Celebrity Traitors Season 2: Richard E. Grant’s Instant Confession and Why We Love Watching Stars Lie

Iago needs five acts of Othello before his scheme falls apart. Richard E. Grant needed one question. In the season premiere of The Celebrity Traitors on BBC One, comedian Joe Lycett casually asked the actor whether he was a Traitor or a Faithful. Grant’s reply, according to PinkNews: “A Traitor.” Not a wink, not a pause, not a cleverly constructed half-truth. Just the answer, delivered like someone confirming his dinner order.

You could call it the worst move in the history of the format. You could also call it the best television of the week. Judging by the reaction online, most viewers chose the second option.

What actually happened in episode one

The second series of The Celebrity Traitors launched on Thursday, 1 October, with Claudia Winkleman climbing out of a coffin, because subtlety has never been this show’s business plan. Twenty-one well-known faces are playing for up to £100,000 for charities of their choice at Ardross Castle in the Scottish Highlands. The line-up is absurdly stacked: Bella Ramsey, Michael Sheen, Jerry Hall, James Blunt, Miranda Hart, Hannah Fry, Leigh-Anne Pinnock, Romesh Ranganathan and Ross Kemp are among them. The Guardian, quoted on the series’ Wikipedia page, described it as one of the most high-profile casts ever assembled for a reality show.

Winkleman picked Grant and presenter Maya Jama as the first two Traitors. Then came the moment. When Lycett asked, Grant told him the truth. When pressed, he repeated it. Lycett’s response, reported by NME, was the understatement of the autumn: “I think you’ve done something that’s never been done in the game.” Grant later conceded that this “may be the biggest mistake I have ever made in my life.”

The episode ended on a cliffhanger worthy of a Hammer horror film. Grant and Jama summoned Amol Rajan and James Acaster to compete for a third Traitor spot, with the loser to be “murdered”. Both were last seen lying in coffins. As of this writing, the Scotsman’s running guide still lists their fate as open.

The double bluff that might not be a bluff

Here is the delicious twist. Because Grant said it so openly, several players apparently could not decide whether he was confessing or running an elaborate double bluff. NME described exactly that confusion in the castle. And this is where we leave the facts and enter interpretation: in a game built on suspicion, a confession nobody believes can work like an invisibility cloak. Whether that saves him or sinks him, nobody knows yet, including, we suspect, Richard E. Grant.

The irony writes itself if you know his filmography. This is the man whose breakthrough was the gloriously chaotic Withnail and I in 1987, who managed the Spice Girls as the exasperated Clifford in Spice World and who earned an Oscar nomination for Can You Ever Forgive Me?, a film about literary forgery in which he played a charming accomplice. He has even played Classic Loki in Marvel’s Loki series. Hollywood trusted him with the God of Mischief. Ardross Castle gave him thirty seconds.

Viewers did not seem to mind. NME collected social media reactions calling it the “TV moment of the year already”. That says less about strategy than about what audiences actually want from this programme.

Why we love watching famous people lie

The format began in the Netherlands as De Verraders in 2021 and draws on party games like Werewolf and Mafia, where an informed minority hides among an uninformed majority. The celebrity version took the idea to a new level in the UK. The first series in 2025 was won by Alan Carr as the last Traitor standing, earning £87,500 for Neuroblastoma UK. Its finale became the most watched UK television broadcast of that year.

Why does it work so well with stars? Our reading: celebrity culture runs on control. Interviews are rehearsed, red carpet answers are polished, every caption is checked twice. The Traitors removes the safety net and puts famous people in a situation where they have to improvise under pressure, often badly. You are not watching them perform their image. You are watching them lose their grip on it. Grant’s blurt is the purest version of that: an unscripted moment in an industry that hardly allows any.

There is a fashion angle too, because of course there is. The show’s look, all tartan, heavy knits, candlelit corridors and Winkleman’s famous gloves and fringe, has helped turn it into a seasonal mood board. The coffin opening of series two suggests the production team knows exactly how much the gothic styling contributes. Castlecore is not an official trend. Give it two more episodes.

What comes next

The series is running at two episodes a week, so the consequences of Grant’s honesty should arrive quickly. Either he becomes the most beloved Traitor in the show’s history, or he becomes a cautionary tale that future contestants are shown on day one. Both outcomes would make for excellent television.

The bigger lesson has nothing to do with the game. In a media culture where every celebrity utterance is measured, focus-grouped and screenshot, the most refreshing thing a famous person can do is answer a direct question with the truth. It just happens to be the one thing this particular show punishes. That paradox is the real reason you will keep watching. Frankly, so will we.