{"id":2101624,"date":"2025-10-19T11:02:19","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T11:02:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2101624"},"modified":"2025-10-19T11:02:19","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T11:02:19","slug":"the-traitors-and-celebrity-traitors-a-blaggers-guide-to-the-bbc-tv-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/the-traitors-and-celebrity-traitors-a-blaggers-guide-to-the-bbc-tv-show\/","title":{"rendered":"The Traitors and Celebrity Traitors: a blagger’s guide to the BBC TV show"},"content":{"rendered":"

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It is time for me to confess \u2014 I have betrayed The Traitors<\/a>. Or rather, I was never faithful to begin with. With 11.7m people watching, I feel like one of the few people in Great Britain who has never watched an episode in its entirety. But that means there\u2019s 57.5m of us who only have a hazy idea about what goes on inside that castle.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Even if you\u2019re not tuning in, it\u2019s now such a pop culture behemoth that you simply can\u2019t escape it. For several weeks of the year I am doomed to blag my way through conversations about the heroes and villains of the series. Every pub trip or long car journey bluffing my way through gossip and hearsay, afraid of being rumbled like a proverbial Traitor.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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With that in mind, here\u2019s my blagger\u2019s guide to The Traitors extended universe:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Contestants… they\u2019re just like us (normally)<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Celia Imrie parped the fart heard round the world<\/p>\n

BBC <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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My first mistake was presuming that everyone was some kind of famous personality from the jump. But no, in a normal season, the competitors are plucked from the general public. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Presumably the BBC does a lot of scouting and interviewing to get the perfect mix of people that are just unhinged enough to make great television but not going to fully lose their marbles after a few episodes. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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This has lead to the reality TV scourge of fame-hungry wannabe influencers lining up to get cast in the series, but it\u2019s also given us breakout stars such as [checks notes] a ginger man named Paul who was super mean to everyone<\/a>. I guess it\u2019s better than being a lower tier Love Islander doomed to the purgatory of club night appearances in student towns. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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It\u2019s basically Mafia\/Werewolves<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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It\u2019s a fun game of simulated murder!<\/p>\n

BBC\/Studio Lambert\/Euan Cherry<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Ever had board game-obsessed friends? Then you\u2019ve likely been inveigled into playing a version of this game.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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For the uninitiated: a group is assembled in a location and a minority are chosen as the villains (mafia members, bitey werewolves, and in this case the rather medieval-sounding \u2018traitors\u2019) who conspire to bump off villagers (here, the \u2018faithful\u2019) one by one. In between fake murders the innocent majority must attempt to deduce who among them is a wolf in sheep\u2019s clothing. It\u2019s like Wink Murder, with strategy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The Faithful must try to unmask the deceivers by voting on their most suspicious castle-mates, while the Traitors attempt to avoid detection. The winning faction wins some money, I\u2019m pretty sure. For the Faithful it\u2019s split among survivors, while the Traitors get to swipe the lot if they win.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Who are the Faithful faithful to? Unclear but I imagine its a cult worshipping Claudia Winkelman<\/a> and her anthropomorphic fringe. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Capes are mandatory not obligatory<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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\"Claudia<\/p>\n

Claudia Winkleman rocks a cape<\/p>\n

BBC\/Studio Lambert\/Euan Cherry<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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I may not know much, but I know that a billowing cape is essential to the functioning of The Traitors. The hand-picked three who betray their fellow contestants get to swan around in big green hooded cloaks while waving lanterns like an am-dram staging of Macbeth. Only for B-roll purposes, I guess, because otherwise the rest would get suspicious.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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But the cape master is, of course, Claudia Winkleman in a very different guise from her side hustle presenting Strictly Come Dancing. Boy, can she rock a capelet<\/a>. And those Givenchy leather fold-over boots, which may be \u00a31,795 a pop but have already sold out after she modelled them on screen. I\u2019m 80 per cent sure the castle is in, like, Scotland, so a woolly outer layer is very sensible as well as stylish.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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It\u2019s a chilling insight into human nature<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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These celebrities are about to turn on each other, mark my words (Cody Burridge\/BBC\/PA)<\/p>\n

PA Media<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Look, I have a Masters in psychology and neuroscience. I know how messed up groups of people can get when under duress. This is the main reason why I\u2019ve been too afraid to watch The Traitors thus far \u2014 it sounds like a horrifying social experiment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Because the Faithful have to reach a vague consensus on who they think are Traitors, the show is a microcosm of groupthink. Anyone obviously intelligent and willing to apply logic gets immediately cast out, bringing to mind the purges of intellectuals throughout history. Want to understand why anti-intellectualism is flourishing currently? The Traitors will demonstrate how a society under threat starts taking aim at the wrong people.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Humans are so fallible and prone to heuristics. We want to trust but have zero idea how to suss out who is trustworthy. Which turns The Traitors into a popularity contest \u2014 win the hearts and minds of your fellow contestants and you guarantee your safety, even if you\u2019re only out for some light back-stabbing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Sounds miserable, but again this is why Celebrity Traitors has piqued my interest. The famous folk have previously rubbed shoulders and thus have a firmer handle on everyone\u2019s character and status. Plus they understand how the content sausage gets made, so your drama is slightly more ethical. Still, they might go full Lord of the Flies on sweaty Alan Carr \u2014 only time will tell.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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There\u2019s something about random challenges to win, like, tokens or something? <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Sorry, I\u2019m totally clueless on this one but I think the producers just make up silly and mildly humiliatingly activities on the spot to give the contestants some enrichment in between the plotting\/denouncing segments. Sounds fun, though.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Just say, \u201cthat roundtable was something, wasn\u2019t it?\u201d Or, \u201cI can\u2019t believe who the Traitors murdered last episode!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The Celebrity Traitors is streaming now on BBC One<\/a> and iPlayer<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.standard.co.uk \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is time for me to confess \u2014 I have betrayed The Traitors. Or rather, I was never faithful to begin with. With 11.7m people watching, I feel like one of the few people in Great Britain who has never watched an episode in its entirety. But that means there\u2019s 57.5m of us who only […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2101625,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[328580,346303],"class_list":["post-2101624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-bbc-one","tag-traitors"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/The-Traitors-and-Celebrity-Traitors-a-blaggers-guide-to-the.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2101624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2101624"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2101624\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2101626,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2101624\/revisions\/2101626"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2101625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2101624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2101624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2101624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}