Richard E Grant was banished in a landslide vote during Thursday’s third episode of The Celebrity Traitors, and What time are The Traitors on mattered only after the game had already shifted. He had told the others in the bar that he was a traitor before the first round table, then walked out after the votes turned sharply against him.
The first round table of the series produced the first moment in the UK version when a traitor was identified at that stage. That made Grant’s exit more than a routine elimination: one traitor was publicly exposed, and the remaining pair had to adjust immediately.
Grant’s vote lands hard
“Thank you for giving me an almost bingo full-house of votes,” Grant said after the result, before adding, “I have always wanted to be a traitor, and sometimes in life your dreams do come true.” The line lands because it shows how quickly the room moved from suspicion to certainty once he put himself in play.
Ross Kemp reacted with, “get in there!” and Joanne McNally said, “I completely believed him!” McNally also summed up the surprise with, “This is me with men all the time,” which fits the scale of the misread: the vote did not just remove one contestant, it showed how effectively Grant had sold the role before the table turned on him.
Julie Hesmondhalgh misreads the room
Julie Hesmondhalgh told the table, “It was traitor-on-traitor,” and, “I don’t know if anybody else saw it,” then added, “I am so excited because I truly believe we can get two in a row.” She was wrong, and that mistake matters because it shows how a confident read can still collapse when the group is already aligned on a target.
Grant’s banishment leaves Maya Jama and James Acaster as the remaining traitors, with the pair forced into a choice later in Thursday’s episode between murdering Jerry Hall and Hannah Fry or recruiting a replacement. They chose to recruit Hannah Fry, which keeps the traitor side at full strength but also gives the game a new face inside the group.
What Thursday changes
For viewers trying to track the show, the practical takeaway is simple: the first big break in this series came not from a secret kill but from a public vote, and that changed the pace of the episode. A player who entered the bar admitting the role was still able to make it to the table, but once the votes landed, the remaining traitors had to move from defense to replacement.
That is why What time are The Traitors on is the wrong first question for this episode’s impact. The sharper one is who still holds the power after the first open identification, and the answer is Maya Jama and James Acaster, now joined by Hannah Fry.
