Alan Carr has been crowned the winner of the first celebrity edition of BBC's The Celebrity Traitors, taking home the £87,500 prize for charity. The comedian, who played as a traitor, outwitted the remaining faithfuls—historian David Olusoga, comedian Nick Mohammed, and former rugby player Joe Marler—in a tense final episode that aired on Wednesday.
The finale saw traitor Cat Burns banished first, followed by faithful Joe Marler, who was wrongly identified as a traitor. The remaining three—Carr, Olusoga, and Mohammed—chose to end the game, at which point Carr revealed his true identity. Overcome with emotion, he declared, “I am and have always been a traitor,” adding, “I’m so sorry, it’s been tearing me apart.”
The final challenge involved a steam train journey where contestants had to retrieve five gold bars in 20 minutes before the train exploded. They successfully escaped, adding £20,000 to the prize fund. Carr announced his winnings would go to a children’s cancer charity for neuroblastoma.
The series was notable for the faithfuls' ineptitude, with only two traitors banished compared to five in each of the three non-celebrity series. The finale was accidentally released online in Canada more than 24 hours before its UK airtime, but was quickly pulled by network Crave.
The Celebrity Traitors has been the most-watched TV programme of the year so far, averaging 12.6 million viewers across its first four episodes.
