Claudia Winkleman has admitted she almost gave away an entire game of The Traitors during an intense round table scene. The BBC presenter revealed the near-miss while speaking to Elizabeth Day on her podcast, How To Fail with Elizabeth Day, recounting the moment a producer was forced to intervene.
Producer's warning during tense round table
Winkleman explained that during the round table she wears an earpiece that is normally closed, so she cannot hear the gallery unless they need to tell her something. However, when two traitors turned on another traitor, her boss Sarah spoke directly into her ear.
Claudia said: "My favourite moment. I've got an earpiece in there [the roundtable] but it's closed. I don't hear the gallery, but it's just in case they need to say [something]."
She continued: "But Sarah, who's my boss, she never really talks to me, and in the round table, I just sort of have to disappear into the wall and I let it all happen. And when two traitors turned on another traitor, there's this little voice, Sarah, in my ear, and she just said, 'watch your breathing' and I was like, this is not nothing."
Viewer backlash over recruitment strategy
The Celebrity Traitors returned earlier this month with stars including Richard E Grant, Maya Jama and Joe Lycett. The season opener attracted 8.9 million overnight viewers, a leap of almost 3 million from the Series 1 debut, which launched to approximately 6.1 million.
While some television critics have labelled series three as "unmissable telly", a significant number of viewers disagree on social media. Frequent complaints centre on the relentless recruitment of Traitors, which some say is rendering the programme 'pointless'.
One viewer moaned on X: "If you keep recruiting a Traitor when they get rid of one, it's not allowing the Faithfuls to ever win right?!" Another added: "We're only five episodes in and we've already had three recruitments, this is getting boring now." A third said: "It's not as good when they have to keep recruiting Traitors."
Kenny's recruitment and Lycett's banishment
Thursday's October 15 episode saw social media creator King Kenny enlisted as a Traitor after Professor Hannah Fry's banishment. He became the third star recruited this series, following Hannah and comedian James Acaster, who has been reluctant in the role.
Friday, October 16, the episode opened with the remaining celebrities exhaling with relief around the breakfast table upon discovering nobody had been murdered during the night. Yet they quickly understood a recruitment had taken place.
Comedian Joe Lycett instantly came under fierce scrutiny throughout the day. Having publicly pleaded and openly expressed his desperation to be recruited as a Traitor, his strategy spectacularly misfired. Despite mounting a robust defence and attempting to redirect suspicion towards James Blunt, Lycett faced overwhelming opposition at the Round Table and was banished by a crushing 11–3 vote. To the group's astonishment and disappointment, he stood at the centre and disclosed he was a Faithful.
After the banishment, the Traitors received a covert mission to carry out a "murder in plain sight" before nightfall. They needed to spray a particular room, entice a Faithful inside, and literally "bore them to death" by forcing them to yawn.
