Celebrity Traitors rules and the surprises to watch for

Winning The Traitors should mean surviving the murders, avoiding banishment and reaching the end with the right people. Yet one Australian series finished with three Traitors still standing and not a single winner, proving that even reaching the final can be the start of another betrayal.

As The UK Celebrity Traitors returns with 21 famous faces on October 1st 2026, the international versions offer plenty of clues about how the game could surprise them. France has handed a player double voting power, New Zealand has turned a rejected recruitment into someone else’s reprieve, and America has made a friendly drink the means of eliminating a contestant.

The examples below reveal major moments from previous series. They show what the format can do, rather than a confirmed list of twists for the 2026 celebrity competition.

How Celebrity Traitors works

Claudia Winkleman selects a small group of celebrities to become Traitors, while everyone else starts as a Faithful. The Traitors know their secret role and must conceal it from the people they spend their days with.

The cast work together on missions to build a prize fund of up to £100,000 for their chosen charities. Traitors want that money in the pot too, so helping the team win a challenge is not evidence that someone is innocent.

At night, the Traitors usually meet in secret to choose a player to murder, meaning remove from the game. The survivors discover the absence at breakfast, when an empty chair can immediately change everyone’s plans.

The Round Table provides the Faithful with their opportunity to fight back. All remaining contestants, including the Traitors, discuss their suspicions and vote to banish someone, with the person receiving the most votes normally eliminated.

There is no public vote deciding who stays. A contestant can be the audience’s favourite and still leave because the other players mistrust them, or because the Traitors consider them too dangerous to keep.

Shields, recruitment and winning the money

Under the familiar British rules, a shield protects its holder from murder but not from a Round Table banishment. Keeping possession of it secret can be useful, because the Traitors might waste their attempt by targeting the protected player.

A Faithful can also become a Traitor through recruitment. That means someone who was telling the truth about their innocence earlier in the series may later be lying, even if their behaviour has barely changed.

Recruitment conditions vary, with some invitations offering a choice and an ultimatum potentially requiring a player to join or leave the game. The exact instructions given at that point determine what the person can do.

Near the end, the remaining players must decide whether to stop or continue banishing people. If the game finishes with only Faithful left, they share the prize; if a Traitor survives, the Faithful lose and the money goes to the surviving Traitor or Traitors, subject to that edition’s final rules.

Australia’s final betrayal cost everyone the prize

The second Australian series in 2023 eliminated every Faithful, leaving Sam, Blake and Camille to face the Traitors’ Dilemma. Each had to decide whether to share the winnings or try to steal.

All choosing share would have divided the money between them. If some chose steal while someone chose share, the steal voters would take the winnings and the share voters would receive nothing; if everybody chose steal, nobody would win.

Despite discussing an agreement to share, all three selected steal. They had outlasted the other contestants, only to leave empty-handed because none trusted the others enough to risk sharing.

That ending added a different question to the final: could people who had spent the competition deceiving everyone else finally believe one another? It remains one of the clearest examples of the format making survival and victory two very different things.

France showed the danger of a double vote

In the first French series of Les Traîtres, Elsa Esnoult obtained a dagger giving her two votes at the Round Table. The advantage allowed one player to exert more influence over a banishment than the people sitting beside her.

It did not give her better information. Elsa used the power while trusting Traitors, helping to eliminate the Faithful contestant Bernard.

The dagger has also featured in other editions, including the fourth American season. Its appeal as a twist is straightforward: one person can disrupt the numbers, but an extra vote is only as useful as the judgement behind it.

America made murder happen in plain sight

In the second American series, the Traitors were told to eliminate someone using a designated poisoned chalice. Parvati Shallow persuaded Ekin-Su Cülcüloğlu to drink from it, completing a game task disguised as an ordinary social interaction.

The poisoning was fictional, but the elimination counted. The Traitor had to act in front of other contestants rather than simply agree on a name behind closed doors.

For viewers, that creates two kinds of suspense at once. The target may unknowingly accept the object, while someone else in the room could notice who passed it over and later connect the action to the murder.

New Zealand’s rejected recruit saved another player

In the second New Zealand series, Jane Massey offered Mark Mockridge the chance to become a Traitor. He refused and was eliminated, while Bailey Kench, who had been facing murder, became the new recruit instead.

One decision therefore changed two people’s roles in the story. Mark left as a Faithful, while Bailey went from potential victim to someone helping decide what happened next.

The moment also exposed the risk in recruitment. A Traitor cannot assume that being offered a route to survival will make another player accept it.

Secret Traitors took information away from viewers

The fourth British series introduced a Secret Traitor whose identity was initially concealed from both viewers and the other Traitors. The fourth American season also used the device, with Donna Kelce revealed as its secret player.

Normally, viewers can watch the Faithful make mistakes while knowing exactly who is deceiving them. A hidden role removes some of that advantage and asks the audience to interpret suspicious behaviour too.

That changes the experience without needing a different location or a new cast member. Someone already sitting at breakfast can turn out to have been playing a game that neither the audience nor the other Traitors fully understood.

The US finale withheld a crucial answer

In the third American season, contestants banished during the finale could not reveal whether they were Faithful or Traitors before the game ended. The remaining players had to make their next decision without the usual confirmation.

Ordinarily, a role reveal can reassure the group that they have caught someone, or show that they have made another mistake. Removing it means a correct banishment may still leave the survivors frightened enough to vote out an innocent player.

What could surprise the 2026 celebrities?

Based on those previous editions, the most plausible areas for surprises are recruitment, voting power and the information available to contestants. A familiar ally changing sides, a murder carried out during a social gathering in plain sight or one player gaining an extra vote could all force the cast to rethink their approach.

A Secret Traitor could also draw viewers into the guessing game, while an Australian-style prize dilemma would change the stakes at the very end. These are possibilities suggested by the format’s history, not announced features of the new celebrity series.

The cast’s existing relationships provide another source of uncertainty without any rule change at all. Rob Beckett and Romesh Ranganathan know one another well, for example, but that familiarity could make a lie easier to spot or harder to accept.

One confirmed addition is Traitor or Faithful? Claudia Decides, which explores how Claudia assigns the celebrity roles. It gives viewers more insight into that opening decision before the players’ own choices begin reshaping the game.

Where to watch Celebrity Traitors 2026

The Celebrity Traitors starts on Thursday 1 October at 8pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer, with episodes scheduled for Thursday and Friday evenings. Traitor or Faithful?

Claudia Decides will be available on BBC iPlayer from 9.15pm on launch night.