Romesh Ranganathan has criticised his Celebrity Traitors co-stars for their "insulting lack of concern" after he sacrificed himself in challenges, and revealed his "utter humiliation" at the Faithfuls' blunder in the latest episodes.
Speaking on his Radio 2 show on Saturday morning, the 48-year-old comedian said he had made it through to the final week as a Faithful but faced embarrassment after Friday night's episode aired.
Faithfuls' Error Leads to Humiliation
BBC viewers saw the Faithfuls nominate the three Traitors – James Acaster, 41, Maya Jama, 32, and King Kenny, 29 – as the most trustworthy players in the scarecrow task. This prompted host Claudia Winkleman to offer Kenny a "power" giving him a second vote to banish a fellow player at the round table.
Romesh explained to listeners: "I'll tell you a couple of things. The first thing that I imagine, if you've been watching, that's paramount in your mind is the complete and utter humiliation of being asked in the scarecrow task to pick our most Faithful people to potentially get the special power, and we chose the Traitors."
He added: "I'm going to tell you now, not ideal. I had to stay off socials, just loads of people doing TikToks going, 'oh my God how thick are they? This has got to be the worst set of Faithfuls I've ever seen in my life!' More difficult than it looks! Anyway, that was humiliating, it was really humiliating."
Behind-the-Scenes Revelations
The comedian admitted that watching the show is a strange experience, as he is now aware of conversations between players that he had no idea about during filming. He said he had no awareness of what the Traitors were up to, including in the shield challenge where Maya and Kenny felt let down by James, who refused to help them when the Traitors secretly stole puzzle pieces from blindfolded Faithfuls.
Romesh said: "It's only when I watched it that I realised what had actually gone on, and that there was basically a falling out!"
Defending himself, he said he was "distracted" on the day due to "some quite bad hay fever", with his sniffling proving to actress Sharon Rooney that he hadn't moved from her side during the sabotage mission.
'Insulting Lack of Concern'
Romesh also took issue with his fellow contestants' reactions to his sacrifices. He said: "What I would say, if you watch back the episodes, there are two consecutive missions in which I am eliminated early because I sacrifice myself. The lack of concern from the other contestants is what I would describe as insulting!"
When traffic reporter Sally Boazman suggested "that's every man for himself isn't it?", Romesh replied: "No, but if it had been someone else it would have been, 'oh my God we can't lose you!' But it was me, they barely noticed, 'where's the shield?!'"
The Celebrity Traitors continues on Thursday 29th October from 8pm on BBC One and iPlayer.
