James Blunt breaks silence on Celebrity Traitors 'betrayal' after dramatic final

James Blunt has admitted he felt “betrayed” by Romesh Ranganathan during the final of The Celebrity Traitors.

The 52-year-old singer and the 48-year-old comedian both reached the final three, along with actor Sebastian Croft, 24.

Believing Blunt was a traitor, Ranganathan then voted for him to leave.

The move shocked Blunt, who then voted for Ranganathan to be banished himself.

In the end, Blunt was banished, and Ranganathan and Croft won the show. All three men were faithfuls.

Speaking on LBC’s Nick Ferrari At Breakfast, Blunt revealed he previously had no interest in doing reality shows, and so his manager did not even tell him he’d been asked to take part.

He said: “My manager never even told me I was being asked to do it. He pushed back on it.

“My wife walked in one morning and said, I’ve signed you up to Traitors. I think she thought, time with me out of the house. Send me out to Inverness to be locked away.”

Blunt said the other celebrities are “lovely people” and he particularly bonded with content creator King Kenny.

Speaking on BBC Radio 2’s The Sara Cox Breakfast Show, Blunt said he felt “betrayed” when Ranganathan voted for him.

He said: “I think what I really knew is, I had proven through the time we had been there that I was a faithful. Everyone knew it.

“Everyone at the roundtable said he’s obviously a faithful, so when Romesh pulled his card out, I was like, hang on.

“I think Romesh was being a little underhand[ed]. I had to chuck in a final red because he’s done something very treacherous there, hasn’t he?”

Blunt insisted there is no bad blood between the pair, adding: “It was the perfect finish; I really enjoyed it.

“Romesh and I are really close, actually; I promise we’re really good friends.”

The final drew its highest average overnight audience so far, with 11.2 million viewers tuning in.

The winning pair split the £83,000 prize money between their two charities, Choose Love and the Refugee Council.

According to the BBC, the episode also peaked at 11.6 million on BBC One, the highest of the series, alongside a 62.9 per cent audience share.

It became the most-watched episode of the celebrity spin-off to date, drawing a bigger average audience than last year’s final, which attracted 11.1 million viewers overnight.

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