James Acaster has suggested that the check-ins producers on Celebrity Traitors made about contestants' fears did not go far enough, as he spoke about being buried alive on the show. The comedian, 41, appeared on the second season of Celebrity Traitors and became a popular figure after being reluctantly recruited as a Traitor. By the end of the show, he had emotionally confessed at a roundtable, a moment that, along with rumours of contestant breakdowns behind the scenes, prompted questions about what really happened on the show.
Producers' questions 'not adequate'
Speaking on Jessie and Lennie Ware's podcast, Table Manners, James implied that the production team could have done more to ensure contestants were not put in terrifying positions. He revealed that the producers had asked whether he was claustrophobic before burying him alive, but suggested that this question was not an adequate check-in.
“They asked all of us a billion questions before you go on, obviously,” he told the hosts. “And one of the questions was, ‘Are you claustrophobic? And everyone went, ‘No, not really.’ Now I would argue that's a different question from ‘Are you okay with us burying you alive?'”
He continued: “'Are you claustrophobic? No, okay, so we'll do the most extreme version of claustrophobia.'” James also said there was a pipe of air, but seemed to suggest that he was not aware of this at the time. “Apparently there was [a pipe for air]. Joe Lycett knew, and it calmed him down.”
Buried alive with Bella Ramsey
During the show, James and his fellow contestants were buried alive in pairs. If they could not handle it, they could call to be let out, but then both celebrities in that grave would be up for murder. Although James knew he would not be up for murder because he was a Traitor, his partner Bella Ramsey was not automatically safe, and he wanted to stick it out for them.
James explained that the production team had told him he would only spend 15 minutes under the ground, but that it ended up taking longer. “They said 15 minutes. It was a lot longer because, obviously, first of all, they get us all under there. They put the soil on, and then Jerry goes, ‘I want to get out.’ So now they're getting Jerry out while we're all in there still. Then they had to set up a drone shot.”
“If they'd said, ‘You're all being buried alive on your own,’ I'd be like, ‘Great, not me,’ and I wouldn't have done it. But instead you're like, ‘Oh, if you don't do it, Bella Ramsey's going to be up for murder.' You go, ‘I better do it,’ and then you're in the grave going, ‘What am I doing?’”
Confession and reaction
Though James did not evict himself from that challenge, he did eventually confess to being a Traitor, effectively banishing himself. He did it at the roundtable after his name was brought up as a possible suspect. He was not the first on the show to confess, as Richard E. Grant had said he was a Traitor in the first few episodes. James revealed how producers had taken measures to make instances like this less likely.
“You're allowed two drinks maximum in the evening, but really, it's one. If someone gets a bit loose-lipped and drunk, they might just go, ‘Whatever, I'm a Traitor,’ and tell everyone. So they want you all sober.”
Since James left the show, his controversial exit has garnered much attention, but James says he has not seen any of it. “Because I'm not on social media, and I genuinely don't look at it. And it was a show as big as Traitors, I'm too scared to Google myself or look at the press. So I genuinely haven't seen any of it.”
He added: “After it happened, you go, ‘Well, that's never happened on the show before. So there's going to be every opinion under the sun about that.' Part of me was just like, stand by it, I don't care, because you obviously get to that point as well, where you know that the public will have every opinion about it, and you can't worry about the people who don't like whatever it is that you've done.”
Previous controversy
James has experience of sparking controversy on television, having once received 250 complaints written to the BBC following an episode of Saturday Kitchen. He shared that in the episode, he wanted a particular dessert and did not get it, and that the production team had told him to "go big" when he found out. "So I trashed the studio. It was Christmas time. They had a fake polar bear there, so I punched it in the face."
He shared that receiving that many complaints before meant he knew that some people watching Traitors would "take the game very seriously" and "complain" about him dobbing himself in. Not all of the attention has been bad, however, as James has become something of a heartthrob. But, much to the dismay of single women watching the show, James is taken. He has been open about having a girlfriend, and is thought to have been dating producer Hannah Rose for four years. On Table Manners, he joked that "fighting off all these women" that fancy him is "all [Hannah] does". The Mirror went to the BBC for comment.
