CELEBRITY TRAITORS STARS CRITICISE BBC PROMOTIONAL HEADSHOTS

Comedian Rob Beckett and presenter Maya Jama have criticised the headshots the BBC is using to promote The Celebrity Traitors. Beckett said he thought "there's a traitor in the photoshop department", asking: "What the f*** has happened to my face?" Jama, who appears alongside him in the series, said the broadcaster had "done us all dirty" with her image. Beckett's wife and Parenting Hell co-host, Lou, joked that she would use artificial intelligence to replace his photographs at home with the new image. The comments follow separate criticism from comedian Joanne McNally, who said she had been left out of the show's trailers.

McNally wrote on Instagram that she was "starting to think" she had not actually been on the programme, calling it "a fever dream". She said that each time a trailer was released for the series, she was absent from the footage, despite it being "the biggest thing" she had done in her career. Other comedians confirmed for the series include Joe Lycett, Romesh Ranganathan and Miranda Hart, alongside actors Bella Ramsey, Michael Sheen and Richard E Grant. Ramsey is known for The Last of Us, Sheen for The Damned United and Grant for Withnail and I.

The Celebrity Traitors is scheduled to begin on BBC on 1 October, bringing the format of The Traitors to a celebrity line-up. The criticism of the promotional headshots and trailers has emerged in the days before the launch. Beckett and Jama used social media to question publicly the images chosen to represent them, while McNally raised separately her exclusion from trailer footage. The series brings together an ensemble of comedians and established actors ahead of its debut.