Claudia Winkleman, a former Strictly Come Dancing presenter, returns to the big screen with a brand-new cast of faithful and traitors hoping to win the prize fund of up to £120,000.
With 2026 kicking off perfectly with a new series of The Traitors, the producer behind it has opened up about its success. Last night, Claudia Winkleman launched the fourth series, introducing a fresh batch of traitors and faithfuls hoping to win up to £120,000.
The chosen traitors will once more make an effort to keep their true identities a secret from the faithful at Scotland’s Ardross Castle.
Claudia’s coworker Mike Cotton, the creative director of Studio Lambert, shared what has so far been left the production team floored.
Parents were greeted by us and thanked us for reintroducing them to watching TV with their teenagers and children, he said.
We didn’t really anticipate what this would turn out to be for a show about murder, lies, and betrayal, so it turned into this massive, huge family viewing event.
There is obviously a lot of pressure then [put] the civilian version under. All viewers who watch celebrities were already aware of who they were and why they were funny. These are people you don’t really know, and you have to grow to love them when you return to our regular version.
Mike continued, citing this as one of the factors behind the current series’ inclusion of a new twist to “change the conversation.”
This twist introduces a fourth-person secret traitor whose identity hasn’t been revealed to viewers or their fellow traitors.
With up to £120,000 in prize money, Claudia acknowledges that “at the roundtable, players can get really brutal,” according to The Guardian.
She teased that watching a series before won’t necessarily help them because it’s a new element of the show. How is that possible? Every game series features a whole new cast of players with different viewpoints and different game interpretations.
Last year, the BBC aired their first-ever celebrity version of the show. After many twists and turns, Alan Carr managed to win as a traitor in a final against faithfuls David Olusoga and Nick Mohammed.
The comedian struggled to shed tears as he revealed who he really was, admitting that being deceitful was challenging. He still managed to win £87,500 for the children’s cancer charity Neuroblastoma UK.
Claudia has previously acknowledged that she didn’t accept the offer to host the BBC show.
Speaking on Gabby Logan’s The Mid Point podcast, she explained: “The Traitors is something that I initially turned down, because you know I don’t like leaving my bed or the kids, and they were like, ‘Would you go to Scotland for three and a half weeks?’
“And I said, “I don’t think so,” I thought. The Dutch version came out after that. I sent an email to Kate Phillips, who works for the BBC, saying, “I booked a train, I want to do this more than anything. “
More recently, Claudia has landed a new role as host of her very own chat show, following her exit from Strictly Come Dancing alongside co-host Tess Daly.
