The Celebrity Traitors cast are closer to each other than you might think

"I feel awful. I didn't know what else to do! I've gone and murdered one of my best friends."

That was comedian Alan Carr’s immortal line, delivered to camera after he "killed" singer Paloma Faith in The Celebrity Traitors.

The first murder of the series was all the more brutal because the pair weren’t just on-screen competitors - they are actually friends outside the show.

And they're not the only ones who knew each other before entering the Traitors Castle.

This series is full of people who are connected in different ways, adding a whole new layer of drama.

Even if the stars didn’t know each other, they likely knew of each other - and that makes it much harder to lie.

So there’ll be no Charlotte Church pretending she's not Welsh. And if Tom Daley was actually Sir Stephen Fry's son, we’d already have a pretty good idea.

We've been unpicking the six degrees of separation. Here are some of the connections we’ve found - if we’ve missed any, we’d love to know. Get in touch with your thoughts in the comments below.

... thanks to his long-running Saturday night chat show.

He's interviewed Paloma Faith, Sir Stephen Fry, Tom Daley and Alan Carr on The Jonathan Ross Show over the years.

Cat Burns performed on his show last year, Charlotte Church, Clare Balding and Lucy Beaumont have all been guests, and how could we forget about the time Joe Marler covered Adele's Somebody Like You on the show.

Having met so many of the contestants beforehand, that could help Ross "hide out as a traitor," said TV reporter Siobhan Synnot. He may make them feel wrongly at ease around him, and it could also make it easy for him to form alliances.

But knowing so many of the stars could also make it harder to wear the traitor’s coat, on a personal level.

Earlier this week, Ross wrote on X that he "did not enjoy the duplicity" as the game progressed. "It's a tougher psychological challenge than I expected," he said.

Alan Carr has also interviewed a bunch of his fellow contestants in the real world.

His former show Chatty Man featured guests including Sir Stephen Fry and Clare Balding - who were on the same episode - as well as Paloma Faith (more on that relationship below).

Sir Stephen also appeared on Carr's podcast, Life's a Beach, as did actor Mark Bonnar and singer Cat Burns.

Kate Garraway, meanwhile, has interviewed Alan Carr on ITV's Good Morning Britain.

Maybe knowing so many people is behind his sweating, flustering, and giggling. Or maybe that's just Alan Carr being Alan Carr.

Paloma Faith said as much, during the incredibly tense funeral scene earlier in the series.

At one point, a school tie was presented as a clue to who belonged in a coffin. The cast picked up that this was to do with the 2007 film St Trinian's.

The group started pointing fingers at Faith - but she pointed out that Celia Imrie and Stephen Fry had also starred in the hit comedy film.

Faith plays a goth schoolgirl in the film, Imrie plays a school matron, while Sir Stephen plays himself, as the school quiz master.

It’s not the only time Sir Stephen and Imrie crossed paths. The pair also starred together in ITV drama Kingdom.

Clare Balding, a staple of British sports, and Olympic diving champion Tom Daley clearly know each other well. Balding has interviewed Daley in the past, including on her show - and she also spoke up to praise him after he came out on YouTube in 2013.

Their connection was clear in episode three, when Balding seemed gutted to see Daley murdered by the Traitors.

"I've known him since he was about 12 years old," she said.

Former England rugby union player Joe Marler is also from the world of sports, and it wouldn't be surprising if he has mingled with Baldwin and Daley at events over the years.

Sir Stephen Fry, Lucy Beaumont, Alan Carr, Joe Wilkinson, and Nick Mohammed are all comedians, and are likely to have met each other over the years.

In a Guardian interview last year, Beaumont described working with Sir Stephen recently - and she also admitted she made a faux pas when she met him, asking him what it was like being in prison for being gay.

"And thank God someone came in and he didn't hear me say it. I was mixing him up with when he played Oscar Wilde. I could picture him in his cell," she told the newspaper.

Beaumont is also a familiar face from Meet the Richardsons, and Carr appeared in an episode of the sitcom alongside her.

Some of the Celebrity Traitors players have also competed against each other before.

Tom Daley and Lucy Beaumont went head to head on The Great Celebrity Bake Off for Stand Up To Cancer in 2023.

Beloved veteran British actress Celie Imrie starred in the Bridget Jones film series, as Una Alconbury, Bridget's mother's friend.

She was joined in one of the films - Bridget Jones's Baby - by Ted Lasso star Nick Mohammed.

Perhaps because of this prior connection, Mohammed leapt to Imrie's aid at the graveyard in episode one, helping her find a shield - thereby protecting her from being murdered on the first night.

"My aim was to try and get Celia a shield, because I love her," he explained.

But this aroused suspicion, with Imrie said later: "Nick selflessly came to help me in my grave before even looking for his shield. And I'm thinking, he's absolutely adorable or he is up to something."

By the time the latest episode rolled around, they both seemed to be questioning each other's motives.

Imrie said she's "got her eye" on Mohammed, while he told the group that she'd make a great traitor.

This was another Paloma Faith revelation, after she was murdered in episode two.

Speaking to the Uncloaked podcast, she said that's why she felt "betrayed" by fellow singer Cat Burns (who's a traitor).

"She's on the same record label as me and should have some loyalty," she said jokingly.

Sadly for her, that's not quite how the game works.

The singer later explained that even though they share a record label, they hadn't really spent time together beforehand - and that she'd enjoyed bonding with Burns during her brief stint on the show.

Paloma Faith may have been miffed at Cat Burns, but it appears her real beef is with Alan Carr, as he is her friend in real life.

"I don't think he should've done that to me, and I'm surprised that he did," Faith told the Uncloaked podcast, of his decision to murder her.

The pair are so close that he has even met her kids - but it turns out they're not best pleased with him now.

Speaking to the One Show, Faith said her four-year-old woke her up and said: "Mama, I don't like Alan anymore. He can't come to our house."

But in a video shared online, Carr poked fun at the row.

It showed him looking at a drinks menu before saying: "I could murder a Paloma."

He captioned the post: "Anyone thirsty? Love you @palomafaith #forgiveme."

Faith also indicated she had been mates with Jonathan Ross - who is also a traitor - before the show.

“I’m happy to lose him as a friend,” she told Uncloaked, after finding out his identity.

"I hope [Carr and Ross] never call me again, and I mean that," she added, in what - we think - was a joke...

Amusingly, some of the celebrities have also crossed paths with presenter Claudia Winkleman in the outside world.

Ahead of the series starting, she said she knew “some of them”, adding: "They're all equally lovely."

Winkleman previously appeared on 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown with Joe Wilkinson and Nick Mohammed.

She also co-hosts Strictly, so would've crossed paths with Tameka Empson when she was a contestant.

“Honestly, the layers to this are fascinating,” said entertainment journalist Natalie Jamieson.

“Whether the celebs know each other, or have worked with each other before appearing on screen here is one thing, but they'll already have made an assumption of the others' personalities, based on their known public personas, like we all do.”

After all that, spare a thought for the ones who went into the castle with no friends at all.

As one of the younger stars, YouTuber Niko Omilana, 27, had fewer connections with the other celebs.

And that seems to have been part of his downfall.

After he was banished on Wednesday, a theory spread on social media that the real reason he was voted out was because the other celebrities didn't know him well.

"Niko has been voted because he's an outsider and he's not in their celebrity world. Nothing to do with the game," wrote one X user.

In a TikTok video posted later, Omilana seemed to address the speculation by showing him being shunned and spat on by groups of friends. He captioned it: "POV: You try and make friends in the Traitors."

Earlier this week, another of the younger celebrities - actress Ruth Codd, 29 - was murdered by the traitors.

She had previously admitted she, too, “didn’t know anyone” in the castle.

So it turns out, moving in the same circles doesn't just mean better fireside chats in the Traitors Castle.

For some, it can be the difference between life and death.