Hannah Waddingham Reveals She Turned Down Celebrity Traitors: I Am a Big Scaredy Cat
Hannah Waddingham has revealed that she was asked to take part in the first series of the United Kingdom’s Celebrity Traitors, and that she nearly accepted because her Ted Lasso co-star Nick Mohammed was taking part, before deciding that the show’s spookier rituals were not for her.
What she told Jennifer Hudson
Waddingham shared the story while appearing on The Jennifer Hudson Show this week, The Sun and Radio Times reported. Asked whether there was a reality competition series she would like to appear on, she replied: “Well I was asked to be on the first Celebrity Traitors in the UK. Yeah, my great buddy Nick Mohammed from Ted Lasso is on it. I nearly did because I knew he was gonna be on it.”
She then explained why she turned the offer down. “But I’m a big scaredy cat,” she said, according to The Sun. “So, this whole thing with the hoods and the burying people alive – I don’t care whether there’s a crew there or not – hell no. No, no, I’m going to watch it at home with a nice red wine and some crisps.” Radio Times reported the same exchange, including her description of herself as a “big scaredy cat”.
The co-star who did take part
Mohammed did take part in the first celebrity series and reached the final, The Sun reported. He played as a Faithful and made it to the end of the game, only to lose the £87,500 jackpot after being betrayed by the last remaining Traitor, comedian Alan Carr, according to Goss.ie. Radio Times noted that Waddingham had been a long-standing rumoured participant during the creation of the first series, but that Mohammed was ultimately the only member of the Ted Lasso group to appear.
A hit she prefers to watch from home
The first celebrity series became a ratings winner for the BBC, with its finale reaching a peak audience of 15.4 million viewers, described as the biggest television audience of 2025, according to the PA report carried by Messenger Newspapers. Waddingham, 52, is best known as football club owner Rebecca Welton in Ted Lasso, and has returned to the role for a fourth series focused on the women’s team, Radio Times reported. She has also appeared in Netflix’s Sex Education and in the Amazon Prime series Ride or Die opposite Octavia Spencer, according to Messenger Newspapers. For Celebrity Traitors, though, her verdict was settled: she would rather watch the castle from her sofa, glass in hand, than walk into it herself.
Sources: The Sun, 27 October 2026; Radio Times, 27 October 2026; Goss.ie, 27 October 2026.