Mark Bonnar shares intense experience filming Celebrity Traitors and reveals cast’s WhatsApp group.

Mark Bonnar has revealed that the cast of Celebrity Traitors have a group WhatsApp chat together, after filming the hotly-anticipated show earlier this year.

The Scottish actor, 56, was one of the 19 famous faces who arrived at Ardross Castle in April, to put their cunningness to the test.

The celebrity spin-off of the hugely popular series will once again be helmed by Claudia Winkleman, with fans eagerly awaiting the backstabbing and betrayals from the likes of Alan Carr and Tom Daley.

Speaking about his time filming the show, Mark admitted that he was keen to sign up as he, his wife Lucy Gaskell, and their children, Martha, 14, and Samuel, 10, were all fans of the BBC series. 

While he gushed over getting to mingle with his fellow stars in the castle, revealing that the cast still keep in touch on WhatsApp.

He told The Sunday Times: ‘We watch The Traitors as a family, so I knew Lucy and the kids would be excited if I did it. 

It’s so intense — you have no phone, so all you think about is the show. The line-up was pretty starry. 

‘Stephen Fry has been omnipresent in my life — I watched Blackadder growing up — and I loved chatting to Jonathan Ross about Nirvana. It’s mad being in a Traitors WhatsApp group with them all.’

Stephen himself gave an insight into his ’emotionally violent’ stint on the series, likening the experience to ‘a Chinese foot massage’ as he praised the programme. 

Speaking on The Show People podcast, the actor, 67, explained: ‘It was a bit like a Chinese foot massage. You know it is absolutely agony but you sort of want to do it again. It is emotionally violent but you kind of love it.

‘Obviously, I can’t say a word about what is in this recently recorded celebrity version I suppose. I am certainly not telling you if I am a traitor or a faithful. I am one or the other.

‘I have said no to any number of Strictlys and Get Me Out of Heres as it is just not my kind of thing. But this, I watched the first and second series and it is such a clever game.’

He added: ‘It’s so extraordinary what it does to the psychology of the individual. And I just thought it would be really interesting to play it. And what an opportunity to do so. And that’s what I found.’  

As well as Mark and Stephen, the celebrities who will transform into Traitors and Faithfuls include fellow actors Ruth Codd, Celia Imrie and Tameka Empson.

Comedians Alan Carr, Nick Mohammed, Joe Wilkinson and Lucy Beaumont will also take part, joining singers Paloma Faith, Cat Burns and Charlotte Church.

Also confirmed for the show are presenters Jonathan Ross, Clare Balding and Kate Garraway and rounding out the cast are Olympic diver Tom Daley, rugby player Joe Marler, historian and writer David Olusoga and YouTuber Niko Omilana. 

And as anticipation builds for the first ever UK celebrity iteration, the salaries of the high-profile cast were recently revealed by The Rest Is Entertainment podcast.

Rather than being paid individual wages, all of the celebrities were paid the same £40,000 fee to appear on the show, according to journalist Marina Hyde.

‘It’s certainly interesting to compare something like Celebrity Traitors on the BBC to I’m a Celebrity on ITV,’ she told her co-host Richard Osman while discussing BBC wages generally.

‘Although we haven’t seen the celebrity iteration yet, but we know it’s gonna be massive. Look at the calibre of the people they got.’

‘They were able to pay everybody a blanket 40k fee, right? I am spilling all my tea today. They’re paying them a 40k fee,’ she shared.

Pointless host Richard, 54, compared it to The White Lotus – where the celebrity cast were all paid a base rate of $40,000 (£29,000) per episode, not any individual rates.

‘It’s like White Lotus when everyone got paid the same, they got paid much less than you would normally do,’ he said before hastening to add that ‘everyone is massively overpaid in the entertainment business’.

Richard then teased that he knows someone who has seen the first episode, describing it as ‘amazing’ as he hinted fans won’t be disappointed.

Filming for the Celebrity Traitors kicked off at the end of April as the cast were seen arriving at Inverness Airport, and shooting has already wrapped for the show.

Though the exact release date has not yet been confirmed, it is expected to land on the BBC in autumn 2025.

BBC bosses took extra precautions to keep the cast under wraps ahead of its reveal, following a series of leaks. 

According to The Sun, executives put in place a military-style operation to transport the all-star cast to Ardross Castle. 

And a no-fly zone was in place over host Claudia’s Highlands HQ to stop drone photographers from securing any images.

A source told the publication: ‘For a show with secrecy and shocking plot twists at its heart, navigating the celebrity version has been a real puzzler.

‘Casting the likes of TV presenter Kate Garraway, former rugby star Joe Marler, and singer Paloma Faith creates a situation which is a lot more open to leaks and gossip than recruiting a call centre manager from Liverpool or a retired opera singer.

‘So execs have worked really hard to lock down every inch of the production.’