathan, 48, and actor Sebastian 'Bash' Croft, 24, were crowned winners on October 30, securing victory for the Faithfuls after banishing Traitors Maya Jama and King Kenny.
Finale details
Hosted by Claudia Winkleman, the tense finale saw social media star Kenny turn on Love Island host Maya in the final roundtable, leading to her banishment. In the endgame, Romesh wrongly accused singer James Blunt of being a Traitor. With a deadlock vote between banishing Kenny or James, Romesh and Bash were given the chance to confer, and Romesh changed his vote, trusting Bash's theory that Kenny was a Traitor and James was a Faithful.
However, Romesh's accusation of James ended up backfiring on the You're Beautiful hitmaker, as he decided to banish again, leading to Romesh and Bash voting him out and winning the game. They banked £83,000 to be split between their chosen charities - Choose Love and Refugee Council.
Audience and complaints
The day after the final aired, the BBC confirmed that the episode recorded a peak audience of 11.6 million on BBC One, boasting a 62.9 per cent audience share. Becoming the most-watched episode of the celebrity spin-off to date, it pulled in more viewers than Alan's victory last year, which was watched by 11.1 million viewers overnight. However, last year's finale did hit a peak of 15.4 million viewers, the biggest TV audience of 2025.
In a summary of the complaints, the BBC said: "We received complaints about the charities chosen by the winners of The Celebrity Traitors." The response then read: "We recognise that some audience members were unhappy with the charities chosen by the winning celebrities. This feedback has been shared with the relevant parties."
Romesh's response
Romesh also responded to criticism for donating his £41,500 prize money to the Refugee Council. Appearing on the Sunday Scaries podcast with Bash, the BBC Radio 2 star said: "I know that you volunteered for Choose Love when you were younger. And I had got involved with Refugee Council because I got so fed up of the rhetoric against refugees and how these people are being demonised. I feel like... Look, people have different opinions, but I feel like (refugees are) a distraction tactic, and people are being pointed in that direction for something to blame, is my personal opinion."
Despite admitting there was "anger" in response over the charity choices, which he says was "amplified", Romesh said: "Loads of people have come out in support. And actually, the people kicking off about it has kind of galvanised the people who think it's a lovely thing."
Bash also revealed how he and Romesh only realised that they were both donating their prize money to refugee charities at the end of the show. He said: "It was so funny when we got to the end, and we both realised, because no one really discussed (charities). It wasn't like we assumed we were gonna win. And so it felt like such a nice moment at the time, but then to see the response, what it made me realise is that's people's response to a game show donating money to people who are really vulnerable. Imagine how difficult it is for those people navigating that system."
