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Warning: this article contains spoilers for episode one of ‘The Celebrity Traitors’
Ed Gamble, the host of Celebrity Traitors spin-off Uncloaked, has singled out Ross Kemp’s behaviour in the show’s first episode as “one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen on TV”.
As the smash-hit BBC show returned to screens, Kemp immediately became episode one’s stand-out star, when the EastEnders actor and presenter had a rather paranoid reaction to two contestants being affectionate towards him.
Rather than seeing his fellow players as friendly, Kemp worried that their actions were a sign that they were Traitors who had been instructed to “kill” a Faithful in plain sight, by interacting with him in a certain way.
To be fair to Kemp, his concerns stemmed from watching earlier series where this happened. For example, in the 2025 season of Celebrity Traitors, comedian Alan Carr “murdered” singer Paloma Faith in plain sight by touching her face after rubbing his hands on a “poisoned lily”. He then polished off Celia Imrie at a dinner party by making a toast and and saying the phrase “parting is such sweet sorrow” followed by her name.
In one scene in the 2026 launch episode, The Last of Us star Bella Ramsey placed a captain’s hat on Kemp’s head as a way of congratulating him for performing so well on a nautical mission. Kemp’s elation quickly turned to dismay as he began to fret that Ramsey was a Traitor who was “murdering” him in plain sight.
Later, in the bar, Little Mix star Leigh-Anne Pinnock rubbed Kemp’s arm in a friendly way as she walked past him. The affectionate pat stopped Kemp in his tracks, as yet again, he thought he was being secretly targeted.
When he confront Pinnock, she told him to “calm down”, saying: “It would be more than a rub on the shoulder!”
He later said in a to-camera interview: “My guard is very much up. Anyone touching me, offering me a drink, talking to me in a slightly odd way, that could be me gone. So at the moment I’m feeling pretty paranoid.”
After watching a screening of episode one with press before the series launch, and hearing how much laughter there was in the audience over Kemp’s reactions, Gamble said: “It’s so fun being in a room and watching that moment happen and being reassured that it is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen on television.”
He added: “I mean, what a variety of men live within the Ross Kemp sphere, you know? He’s a big hard man running the boat mission, and then immediately terrified of a member of Little Mix touching him on the arm.”
Gamble called the moment “just incredible”, adding: “I think that’s something we don’t even think about really when we’re watching it, the amount of paranoia that must be in there, especially if you’ve watched the game.”
He also said that Kemp is the person he’s most excited to interview on Uncloaked. “Obviously I’m a huge Ross Kemp fan. I consume all Ross Kemp, culture and content. The Kemposphere. No, but genuinely, recently, in celebration of Celebrity Traitors I downloaded the audiobook of his autobiography Take Nothing for Granted. I’m a Kemp Head.”
Elsewhere in the episode, Winkleman selected actor Richard E Grant and presenter Maya Jama as her first Traitors (meaning Kemp’s suspicions were way off). In episode two, Grant and Jama will select either comedian James Acaster or broadcaster Amol Rajan to join them in the turret.
Episode two airs at 8pm on BBC One on Friday 2 October.
