SPOILER WARNING: This article reveals the winners and key moments of the Celebrity Traitors series two final.
A Faithful ending after weeks of suspicion
After weeks of whispered accusations, dramatic roundtables and murders in the night, The Celebrity Traitors series two ended the way its most loyal viewers had hoped it might, but few could have predicted exactly how it would happen. On Friday, October 30, the 80 minute finale on BBC One brought the game at Ardross Castle in the Scottish Highlands to a close, and the Faithfuls finally triumphed. Comedian Romesh Ranganathan and actor Sebastian Croft, known to many viewers as Bash, were crowned joint winners, sharing an £83,000 prize pot for their chosen charities.
The result mattered beyond the castle walls. The final drew an average overnight audience of 11.23 million viewers on BBC One, with a peak of 11.6 million, according to BBC figures reported after broadcast. That made it the most watched episode of the celebrity edition on overnight figures, edging past the roughly 11.1 million who watched last year's final live. The series had already been a ratings success, opening on October 1 with about 8.9 million overnight viewers, a record for a UK Traitors premiere. The finale confirmed that the appetite for the format has not faded, even in a series that critics described as bumpier and less sure footed than the first celebrity run.
For the winners, the prize was split equally. Croft's £41,500 went to Choose Love, and Ranganathan's £41,500 went to the Refugee Council. Both organisations support refugees and displaced people, and both winners spoke after the final about the meaning of winning for a cause rather than for themselves. Ranganathan later described the win on his BBC Radio 2 show as happiness tinged with a little embarrassment, a line that captured the strange mixture of relief, guilt and disbelief that often follows a Traitors victory. He also admitted that he had realised they had secured victory before his fellow finalist did, and had briefly considered keeping that news to himself.
How the final unfolded
The final began with a murder. Actor Michael Sheen was revealed as the last celebrity to be murdered by the Traitors, Maya Jama and King Kenny. Sheen's exit was particularly painful for the Faithfuls, because he had already worked out that Jama was a Traitor before he was removed from the game. In Traitors lore, that kind of posthumous clue is known as solving the puzzle from beyond the grave, and it set the tone for a final in which the remaining players finally began to join the dots.
Seven players had reached the finale: Croft, Ranganathan, James Blunt, Leigh-Anne Pinnock, King Kenny, Maya Jama and Michael Sheen. After Sheen's murder, the six survivors took part in one last mission before the final roundtable, where they could no longer learn the identity of a player who was banished. That rule, central to the endgame, raises the stakes of every vote, because a banished Traitor is not revealed as a Traitor in the same way as in earlier roundtables. Players must decide on instinct, memory and trust, knowing they may never get confirmation.
At the roundtable, Jama, a Traitor from the very start of the series alongside Richard E. Grant, who had been banished back in episode three, was finally exposed. Kenny, her fellow Traitor, voted against her, a move that sealed her fate and became one of the most talked about moments of the night. Jama received the most votes from her co-stars and became the last contestant to be banished from the castle as a Traitor. After her exit, she thanked her fellow players, a moment that underlined how much affection had grown between contestants even as they deceived each other.
What followed was a tense endgame at the fire pit. With five players remaining and their sights set on the prize pot, the group first decided that a Traitor was still among them. Little Mix singer Leigh-Anne Pinnock, a Faithful, received the most votes and was banished. The remaining players then voted again, and this time Kenny was sent packing, removing the last Traitor from the game. At that point, only three players remained, and unknown to them, all three were Faithfuls. The game should have ended there, but it did not, because James Blunt was unsure and pushed for one more vote.
That decision backfired. Croft and Ranganathan were given the chance to confer privately. Ranganathan had grown suspicious of Blunt's reaction to Jama's parting comment, and after deliberation the pair decided to banish Blunt, with the final vote going two to one against the singer. Host Claudia Winkleman then confirmed that the game had ended, and Croft and Ranganathan revealed their true identities as Faithfuls. The celebration that followed was real, but so was the awkwardness: the winners had just voted out a fellow Faithful to secure their victory.
Blair Castle in Scotland, an illustrative Scottish castle
Credit: Wikimedia Commons, Blair Castle, CC BY 3.0
The Traitors who almost got away with it
Jama's journey through the series deserves attention, because she came closer than most Traitors to winning. As an original Traitor, she survived week after week, helped by a calm manner, strong social bonds, and a series of Faithful misjudgements. One of the most remarkable moments of the series came at the scarecrow trial, when the Faithfuls voted all three Traitors as the most trusted players. That vote, widely mocked by viewers, showed how completely the Traitors had hidden in plain sight.
Kenny, a social media personality and former boxer, was recruited as a Traitor during the series rather than starting as one. Recruited Traitors face a different challenge: they must switch loyalty mid-game, learn to lie to friends they have already bonded with, and avoid the suspicion that comes from a sudden change in behaviour. Kenny managed that switch well enough to reach the final, and his vote against Jama was both a betrayal and a tactical gamble. It removed a rival Traitor and left him as the sole Traitor in the endgame, with a chance to take the whole pot alone. It did not work, but it made the final far more dramatic than a straightforward Faithful sweep.
Sheen, meanwhile, provided one of the series' most memorable arcs. A respected stage and screen actor, he approached the game with unusual seriousness, interrogating fellow players with a forensic style that viewers compared to a political interview. His semi-final questioning of Jama was widely praised, and his murder on the final night felt like the Traitors removing their most dangerous opponent just before the finish line. That they did so too late, after he had already identified Jama, became part of the story of the final.
A bumpy series with a taut finish
Critics were divided on series two as a whole. The opening episode set a record, and the semi-final drew 10.7 million viewers to the castle, according to reports on the series ratings. Yet some reviewers felt the series never quite captured the same blend of tension and silliness that made the first celebrity series, won by Alan Carr as a Traitor last year, feel like a cultural event. Carr's victory, in which he deceived the last remaining Faithfuls Nick Mohammed and David Olusoga to take the entire £87,500 pot alone for Neuroblastoma UK, set a high bar. His final eventually reached a consolidated audience far above its overnight figure, and it became the most watched UK television broadcast of 2025 on some measures.
Series two had its own highlights, even if they were unevenly spread. Miranda Hart, described by some as the Miss Marple of Ardross Castle, being taught a dance routine by Pinnock; Jerry Hall's description of Blunt; Richard E. Grant excitedly disclosing his Traitor status almost instantly; and Sheen's interrogations all gave viewers moments to quote and share. The problem, as one review put it, was that the series sometimes missed the weirdly British blend of starriness and silliness, of high tension and daftness, that made the first series sing. The finale, however, was widely praised as taut, nerve shredding and properly dramatic, even by critics who had been lukewarm about earlier episodes.
The ratings context helps explain why the BBC will not be troubled by mixed reviews. The celebrity edition and the civilian edition are both in production through 2030 under the BBC's deal, and the second celebrity series averaged well above the first on overnight figures. Catch-up viewing on BBC iPlayer typically adds several million viewers per episode over seven days, so the finale's consolidated total is expected to grow considerably beyond its overnight average. For a broadcaster, that combination of live event viewing and catch-up strength is exactly what makes Traitors so valuable.
What the win means for the charities
Beyond television, the most lasting consequence of the final is the money raised for charity. Choose Love, Croft's chosen cause, expressed gratitude after the win, noting that £41,500 will support its work with refugees and displaced people around the world. The Refugee Council, Ranganathan's chosen cause, will receive the same amount. In a series where deception is the game, the charity element provides a grounding truth: the prize is not kept by the winners, but passed on to organisations working with some of the most vulnerable people in the world.
That element also changes how viewers judge the players. A Faithful win feels satisfying in part because the money goes to two charities chosen by players who survived without lying about their identity. A Traitor win, as in series one, can feel equally satisfying when the winner is a beloved figure playing for a cause close to their heart. Either way, the charity pot gives the finale an emotional anchor that a purely personal prize would lack.
The final was followed by a special episode of The Celebrity Traitors: Uncloaked, in which the cast, the finalists and Winkleman joined presenter Ed Gamble to react to the episode and reveal details about their time at the castle. That companion show has become part of the Traitors ritual, giving viewers a chance to hear how the game felt from the inside, and how friendships survived the deceptions. For Ranganathan and Croft, it was a chance to reflect on a win that was, by their own admission, partly luck, partly judgment, and partly the result of a fellow Faithful pushing for one vote too many.
As the castle doors closed on series two, the format's future looked secure. The question for the next celebrity series will be whether casting can recapture the magic of the first run while keeping the tension of the second. On the evidence of the finale, with its murders, betrayals, deadlocks and a Faithful victory sealed by a painful final vote, the producers have a strong template to build on. The Faithfuls won this time. The Traitors will be back, and viewers will be watching to see if they can do better next time.
Further reporting on the final, including the BBC account and ratings coverage, can be read in the BBC report, Radio Times coverage, Observer review, Memorable TV ratings report, and OK! coverage.
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