Sebastian Croft and Romesh Ranganathan emerged as joint winners of The Celebrity Traitors on Friday, securing the second season’s £83,000 prize pot for their chosen charities. Croft, known for Heartstopper, directed his share to Choose Love, while comedian Ranganathan selected the Refugee Council. Their victory followed a finale in which the last remaining Traitor was exposed before another Faithful was voted out.
Claudia Winkleman hosts the BBC celebrity spinoff, which brings famous contestants together to uncover the secret Traitors in their group. Players must avoid both banishment and murder to reach the finish. The Faithfuls can collect the prize by eliminating every Traitor, but any Traitor who survives to the end takes the money instead.
Seven contestants remained as the finale began: Croft, Ranganathan, James Blunt, Leigh-Anne Pinnock, King Kenny, Maya Jama and Michael Sheen. Sheen’s overnight murder by the Traitors reduced the field to six. Jama was then banished after Kenny, her fellow Traitor, turned on her. Pinnock, who was a Faithful, was also voted out as the contestants worked toward identifying the final Traitor.
Kenny was eventually uncovered and banished, leaving Croft, Ranganathan and Blunt, all Faithfuls, in contention. Croft and Ranganathan were ready to stop playing, but Blunt opted for a further banishment. That choice cost him a share of the victory when the other two voted him out, bringing the competition to a close.
Appearing on The Celebrity Traitors: Uncloaked after the finale, Ranganathan described his reaction as “happiness tinged with a little bit of embarrassment.” He questioned how much he had contributed compared with contestants who had already been eliminated. He also joked about having unexpectedly acquired an enemy in Blunt, referring to the singer’s military training.
Croft told the BBC that, until roughly an hour and a half before the end, he had been torn between sticking with Blunt or aligning with Ranganathan and Kenny. To help decide, he listed actions by each man that suggested they were Faithfuls, looking back to Hannah’s banishment and the Traitors’ most recent recruitment. Blunt had the longest list, Ranganathan also had a substantial one, and Kenny had almost none.
According to Croft, Kenny’s vote to finish the game when four players remained convinced him Kenny was a Traitor. Croft was counting on Blunt to vote against Kenny, while Ranganathan appeared convinced that Blunt was a Traitor. Despite those differing suspicions, Croft said he and Ranganathan developed strong mutual trust. They follow comedian Alan Carr, who won the first celebrity season.
