Celebrity Traitors final live: BBC respond to episode leaking online early in major spoiler for fans

Remember Tom Daley’s perfectly meme-able side eye from earlier in the season, directed at fellow contestant Kate Garraway?

When the breakfast TV host loudly declared that Paloma Faith’s murder was “flabbergasting”, Tom was less than impressed, and didn’t try to hide his bemusement.

But it seems like the pair have put that awkward moment behind them, as Tom, a prolific knitter who’s currently hosting Channel 4’s Game of Wool, is apparently making Kate a personalised woolly hat. Very sweet.

“He’s knitting me a ‘flabbergasted’ Flump hat,” Kate said on Good Morning Britain today. “You know my ridiculous Flump hat? That and flabbergasted is all I’m going to be known for now.”

The Flumps, FYI, were a bunch of hat-wearing creatures from a Seventies TV show (yes, I had to Google them).

I’m not entirely sure which of Kate’s pieces of headgear was particularly Flump-like, though, as she wore so many during her stint in the castle, my personal favourite being her “year abroad in Paris” black beret.

Read the full story below.

Who knew that he’d come this far? In the first episode of The Celebrity Traitors, Alan Carr seemed earmarked for early banishment from the castle after he was selected as one of the three Traitors alongside Jonathan Ross and Cat Burns.

While the chat show host and the musician seemed to embrace their new role with remarkable sangfroid, Carr melted under the pressure. “I have a sweating problem and I can’t keep a secret,” he admitted early on. Not exactly ideal traits for a Traitor, then. And when he claimed that he was “worse than Linda”, in reference to season three’s over the top opera singer, we were inclined to believe him.

But as the series has gone on, the comedian has grown in confidence – partly because, well, his fellow contestants haven’t really bothered to suspect him until now, despite some very messy gameplay.

His larger-than-life persona has ended up serving him well: whenever he has done something a little silly or unexpected, like quoting Shakespeare in order to murder Celia Imrie in plain sight, or even forgetting the fact that he’d won a shield, the others seem to have brushed it off as “just Alan being Alan”.

But is Carr now on borrowed time? Joe Marler, the remarkably perceptive Faithful behind the original “big dog” theory, seems to have his number. That slip-up with the shield is, it seems, still playing on Marler’s mind.

Will Marler and his fellow Faithful Nick Mohammed call Carr out? We’ll have to wait and see.

Read more about Carr’s unlikely journey to the final below.

Celebrity Traitors is already the most-watched TV show of the year, even before the finale.

The first four episodes averaged 12.6 million viewers, according to seven-day consolidated figures from Barb. The show’s audience has grown even further from there, which is a trend we also saw with previous civilian series.

Experts are predicting that 14 or even 15 million people could watch tonight’s episode.

To put that into perspective, it’s highly rare for a non-live news or sports programme to achieve a seven-day audience of 12 million or more. It happened just twice in 2024 and both times were thanks to Christmas Day programming. The final episode of Gavin & Stacey pulled in 19.3m viewers while 17.1m of us tuned in to the feature-length Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl.

The BBC is yet to officially confirm a second celebrity series of The Traitors but with viewing figures like these, surely one will be on the way…

In a show dominated by big personalities, singer-songwriter Cat Burns has expertly flown under the radar with just a few celebrities ever suspecting her.

Burns’ success as a Traitor has largely been thanks to how carefully she’s walked a very tricky tightrope. Where other celebrity contestants are loud, she is quiet – but never too quiet. Where the others forward ever-more preposterous theories, she holds back – right up until the moment it would look suspicious not to speak up, at which point she drops a succinct yet considered opinion in her soothing, resonant voice.

Sir Stephen Fry was one of the first to seriously point the finger at the 25-year-old as he noted that she often fell asleep during car journeys to and from challenges, suggesting late nights of “murdering”. But Burns wriggled out of the (accurate) accusation by saying her ADHD and autism make being around people constantly especially exhausting.

The problem she faces tonight is that two of the remaining Faithfuls have kept secrets of their own: they’ve figured Burns out.

Read more about her journey to the grand final below…

The Celebrity Traitors producers secured several A-list names for the current series – but it seems they might be able to go one better and book a Royal next year.

During an interview on today’s This Morning, Mike Tindall – who is married to Queen Elizabeth II’s granddaughter Zara Tindall – said he would “definitely enjoy” taking part.

See what else he had to say in the video below…

The castle must have been feeling pretty empty by the final day. Over the course of the series, a whopping 14 left the show before the final, with half being ‘murdered’ by the Traitors while the others were banished.

The only Traitor to be caught is Jonathan Ross – which means these Faithfuls are statistically the worst ever. Ouch.

Here’s a full recap of the Faithfuls who were murdered, the first and last of whom were both killed off by Alan Carr in plain sight…

• Paloma Faith – episode two

• Tom Daley – episode three

• Ruth Codd – episode four

• Charlotte Church – episode five

• Joe Wilkinson – episode six

• Lucy Beaumont – episode seven

• Celia Imrie – episode eight.

And here are all of the banishments:

• Niko Omilana – episode three

• Tameka Empson – episode three

• Clare Balding – episode four

• Mark Bonnar – episode six

• Sir Stephen Fry – episode six

• Jonathan Ross – episode seven

• Kate Garraway – episode eight.

If you’re not quite ready to say goodbye to all things The Traitors, our Global Travel Editor Annabel Grossman has found the perfect getaway spot to check into.

Mar Hall is just 15 minutes from Glasgow airport and the five-star retreat blends the modern with the traditional, she writes. There are plenty of activities on offer too – and I’m sure you can think of some twists to make them feel like the show’s challenges. Maybe pack a couple of shields?

Read the full review below…

While Joe Marler was already a familiar face to rugby fans, plenty of viewers (myself included) had no idea who he was when he entered the castle.

The ex-England player wasted no time in cementing himself as a powerful player though, excelling in the challenges and putting forward plenty of ideas at the roundtables. Throughout the game, Marler has shown a cool but focused determination to uncover the Traitors.

It was Joe who came up with the ‘big dog’ theory that (eventually) led to Jonathan Ross’s downfall and in last Thursday’s episode, he figured out that Alan Carr and Cat Burns are the two remaining Traitors – which led to viewers labelling him a “genius”. In hindsight, it would have been smart for the Traitors to ‘murder’ him long before the final.

In tonight’s episode, he’ll need to get Nick Mohammed and David Olusoga fully onboard with his latest (correct) theory. And thankfully for Marler, the former seems to be sold on it already.

Read more about Joe Marler’s journey to the final here…

While the famous faces who signed up to the show are trying to win money for their chosen charities, they have each reportedly received a fee for taking part.

The celebrities are said to have each been paid a flat fee of £40,000.

On The Rest Is Entertainment podcast in July, host Marina Hyde said: “It’s certainly interesting to compare something like Celebrity Traitors on the BBC to I’m a Celebrity on ITV.”

Addressing the line-up rumours circulating at the time – many of which turned out to be true – she added: “Look at the calibre of the people they got. They were able to pay everybody a blanket 40k fee, right? They’re paying them a 40k fee.”

The BBC declined to comment when approached by The Independent.

Last week’s penultimate episode saw Kate Garraway banished at the round table. Claudia Winkleman then gathered the five remaining contestants and revealed they were the finalists.

As they celebrated, the host gave the contestants a simple task: look each other in the eye and declare, “I am a Faithful”.

Unfortunately, Carr got the giggles and burst out laughing as he tried to say those all-important three words.

It’s a moment that will surely be discussed in tonight’s installment, so watch it again below…