{"id":433774,"date":"2026-01-24T05:24:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T05:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/433774\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T05:24:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T05:24:10","slug":"the-traitors-2026-who-won-series-after-tense-final-episode","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/433774\/","title":{"rendered":"The Traitors 2026: Who won series after tense final episode"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The Traitors<\/a> has concluded with a nail-biting finale befitting what has been a wild series, boasting many twists and turns<\/a> \u2013\u00a0and just a few meltdowns.<\/p>\n

After a tumultuous journey of treachery, Traitors Stephen and Rachel reigned supreme, batting off suspicion in the eleventh hour to win the \u00a397,750 cash prize. Their victory follows a late-stage banishments of Faithuls Jade, Jack and Faraaz.<\/p>\n

The finale began with James being banished, having drawn the empty box in a luck-of-the-draw face-off with Rachel.<\/p>\n

Following a final challenge, the contestants then voted out Jade at the roundtable. At the next roundtable, Faraaz was banished, before a final banishment eliminated Jack from the game. <\/p>\n

Rachel and Stephen were praised by Claudia Winkleman for remaining \u201cfaithful\u201d to their pact, despite being Traitors.<\/p>\n

\"Stephen<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

Stephen and Rachel on ‘Traitors’ (BBC)<\/p>\n

The finale capped off what has been yet another hugely entertaining series from the reality series juggernaut. <\/p>\n

While many had claimed the civilian series \u2013 its fourth \u2013 arrived too soon after the celebrity version last autumn, doubts were instantly dispelled as this year\u2019s crop of contestants<\/a> became regular fixtures in our living rooms.<\/p>\n

Helping dust off the format was an early twist: the presence of a secret Traitor, whose identity was kept from known Traitors Rachel, Stephen and Hugo, as well as viewers, for the first time. <\/p>\n

Producers clearly hoped to eke out this twist for as long as possible. However, fate intervened after Faithful Harriet put her former barrister skills to use and successfully pinpointed Hugo just three episodes in. The seemingly innocent but actually very wily Fiona was then revealed to be the Traitors\u2019 overlord, and the power went to her head. <\/p>\n

If fears of a clash between Fiona and Rachel were hinted at in the turret, they came to fruition sooner than anyone could have expected, after Rachel divulged a detail confided in her by banished Faithful Amanda, a former Met Police detective who read the clues all wrong.<\/p>\n

\"Fiona<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

Fiona v Rachel was one of the highlights of this year\u2019s \u2018Traitors\u2019 (BBC)<\/p>\n

Having held back her detective past, Amanda made it known to Rachel (a Traitor, hilariously) ahead of her banishment \u2013 but Fiona suspected Rachel was lying about this detail to the group and decided to accuse her fellow Traitor of being a Traitor in front of everybody. It was a barmy showdown unlike any seen on the series before and ultimately led to Fiona\u2019s banishment. <\/p>\n

The implosions didn\u2019t stop there. After another twist, which saw three contestants win the chance to ask the Traitors two questions each, former Faithful supremo Harriet had a mind-boggling fall from grace<\/a>. Despite correctly identifying Rachel as a Traitor, she presented her evidence in a rather angry manner at the breakfast table the following morning. This annoyed everyone so much that they ended up suspecting her of being a Traitor. <\/p>\n

In yet another bizarre turn of events, she implored everybody to vote her off in a self-sacrificial bid to prove her innocence. It was all for nothing, though, as the very next day, everybody appeared to forget that Harriet suspected Rachel, who sailed through to the end of the series.<\/p>\n

\"Harriet<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

Harriet was a brilliant Faithful \u2013 but her gameplan imploded (BBC)<\/p>\n

With just episodes to go before the end, suspicions were focused on Faithfuls Matthew and Jade. Enter stage left: Faraaz. The smily Newcastle lad revealed he was this year\u2019s Agatha Christie after throwing his suspicions on Rachel. His evidence? Fionagate! It turns out he had been storing up his evidence to deploy at the right time.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s series also featured another first \u2013 the inclusion of a dagger twist that enabled one contestant to get two votes at the roundtable. The Traitors gave the dagger to James, who used it to banish Faithful Matthew. There were also two deadlock votes \u2013\u00a0one between Amanda and Reece, and another between Rachel and James.<\/p>\n

After that second deadlock vote, it was left up to chance and James ended up getting banished, leaving Rachel, Jade, Stephen, Faraaz, and Jack as the final five in the game.<\/p>\n

With Rachel and Stephen staying true to their pact, host Claudia Winkleman described the winning duo as \u201ctwo Traitors, but totally faithful to each other\u201d. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":433775,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,134,427],"class_list":{"0":"post-433774","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/433775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}