The Celebrity Traitors has been won by Alan Carr, with the Traitors racking up their first victory in the debut spin-off series.
A tense endgame saw Carr in the final three, with actor Nick Mohammed and historian David Olusoga, after Cat Burns and Joe Marler were both banished from the game. After they all agreed to end the game, Carr’s presence in the final meant he received the entire £87,500 prize money for his chosen charity – Neuroblastoma UK, who tackle childhood cancer.
Carr admitted it had been “tearing him apart” and broke down in tears in victory. He was congratulated by Mohammed and Olusoga, who told him he’d done “brilliantly” and to think about the money he had won for his charity.
Reuniting with the finalists after the result was revealed, Carr joked “I’m an awful human being”, before toasting himself as the “most-hated man in Britain”.
How the final played out
Joe Marler, Nick Mohammed, David Olusoga, Cat Burns, and Alan Carr in The Celebrity Traitors finale. (BBC/Studio Lambert/Euan Cherry)
After an explosive last mission on board a train that saw the five finalists banking £20,000 for the prize pot, the plotting began as the first roundtable loomed. David Olusoga found himself caught in the middle of alliances between faithfuls Joe Marler and Nick Mohammed and traitors Alan Carr and Cat Burns.
Marler convinced the traitors that he would vote with them against Olusoga, but “went rogue” and voted for Burns, alongside Mohammed and Olusoga, when the time came, which resulted in the singer being eliminated first from the final. This left Alan Carr as the last traitor standing.
The four final players then entered the endgame and immediately decided to banish again. In an epic twist, traitor hunter Joe Marler was voted out by the other three. “I’ve read this so wrong,” the rugby player said.
How Alan Carr evaded detection
Alan Carr claimed victory in The Celebrity Traitors. (BBC/Studio Lambert/Paul Chappells)
Comedian Alan Carr was selected to be a traitor on the very first day of The Celebrity Traitors, pairing him with Jonathan Ross and Cat Burns. While Ross bore the most heat from the faithful, Carr managed to fly under the radar thanks to his endless charm and wit, effortlessly deflecting any suspicions with jokes.
He looked set to be a bad traitor in the opening episode, sweating and panicking, but once he murdered his close friend Paloma Faith he quickly found his groove, admitting that he had started to enjoy the murders.
As the game progressed, he continued to evade suspicion, but Celia Imrie had her doubts, asking him point-blank whether he was a traitor, which he boldly denied. Ultimately, it was Carr’s likeability that made him the perfect traitor.
A BBC hit
The first Celebrity Traitors has been a ratings hit for BBC One, as the show built on the runaway success of the main series, which is gearing up for its fourth run in the new year.
Winkleman picked Burns, Carr and Jonathan Ross as the group’s Traitors, leaving comedian Carr sweating with the stress and collapsing in giggles every time a player questioned him. Ross was banished by the group at an earlier round table when Marler and his ally Joe Wilkinson landed on the “Big Dog Theory” – that Ross and Stephen Fry were each leading either the Faithfuls or the Traitors.
The finalists tried to convince each other of their Faithful status. (BBC)
Carr featured in one of the series’ most memorable scenes at the beginning of the series when he was asked to murder a Faithful in plain sight, and chose to kill off his close friend Paloma Faith by stroking her face. The group believed he couldn’t have done it because of their friendship, while Faith admitted to being annoyed at the betrayal.
Burns managed to stay below the Faithfuls’ radar for much of the series, with only Marler and Mohammed becoming convinced that she was a Traitor leading into the final. She previously shrugged off questions about her quietness by saying it was an effect of her neurodiversity.
Olusoga, despite having been a Faithful from the start, had fallen under suspicion a number of times and narrowly avoided being banished, including at one tied roundtable where Mark Bonnar was sent home after the final decision came down to a game of chance. He became a floating voter, with both the Faithfuls and Traitors trying to win him over.
Claudia Winkleman hosted the final at Ardross Castle in Scotland. (BBC)
Marler and Mohammed joined forces in the latter part of the game, with the rugby player labelling Ted Lasso star Mohammed his “Hundy” – his only 100% certain Faithful. They had previously teamed up to throw the result of the chess game in a bid to catch the Traitors out, and had worked out who they were going into the final, thanks to Marler’s Traitor-hunting skills and Mohammed’s puzzle expertise.
The Celebrity Traitors killed off any suggestion that a famous player spin-off could ruin the format, keeping viewers hooked with backstabbing, masks slipping and plenty of hilarity.
Undoubtedly, the most replayed moment of the series was Celia Imrie farting on camera and then laughingly owning up to it during a creepy mission in a forest cabin. As Claudia Winkleman asked: “What just happened?” after someone audibly broke wind, Imrie admitted: “Claudia, I just farted. It’s nerves.”
The Celebrity Traitors featured 19 famous players. (BBC)
Kate Garraway was a hugely entertaining player, managing to wrongly convince the group she was a Traitor because of her hammy reactions and inability to nail down an opinion on anything. One classic scene involved Tom Daley giving Garraway the most dramatic side-eye ever seen on TV as he refused to believe she had genuinely used the word “flabbergasted”.
Marler, despite being one of the least well-known players, has become the breakout star of the series for his willingness to wade into Traitor hunting, and fans have loved his friendships with Wilkinson and Mohammed.
The Celebrity Traitors is available to stream on BBC iPlayer.