Peacock’s The Traitors is always a star-studded event, but it turns out not every famous person who gets offered a spot wants to play the game.
The hit reality series, which premiered in the U.S. in 2023, brings together reality TV stars and other notable personalities to compete in a mafia-style game for up to $250,000. Season 1 was a mix of celebrities such as Arie Luyendyk Jr., Brandi Glanville, Cirie Fields, Cody Calafiore, Kate Chastain, Kyle Cooke, Rachel Reilly and Reza Farahan and people from the general public.
Season 2, meanwhile, featured only celebs, including Sandra Diaz-Twine, Janelle Pierzina, Peter Weber, Maksim Chmerkovskiy, Trishelle Cannatella, Phaedra Parks, Parvati Shallow, Kevin Kreider, Deontay Wilder, John Bercow, Dan Gheesling, Marcus Jordan, Shereé Whitfield, Tamra Judge and Chris Tamburello.
As the show continued to grow in popularity, the third installment was its most popular yet as viewers tuned in to see Wells Adams, Gabby Windey, Ciara Miller, Chrishell Stause, Jeremy Collins, Carolyn Wiger, Tony Vlachos, Bob the Drag Queen, Britney Haynes, Danielle Reyes, Bob Harper, Dylan Efron, Lord Ivar Mountbatten, Sam Asghari and Nikki Bella.
Rob “Boston Rob” Mariano, Wes Bergmann and Derrick Levasseur later joined to round out the cast. Host Alan Cumming previously told Us Weekly that he even has people pitching themselves as possible players.
“I have a constant barrage of reality stars now in my DMs and in my life asking me to be on The Traitors,” Cumming, 60, exclusively shared with Us in April 2025. “It’s not something I thought would be my life, but it is.”
But just because celebrities are offered a spot on the show doesn’t mean they take it. Nene Leakes, Nick Viall and more have claimed that they turned down the opportunity for a variety of reasons. Keep scrolling to see who turned down a trip to the Scottish castle:
“I was asked to do Traitors — I was really excited about doing it, by the way,” Leakes said on the “Humble Brag With Crystal and Cynthia” podcast in July 2025. “I couldn’t do Traitors because my son is in the hospital and he’s still in the hospital. My son’s been in the hospital since May.”
NeNe’s younger son, Brentt, was previously hospitalized in October 2022 after suffering congestive heart failure and a stroke. Brentt, whom NeNe shared with late husband Gregg Leakes, received a heart transplant in July 2024 and was hospitalized again that October. One year later, Brentt’s “heart started rejecting” the implant and he was back in the hospital for treatment to “stop the rejection.”
“I kept thinking maybe Brentt would be much better [by June],” she added in July 2025. “My fear was committing and then having to go back to them and say, I can’t do it. So that was never going to work. Brentt was very sick. It was no way I could have committed to it. And I believe you have to go out of the country [to film the show].”
During an episode of his “Viall Files” podcast in July 2025, Viall confirmed he was asked to join but he “couldn’t make it work” because he “was booked and busy” professionally.
Matt Rogers
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The comedian and actor worried about getting “the villain edit.”
“I’m too easy to cut into. I will just give them so many clips that they could put together to be like, ‘This bitch,’” he said on “The Viall Files” in July 2025.
Bowen Yang
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Rogers revealed he was offered a spot along with his “Las Culturistas” podcast cohost Yang, which was part of why he said no.
“They had reached out to Bowen and I initially about season 3. The one Chrishell Stause was on,” he explained on the “Viall Files” podcast. “I know what would have happened had they put Bowen and I on the same season. 100 percent one of us would have been a Traitor and one of us would have been a Faithful. We can’t have that. That would have gotten so sad.”
