King Kenny says James Acaster's shock confession as a Traitor in the penultimate roundtable sealed his fate in Celebrity Traitors, turning the final week against him and helping send him and Maya Jama out in the closing episode. The final episode aired on Friday 30 October, with Romesh Ranganathan and Sebastian Croft winning as Faithful contestants.
Kenny said he knew the moment Acaster admitted the truth that his own chances had shrunk. He said he was “shocked” and added that, after the confession and the talk about the murder happening in plain sight, “time’s coming, but we’re going to have to fight for our lives and try and win this.” He also said he argued to stay because he was out of the room when the murder happened, a detail that mattered once suspicion tightened around the table.
That confession matters because it came at the point in the game when every word could alter the next banishment. Kenny later said he believed the should think harder about casting so something like Acaster’s rule-bending would not happen again, and he argued that everyone should want to play the game effectively whether they are a Traitor or a Faithful. The comments landed after a series that had already drawn heavy discussion over Acaster describing himself as a “Faithful Traitor.”
Yet the picture was not as simple as one player giving up. James Blunt said on Wednesday 4 November that viewers did not see the full extent of Acaster being interrogated at the roundtable, and insisted he did not “fall on his sword.” Blunt said he and Michael Sheen had planned their assault on Acaster in the morning, called the exchange a courtroom, and said “some of this wasn’t necessarily shown,” adding that it was “much harder than you saw.” He also said Sheen had delivered “an absolute knockout,” while Michael Sheen had theorised that Acaster must have been responsible for Ross Kemp’s “in plain sight” murder, which had involved a perfume bottle filled with poisonous mist.
That leaves the bigger question in place after the final. Kenny has made clear he thinks Acaster changed the shape of the game, but the only confirmed response so far is debate, not a rule change. The has not said it will alter the format, even as the fallout from that roundtable keeps overshadowing the win for Ranganathan and Croft.
