When does Celebrity Traitors start? The Celebrity Traitors begins on Thursday 1 October at 8pm on One and iPlayer, with Claudia Winkleman back in the Scottish Highlands and 21 celebrity players joining her. She says she is putting the finishing touches to her favourite game, and the new trailer shows the cast meeting and heading into an explosive mission.
The launch comes with the series set to air two nights a week, on Thursday and Friday evenings at 8pm. That schedule gives the show a fixed weekly rhythm from the outset, while The Celebrity Traitors: Uncloaked follows straight after the main series on One and also appears on iPlayer and Sounds.
Claudia Winkleman and 21 players
21 celebrity players are joining Winkleman, and the cash prize is up to £100,000 for a charity of the winner’s choice. The line-up includes Amol Rajan, Bella Ramsey, James Acaster, James Blunt, Jerry Hall, Joanne McNally, Joe Lycett, Julie Hesmondhalgh, King Kenny, Leigh-Anne Pinnock, Maya Jama, Michael Sheen, Miranda Hart, Myha’la, Professor Hannah Fry, Richard E. Grant, Rob Beckett, Romesh Ranganathan, Ross Kemp, Sebastian Croft and Sharon Rooney. That scale is the point: the series is not being treated like a small add-on, but as a full run built around a large cast and a charity payout rather than a standard winner’s cheque.
One and iPlayer
Series one of The Celebrity Traitors debuted on One and iPlayer in October 2025, averaged 14.9m across the run and peaked at 15.4m for the finale. That finale rating was the highest for an entertainment programme since 2016, which is why the return arrives with real pressure attached rather than just franchise familiarity. The first series of The Celebrity Traitors: Uncloaked also reached 13 million combined plays on Sounds and iPlayer during its run.
Traitor or Faithful? Claudia Decides
Claudia Winkleman also gets to know the players on a more personal level in Traitor or Faithful? Claudia Decides, which adds another layer around the main series without changing the core setup. The open question is the one the trailer keeps back: which celebrities will be chosen as Traitors. Until that is revealed, the launch is doing two jobs at once — starting the run on a fixed Thursday night slot and preserving the main piece of suspense for the first episode.
