Celebrity Traitors 2026 live: Richard E Grant banished as Traitors prepare to ‘murder’

Julie tells Sharon that she is convinced that Myha’la is a Traitor, after she saw her wink at Richard while voting at the Roundtable. Unusually for The Traitors, this is actually something that did occur! And not made up nonsense!

Could this be the beginning of a case being made against the Industry star tonight?

So Richard is banished from the castle!

“Thank you for giving me an almost bingo-house full of votes,” he says. “I have always wanted to be a Traitor. Sometimes in life your dreams do come true, and sometimes they don’t…”

“I am… an unfaithful traitor!” he announces.

“I have managed to checkmate myself, which as far as I’m aware has never been done,” he explains to camera. “My daughter will be… ‘oh, dad’.”

“But I’ve just had a blast.”

Absolutely terrible Traitor, confirmed by Claudia announcing that a Traitor has never been found so early on the show.

Sebastian votes for Richard, and Ramesh, Michael and Hannah vote for Richard too!

James Blunt? Hannah! “I believe the Traitors have recruited [you].”

King Kenny votes for Richard.

And, finally, Maya… votes for Richard too!

And we’re immediately at the roundtable, with everyone voting for who they believe to be a Traitor.

Miranda votes for Richard.

Sharon votes for Richard. (”All I had to go on was you saying ‘I am a Traitor’.)

Jerry votes for Leigh-Ann.

Joanne votes for Leigh-Ann.

Leigh-Anne votes for Richard.

My’Hala votes for Richard.

And we’re off! With a quick recap of last week’s episodes – Richard E Grant being ridiculous! James Acaster being recruited! Ross Kemp being insane! – and Jerry Hall and Hannah Fry being earmarked for murder. This will be so fun

And we’re nearly there! And it also feels like the perfect time to say to those of you tuned into BBC One right now that, yes, this is EastEnders you’re watching. And yes, that is Ian Beale being told he’s still on parole (!) after his stint in prison (!).

Just over six minutes to go now!

There’s a general feeling that Celebrity Traitors can get real superstars to participate, with this series so stacked with recognisable faces that even the likes of Miranda Hart and Michael Sheen feel as if they haven’t made a huge impression yet. But it turns out that not every desired star took the offer to appear on the show. Most notably… Liam Gallagher.

The Oasis frontman surprised his fans this week by replying to a tweet urging him to join the cast, revealing that he’d actually been approached.

“I’ve been asked it’s not my thing I’m not a celebrity,” he wrote back, quite succinctly.

A shame, since… can you imagine the chaos?

Another question mark surrounds how Maya will vote at tonight’s initial roundtable. While she’s repeatedly pledged to protect Richard at all costs, something seemed to shift in her expression during the roundtable last episode – presumably because Richard just came off very, very badly.

So far Maya has seemed very smart while in Traitor mode (certainly more than the doomed Richard, anyway), so I can’t see her not throwing Richard to the wolves when it’s so clear that he’s been rumbled.

I’d even go so far as to predict that Richard will basically get all the votes at the roundtable tonight. He’s just that bad at the game…

So if events go the way we’re all expecting, Richard E Grant will be banished after tonight’s early roundtable. But where does that leave the surviving traitors, Maya Jama and James Acaster?

Based on previous series (while admitting that The Traitors can change rules whenever it likes, generally), Maya and James will get the chance to either murder a Faithful in revenge, or recruit one of them.

Chances are they’ll recruit, right? I may be blanking on Traitors of old, but it’s very early for a Traitor to be exposed, isn’t it? (Which, if I’m being honest, is quite impressive from a Richard-is-possibly-the-worst-Traitor-ever standpoint.) They can’t afford to just kill at this point…

Last week Amol Rajan became the first Faithful murdered this series, after the Traitors chose to recruit James Acaster when offered the chance to save one of both men.

Rajan has not taken his early exit enormously well, popping up everywhere this week to try and diagnose where it all went wrong for him. But he went into greater detail in his official newsletter.

“Conventional wisdom has it that the worst thing about being first out is the sheer embarrassment,” Rajan wrote. “Like, it’s just really galling to be a loser, or pathetic to not even last until a proper roundtable.”

Read more from Rajan below…