Banished Celebrity Traitors star: ‘The final is better without me there’

Note: This article contains spoilers about Thursday’s episode of The Celebrity Traitors which some readers may wish to avoid.

James Acaster has insisted that tonight’s final episode of The Celebrity Traitors will be “much better” now that he has been banished.

In the climax to Thursday night’s episode, with three Traitors and five Faithfuls still remaining, comedian Acaster outed himself as a Traitor in dramatic scenes at the Round Table.

Acaster was recruited at the very start of the series but was a reluctant Traitor throughout – and with the pressure getting too much, he admitted the truth to the Faithfuls, leaving fellow Traitors Maya Jama and King Kenny still in the game.

“I feel pretty good getting to episode nine, and now we’ve got a proper final on our hands,” Acaster said after leaving the castle. “With three Traitors, it would have been a foregone conclusion that we were going to win.

“Don’t get me wrong, I thought it was hilarious at one point that we were just going to walk our way to the final and win the whole thing, but this is much better, isn’t it?”

Speaking about the moment that he finally confessed the truth, he continued: “The idea of doing that got me through the whole experience because you feel as a Traitor sometimes, when you see people have real life reactions that are bigger than the game, you feel bad… I would have to remind myself they don’t have a game without you, literally, if no-one’s doing this stuff, they can’t play, and they all want to play.

“So you are doing an important job here, so they all have something to do, and when they catch you, they’ll be really happy and they’ll like it, and it will feel good to just tell them and see that reaction.”

The final of The Celebrity Traitors season two airs tonight from 8pm on BBC One and iPlayer.