Spoiler alert: This story reveals the outcome of “The Celebrity Traitors” Season 2 finale, now streaming on BBC iPlayer.

Maya Jama may not have won “The Celebrity Traitors,” but she came within touching distance of the endgame after spending five weeks hiding in plain sight.

The “Love Island” host was the only original Traitor to reach the final episode. Along the way, she recruited comedian James Acaster, professor Hannah Fry and YouTuber King Kenny, while avoiding suspicion from the Faithfuls until the final roundtable.

That changed when “Good Omens” star Michael Sheen focused on Jama, leading to her banishment shortly before the endgame. Looking back on her remarkably long escape from scrutiny, Jama admitted she was surprised that nobody had identified her sooner.

“It was actually quite shocking for me too, I’m not gonna lie,” she told Variety the day after the finale. “After every day I was like, ‘How the fuck did I get away with that one? And why are you not looking at me?’”

Inside the heated final roundtable

Jama watched the finale with a group of guests months after filming took place in May. Although she remembered the broad events, she did not know which moments would appear in the finished episode and was particularly anxious to see how she handled the pressure of the last roundtable.

“I remember feeling my heart jumping out of my chest at every moment,” she said, adding that the confrontation felt even more heated during filming than it appeared on television. After watching it back, however, Jama said she was proud that she had maintained her composure.

Her parting message after being banished — “Good luck, you’re going to need it” — later contributed to James Blunt being removed from the endgame. Jama said that, with her game over, she felt the remaining players would have to fend for themselves.

Kenny’s vote against Jama also helped seal her exit, but she holds no grudge against her recruited ally. She said he appeared to have little choice once the room turned against her, because defending her would also have exposed him. Kenny was subsequently voted out.

The remaining Faithfuls, comedian Romesh Ranganathan and actor-singer Sebastian Croft, emerged victorious. Each donated £41,500 ($55,600) to a charity of their choice.

Jama has also decided to donate the amount she would have won to Action for Children, the charity she was supporting. The organization provides foster care and residential support for children and young people seeking asylum in the U.K.

“Obviously, I would have loved to get to the [endgame], but the whole point is money going to charity at the end of the day,” she said.

How Jama stayed undetected

Jama entered the game split over whether she wanted to become a Faithful or a Traitor, though she leaned toward the latter because it promised the fuller experience and a different personal challenge.

Her strategy was to behave naturally and build relationships. Before filming, she knew Kenny, Ranganathan, Rob Beckett and Leigh-Anne Pinnock, but said none knew her well enough to recognize when she was lying. As the cast grew closer, Jama believed that genuine bonding made it harder for the others to imagine she was deceiving them.

Her run also outlasted fellow original Traitor Richard E. Grant, who became the first person banished after mistakenly saying his role aloud. Jama said she would have enjoyed having Grant beside her for more mischief, but believed excitement and panic may have contributed to his mistake.

Acaster found the role much more difficult after being recruited and ultimately exposed himself at the penultimate roundtable. Jama said she had not known beforehand that he did not want to become a Traitor and acknowledged that balancing a charity game with the players’ real emotions was harder than it looked.

After Acaster’s departure, Jama felt her position had become desperate. She and Kenny chose to target Sheen because he was the player most suspicious of her and she did not believe she could change his mind.

Jama said the production became deeply immersive during three and a half weeks in a Scottish castle. Players received a five-minute daily phone call with producers present, but she said she skipped the calls to get more sleep after returning late from the turret each night. Even then, she estimated that she slept only three or four hours a night.

The roundtables were also longer and more intense than viewers saw. Jama said every contestant contributed, although only selected exchanges appeared onscreen. Sessions were intended to last an hour, but some ran for 90 minutes and one may have lasted two hours.

ShowBiz Take

Jama’s achievement was not simply reaching the finale; it was doing so as the sole surviving original Traitor without attracting meaningful suspicion until the final roundtable. Her account shows that the performance depended on more than quick thinking. Exhaustion, long confrontations and the emotional weight of close friendships all shaped a game in which deception became increasingly difficult to separate from real relationships.

She also left with those relationships intact. Kenny, Ranganathan, Croft and Fry were among the guests expected at her annual Halloween party, where Jama planned to dress as Olympic champion Mo Farah in a bald cap and an Olympic outfit he sent her. She said a cast group chat was created immediately after her departure, giving the contestants a private place to discuss the experience while bound by nondisclosure agreements.

For Jama, the lasting lesson was resilience. Despite minimal sleep and mounting stress, she said she was proud of how long she held her position — even if her five-week masterclass in staying undetected ended one roundtable too soon.