Prince William gave himself away within seconds of meeting the actor Ross Kemp in Ilminster, Somerset, on Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026. The Prince of Wales, in town to launch a national emergency preparedness project, reached out, rubbed Kemp’s arm and laughed — a gag that revealed how closely he and his wife, Kate Middleton, the Princess of Wales, have been following “Celebrity Traitors.”
Nobody watching the BBC series needed the joke explained. Leigh-Anne Pinnock, a fellow contestant, rubbed Kemp’s arm as the two crossed paths over drinks at the castle, and the filmmaker and actor — an ambassador for the National Emergencies Trust — turned visibly jumpy on screen. His fear, he said afterward, was that Pinnock was trying to “murder” him in plain sight — the subtle, public move the traitors use to eliminate a faithful. On the show, Kemp has acknowledged that the possibility has left him deeply uneasy.
Why William Touched Kemp’s Arm
The prince came back to the gag later, resting a hand on Kemp’s shoulder for photographs. Then he went digging for information. “Do you watch The Traitors? I’m going to get the answer to what happens and I am going to tell you all later,” William joked to a group of young people in the town, adding: “Spoiler alert today… he’s here…” Kemp, smiling, would say only: “I am a faithful.”
A Night In With Kate
Given the show’s place in his home life, the hunt for a spoiler tracks. Royal biographer Robert Hardman, in his book “Elizabeth II: In Private. In Public. The Inside Story,” wrote that King Charles still enjoys staying up late writing letters, while a member of William’s team put the prince’s idea of a fun evening as sitting down “with the Princess” in front of “The Traitors.”
Daily Mail royal editor Rebecca English, speaking on the YouTube program Palace Confidential, said of the Prince and Princess of Wales: “Now, William and Catherine are massive Traitors fans. I can tell you that now. They love the programme. Absolutely glued to it.”
The habit runs through the whole Wales household. William presented Stephen Lambert, whose production company makes the show, with his OBE at Windsor Castle on Oct. 8, 2025, and the conversation turned to the first celebrity series, which premiered that evening. “He said he and the family were very much looking forward to watching it,” Lambert recalled. “It was going to be a big treat for them and probably for the nation, he expected.” The couple have three children: Prince George, 13, Princess Charlotte, 11, and Prince Louis, eight.
William has let his wife’s viewing tastes slip before. At a charity gala in 2019 he told Claudia Winkleman, now the host of “The Traitors,” that he had watched “Strictly Come Dancing” a couple of times. “Catherine is a huge fan and my mother-in-law loves it,” he said.
The royal audience did not faze Kemp. Asked about William and Kate watching at home, he said: “That’s great. Them and the rest of the country. I’ve been on the TV for 43 years but I’ve never known anything like this.”
Kemp is competing in the second celebrity series alongside 20 other contestants, each chasing a £100,000 prize for a charity of their choice. Claudia Winkleman presents, sending the field after the traitors hidden among them while challenges build the pot. Survive to the final as a traitor and you take the lot; the faithfuls leave with nothing.
That second run is getting record audiences “with big numbers tuning in to see the start of this series.” Kemp’s jumpy moment has pulled in almost as much attention as Richard E Grant declaring he was a Traitor moments after getting the role — a revelation that made headlines because traitors are meant to keep their identity secret.
What the Ready Together Toolkit Does
The National Emergencies Trust built Ready Together, a toolkit meant to help communities across the U.K. prepare for and respond to crises including flooding and wildfires, and the visit itself centered on it. Any size of community can use it, with the contents shaped around local risks and needs. A Kensington Palace release framed the project as a way to close a gap: willingness to help a neighbor in a crisis is widespread, while confidence that local structures and plans would actually work is far rarer.
Patron of the trust since 2020, William, 44, attended the Somerset engagement in that role “to showcase new equipment being rolled out to assist those affected by flooding throughout the winter.” He and Kemp met the trust’s chief executive, Mhairi Sharp, during the day. “Being prepared for anything is better than being unprepared,” Kemp told the Press Association ahead of the visit. Communities rallied during the COVID-19 pandemic, he noted, then asked how much stronger that effort might have been had people known in advance which neighbors could help where.
From a Cafe to the Fire Station
Local volunteers and young people joined the prince and Kemp for a hands-on training exercise. One emergency scenario followed another, each probing whether knowledge of the neighborhood, the relationships people had already built and the networks already in place would hold once disruption arrived. Organizers picked Ilminster because residents and local organizations are already cooperating in exactly that way, working to shield those most at risk.
Community leaders and business owners met William at Sweet Surprise. The cafe provides work opportunities for adults with learning disabilities, and it stepped in to help the town during flooding. He also heard from the Ilminster Resilience Group, which supported residents through severe flooding. At Ilminster Fire Station, Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service crews showed him the mapping and forecasting tools they use against a growing wildfire risk.
Before Somerset, the prince had visited flood-hit farming areas in Wales and England, among them Skenfrith in southeast Wales and Herefordshire. The spoiler, meanwhile, eluded him. He left Ilminster knowing no more about how the series ends than when he arrived, which leaves him and the princess to find out like the rest of the country.
