Celebrity Traitors‘ bosses may have previously reprimanded contestant James Blunt for a commercial endorsement on his social media, but according to comedian James Acaster, who’s a reluctant Traitor, the You’re Beautiful singer wasn’t the only James to have gotten in trouble this season.
In an interview with The Times, the Off Menu co-host said that he and the other contestants stayed in a “Travelodge-level” hotel near the iconic Scottish castle.
Depending on how successful they were in the game, the celebs were kept away from their loved ones for anywhere from two days to three weeks.
James Acaster also stated that contestants only had ten supervised minutes to ring their loved ones a day – “A member of the production team is there with you, so you can’t have an authentic conversation because you can’t tell them anything that’s happening,” he told the publication.
So strict were the rules that he claimed a tiny detail shared to his partner earned him a mild ticking-off.
“At one point my partner said, ‘Have you caught the sun?’ I was saying, ‘Oh yeah, we were outside for one of the missions.’ I was told I couldn’t even tell her that”, he said.
HuffPost UK has reached out to the BBC for comment on this but did not get an immediate response.
James’ phone story would be pretty consistent with his impressively honest reign as a recruited Traitor, though.
On his second day in the iconic castle, the avowed Faithful was sworn into the turret by original Traitors Richard E Grant and Maya Jama.
He has since said that he plans to play the game as a Faithful and told the BBC in an interview, “I’m not good at lying and I don’t make a habit of it.
“Maybe the biggest lie I’ve ever got away with was telling Ed Gamble [his Off Menu co-host, who also fronts the Traitors spin-off series Uncloaked] I’m not doing The Celebrity Traitors”.
Perhaps it’s no wonder he struggled to stay secretive about seemingly-small details like the weather…
