Maya Jama's run on The Celebrity Traitors could come undone at next week's finale, after a body language expert identified a habit at the Round Table that he says may expose her as a Traitor at any moment.
The BBC's celebrity series, hosted as ever from a Scottish castle by Claudia Winkleman, reaches its conclusion next week in what will be the longest episode the format has yet produced. Jama, the Love Island presenter hiding in plain sight alongside fellow Traitors James Acaster and King Kenny, has so far survived every banishment. According to WalesOnline, that luck may be running out, and for a reason nobody in the castle has yet noticed.
The habit that could give Maya Jama away
Body language expert Sean Johns, speaking to WalesOnline's publisher Reach, has flagged what he calls a tell: at the Round Table, where banishment votes are decided, Jama goes still.
“Maya has a habit at the Round Table, and once a habit gets noticed it becomes a tell,” Johns said.
He described the pattern in detail: chin on her hand while Romesh Ranganathan discussed Rob Beckett, fingers clasped under her chin while Kenny turned on Hannah Fry, the same clasp during Joe Lycett's questioning of James Blunt, and again through Acaster's vote and after Joe's reveal. Eyes fixed, nothing else moving.
“It isn't boredom,” Johns said. “Stillness like that is concentration: the body switching off its small movements so nothing leaks while the mind listens hard.”
The contrast, he argued, is what makes it dangerous. Away from the table Jama is arms aloft at the mission gate, loose and laughing in the turret. At the one table where the vote is decided, the gestures drain away. Johns suggested that a live presenter is trained to hold a neutral face while a producer talks in her ear, and that Jama has brought that professional discipline into the castle, where it reads as management.
Fans already suspected the fake yawns
The warning comes after a week in which viewers had already begun to smell blood. In the latest episode, the Traitors were tasked with murdering in plain sight by coaxing a Faithful into yawning, and many fans found Jama's yawning transparently theatrical. The Mirror reported that viewers believe her pretend yawning was “too obvious” and that she could be rumbled immediately if she is not careful.
The Independent also carried viewer speculation that Jama may have exposed herself as a Traitor during the task, while further fan speculation online has focused on the same challenge.
Not everyone agrees the game is up. Writing in the BBC's own coverage, Amol Rajan praised Jama's performance in Metro as a revelation, noting that she has zero heat on her, that her feigned innocence to win a shield was genius, and that she has ruthlessly banished two fellow Traitors, Richard and Hannah. The presenter, in other words, has form for cutting loose those who might cut loose from her.
The steering and the heart on the card
Johns points to more than stillness. Thursday's table, he noted, opened with Jama asking “Why don't we talk about Rob not being here?”, which he called a Traitor walking the room straight to her own murder in a Faithful's voice. At Joe's reveal, both her hands went over her mouth, exactly as Miranda Hart's did beside her; matching the Faithful next to you, he said, is how a Traitor stays invisible.
Then there is the human cost. Jama wrote “Hannah” with a heart on her card and said “This one hurts”, and Hannah Fry has since said publicly that Jama gave herself away. In the turret she has had to urge Acaster to “stay a little bit treacherous”, and she now describes Kenny as the one who “will actually just do all the jobs” while she holds the broom.
“Her danger isn't her face. It's that sooner or later someone asks why she's so still,” Johns said. “My advice to Maya: move a little. A hand that's gesturing is a hand that isn't hiding anything.”
James Acaster may be the weaker link
Johns saved a warning, too, for the comedian James Acaster, whose quietness and reluctance to commit fully to treachery he believes could land him in trouble.
“Quiet is survivable. Quiet plus a face that turns away from every vote is a pattern,” he said. “The tension is inside the Traitors.”
Acaster, in Johns's reading, is already the third wheel in his own team, and his danger is Kenny himself: relaxed and chatty beside him, the discomfort will show more, not less.
There is something rather British about all of this, and something the producers understand well. The Traitors works because it is a study in manners, in the small betrayals of posture and politeness that no amount of showbusiness training can fully suppress. The castle rewards those who keep their nerve and punishes those who overreach, and the Round Table, like the boardrooms and committee rooms of this country's long institutional history, is a place where stillness is read as calculation.
Whether the Faithful cotton on before the prize money is decided is another matter. The finale airs next week on BBC One, and it will be the longest episode the series has yet seen. If Jama is to take the money as a Traitor, she may need to do what no broadcaster ever does on camera: stop holding her face and start moving her hands.
FAQ
Who are the Traitors in The Celebrity Traitors?
Maya Jama, James Acaster and King Kenny are the Traitors in the current BBC series, working to banish the Faithful without being detected.
Why might Maya Jama be exposed?
Body language expert Sean Johns told WalesOnline that her habit of going still at the Round Table, in contrast to her usual liveliness elsewhere in the castle, could be noticed as a tell.
When is The Celebrity Traitors finale?
The finale airs next week on BBC One and will be the longest episode the series has seen to date.