Grant Reveals He's a Traitor on Celebrity Traitors — SkimNews
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- The Celebrity Traitors launched its new series with 21 contestants competing for up to £100,000 for charity at Ardross Castle under host Claudia Winkleman.
- Richard E Grant was chosen as a traitor and, when asked by Joe Lycett, cheerfully declared "I am a traitor!" — a moment the review labels unprecedented in the show's history and that left most of the cast unsure whether to believe him.
- Maya Jama was named Grant's traitor partner, and the two were tasked with selecting a third traitor from Amol Rajan and James Acaster, who waited in coffins as the credits rolled on a cliffhanger.
- The review judges the new cast as "slightly more muted" than the previous series, with energy "not quite there yet," though it notes opening episodes are always the weakest and alliances take time to form.
- Ross Kemp was singled out for spiraling paranoia about being murdered, with the reviewer telling him to "get a grip" — a complaint that the review's own headline amplifies as the episode's defining flaw.
- The episode seeded several relationship threads — Jerry Hall's bossiness, James Blunt's potential reinvention as a "national hero," and the Romesh Ranganathan–Rob Beckett real-life friendship — as the format's engine for future episodes.
Why it matters: BBC coverage leads on the chaos and Claudia's costumes, but this review flags that the new Celebrity Traitors cast feels less energetic than series one, and argues the standout early moment — Grant's instant traitor reveal — actually breaks the show's own rules. If the most talked-about scene in the premiere is a contestant undermining the format, the review suggests the "law of diminishing returns" is already biting the franchise.
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