'The Celebrity Traitors' Season 2 Cast Ups the Ante
If Peacock doesn't simulcast Season 2 of 'The Celebrity Traitors' in the U.S., it doesn't deserve to survive as a streaming service.
Americans may have turned being a “Reality Show Star” into a semi-respectable career path in Hollywood; however, it’s the U.K. that has turned the genre into an art form. From Pop Idol* to The Great British Baking Show, and now The Traitors, British reality shows have changed the landscape of Western television over the first quarter of this century simply by being more audacious than everyone else. Now, with the reveal of the cast of The Celebrity Traitors for Season 2, the BBC is once again one-upping the global competition.
The series format is based on the parlor game commonly known as Werewolves, Mafia, or Secret Hitler. Players are secretly divided into teams: the majority are the Faithfuls, while three are designated the titular Traitors. The ultimate goal of the game is for the Faithful to root out and banish the Traitors in their midst, voting one out per episode, while the Traitors work (both together and separately) to eliminate the Faithful without getting caught. The BBC, naturally, added some Agatha Christie-like elements to the mystery, putting the group in a castle estate, adding dramatic costuming, and usually serving up one murder of a Faithful per week.
The original U.K. version of The Traitors starred regular people selected from thousands of applicants. However, the American version turned the series into a D-list celebrity-studded affair, part of the interconnected web of series that keeps our nation’s professional reality-show stars employed. This, in turn, inspired the BBC to launch The Celebrity Traitors, with one small adjustment: the inclusion of genuinely famous celebrities.
(*Pop Idol itself wasn’t a success, but without it, American Idol would never have existed.)
Season 1 of The Celebrity Traitors featured an impressive lineup that included comedians Alan Carr and Nick Mohammed, actors Stephen Fry, Celia Imrie, and Mark Bonnar, and singers Paloma Faith and Charlotte Church. But Season 2 has really outdone itself, with a lineup that American viewers deserve to get to watch as a weekly series, despite Peter Capaldi turning them down.
Here’s the Season 2 cast list, with the most recognizable names for Americans listed first:
- Richard E. Grant (Withnail & I, Loki)
- Bella Ramsey (The Last of Us, Time)
- Michael Sheen (The Queen, Good Omens)
- Myha’la (Industry, Black Mirror)
- Sebastian Croft (Heartstopper, Dope Girls)
- Miranda Hart (Call the Midwife, Emma)
- James Blunt (Singer/Songwriter)
- Jerry Hall (1970s era model)
- Leigh-Anne Pinnock (Singer/Songwriter, Little Mix)
- Julie Hesmondhalgh (Mr Bates vs The Post Office, The Trouble with Maggie Cole)
- Sharon Rooney (The Capture, Barbie)
- Romesh Ranganathan (Rob & Romesh Vs..., Avoidance)
- Rob Beckett (Rob & Romesh Vs..., Bluey)
- Joe Lycett (The Sandman, The Great British Sewing Bee)
- James Acaster (Drunk History, Taskmaster)
- Maya Jama (TV Presenter: Love Island, Glow Up)
- Amol Rajan (Broadcast Journalist)
- Professor Hannah Fry (Mathematician)
- Ross Kemp (Documentarian)
- Joanne McNally (Podcaster: My Therapist Ghosted Me)
- King Kenny (YouTuber)
Casting an entire phalanx of actors, all of whom are massive fans of the franchise and willing to go all in, was the key to Season 1’s runaway success. (The finale drew 15.4 million viewers.) Casting these specific actors, including Ramsay, Grant, and Sheen, all of whom are OBE caliber performers, promises to take this season to new heights. Peacock, which is currently struggling to the point that most television experts are starting to doubt its ability to survive to 2030, desperately needs something like this to jumpstart viewership. The Comcast-owned service already has the rights to the show; it dropped Season 1 as an undermarketed binge in late 2025. If Peacock does not recognize the potential hit it has here and turn it into a weekly release, it deserves to fail.
Both The Traitors and The Celebrity Traitors are produced by Studio Lambert Scotland. Lynette Woods-Reynolds, Gemma Scholes, and Faye Donaldson executive produce alongside Mike Cotton, Sarah Fay, Lewis Thurlow, and Katy Fox for Studio Lambert Scotland.
The Celebrity Traitors Season 2 is expected to premiere on the BBC in the latter half of 2026. If Peacock knows what’s good for it, it’ll premiere here the same day. If Peacock continues to fail at basic hit-making, Season 2 will arrive all at once the day after the finale airs in the U.K.
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