It’s not every week that a reality TV show manages to spark a national conversation about trust, deception, and the blurry line between performance and reality. But that’s exactly what’s happening with the latest season of The Celebrity Traitors, which has captured the imagination of viewers across the UK since it began airing the week of October 6, 2025, according to BBC News. The show, which brings together a cast of high-profile celebrities, has become a microcosm of human psychology—where betrayal, suspicion, and the art of lying are all part of the game.
The format is simple, but the stakes are high: a group of celebrities must work together to complete challenges, all while trying to unmask the hidden "traitors" among them. Each week, someone is metaphorically "murdered"—eliminated from the game—while suspicion and paranoia swirl around the remaining contestants. This season, comedian Alan Carr, TV presenter Jonathan Ross, and singer Cat Burns were selected as the traitors by host Claudia Winkleman, as reported by Grazia UK. Their job? To deceive their fellow A-listers while avoiding detection themselves.
From the very first episode, the tension was palpable. Alan Carr, known for his quick wit and infectious laughter, was thrust into the role of traitor and wasted no time making his mark. In a twist that left viewers reeling, Carr "murdered" singer Paloma Faith—one of his close friends—right out of the gate. According to Entertainment Weekly, Carr later confessed, "It was a stretch for my acting ability, I don't know how Meryl Streep does it." Paloma Faith, for her part, admitted on Traitors Uncloaked that she was disappointed to leave so soon, especially since she had plenty of outfits planned for the show.
But it wasn’t just Carr’s actions that got people talking. TV presenter Kate Garraway, age 58, quickly became a focal point for suspicion. Her dramatic reactions to the unfolding drama—at one point declaring herself "flabbergasted" by the first murder—made her the target of both fellow contestants and viewers online. Olympic diver Tom Daley, age 31, didn’t bother to hide his skepticism, giving Garraway a pointed side-eye and asking, "Who uses that word?" When comedian Alan Carr retorted, "You can't just call someone a Traitor because they have a better vocabulary than you," it became clear that the line between genuine emotion and performance was already blurring.
Garraway, for her part, insisted that her theatrics were simply part of her personality. "I'm a massive ham," she explained during a tense roundtable discussion. Despite the accusations, it was ultimately revealed that Garraway was a faithful—not a traitor. Yet the suspicion lingered, a testament to just how difficult it is to separate truth from fiction in a game built on deception.
It’s precisely this dynamic that makes The Celebrity Traitors so addictive, according to experts. Professor Richard Wiseman, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire, told BBC News that the show taps into something fundamental about human nature. "Deception is in our DNA," he explained. "As soon as children master language, they start lying. If we were radically honest with one another all the time, then we'd probably break apart as a society fairly rapidly. So on one level, deception holds us together."
Wiseman also pointed out that detecting lies is harder than it seems—especially among celebrities, who are used to performing for an audience. "What we're quite good at is, when it's friends and partners, we know their truthful behaviour. And you're looking for people departing from that," he said. In the case of Garraway, her over-the-top reactions might seem suspicious to those who don’t know her well, but as Wiseman noted, "You have to know her to know how she behaves normally to know whether this is deceptive or not."
That challenge is amplified in the celebrity edition, where contestants’ public personas add another layer of complexity. Psychologist Susan Young told BBC News that viewers "project pre-existing beliefs" onto the stars, making it nearly impossible to discern where the performance ends and the real person begins. "Everyone must lie," she said, "because to be honest is dangerous; and yet lying corrodes the team, which is much-needed to complete tasks." The show, she argued, exposes "the illusion of co-operation" that exists in many aspects of life—from workplaces to friendships to politics.
It’s not just the contestants’ behavior that has captivated audiences. Fans have taken to social media to dissect every detail, from the contestants’ fashion choices to their spelling mistakes. When YouTuber Niko Omilana misspelled Tom Daley’s name as “DAYLEE” during a vote, viewers were quick to turn the gaffe into a running joke. "Niko keeping the longstanding Traitors tradition of terrible name spelling at the round table alive and well," one user wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. Even the celebrities’ wardrobes have become a talking point, with Jonathan Ross’s fur-trimmed jacket and sunglasses in the rain sparking both admiration and ridicule online.
The show’s structure, with episodes airing on BBC One every Wednesday and Thursday at 9:00 PM BST and available on BBC iPlayer, has only added to the suspense. Each episode ends on a dramatic cliffhanger, leaving viewers eagerly awaiting the next installment. After the latest episode aired on Thursday, October 9, fans were left to stew for five whole days until the next episode on Wednesday, October 15—a wait that many described online as "agonizing." With only nine episodes in this celebrity spin-off (compared to the usual 12 in the regular series), every moment feels more precious—and more fraught with tension.
As the season barrels toward its spooky Halloween finale on Friday, October 31, speculation is mounting about which celebrity will manage to outwit their rivals and claim victory. TV editor Caroline Frost of Radio Times believes the decision to cast Alan Carr as a traitor was "incredibly ingenious," noting that his bubbly, extroverted reputation has been "weaponised" to help him get away with murder—at least in the context of the game. As Jonathan Ross reassured Carr after his first "kill": "You're not a bad person. You're a good traitor."
Ultimately, The Celebrity Traitors offers more than just entertainment. It’s a fascinating social experiment, holding up a mirror to our own instincts about trust, loyalty, and the subtle art of deception. As the lines between performance and reality continue to blur, both on screen and off, viewers are left to wonder: in a world where everyone is playing a part, how can you ever really know who to trust?
