Julie Hesmondhalgh Just Revealed Her Celebrity Traitors Co-Star Was Pregnant the Whole Time, and Nobody Had a Clue

The round table keeps delivering, but the biggest Celebrity Traitors twist this week did not happen inside Ardross Castle. It happened on a bright BBC Breakfast sofa on Monday morning, when Coronation Street legend Julie Hesmondhalgh casually revealed that fellow contestant Leigh-Anne Pinnock had been pregnant for the entire time they were filming together in the Scottish Highlands. And not a single one of her castmates knew.

The 56-year-old actress, banished from the castle in the latest episode, appeared on the morning show hours after her exit aired and gave hosts Jon Kay and Sally Nugent an inside look at life behind the castle walls. She talked banishments, bluffing and game plans, or in her case the complete absence of one. But it was her confession about the Little Mix star that stopped the conversation mid sentence.

“I just could not believe it”

Hesmondhalgh became the third celebrity to be banished this series, following Richard E Grant and Myha’la, and she admitted she saw it coming. She told the presenters she would have voted herself out too, and said she was oddly relieved to leave through the round table rather than be “murdered” overnight, because at least it meant she got to face her fellow players and have her say before walking out.

She confessed she had arrived with no game plan whatsoever, and admitted to feeling starstruck in the company of names like Michael Sheen and Jerry Hall. Asked who had been playing the quietest game, she pointed to Sheen and Romesh Ranganathan as the ones to keep an eye on.

Then came the moment that turned the interview on its head. Talk turned to Leigh-Anne Pinnock, and Hesmondhalgh described the singer as quiet, gorgeous and a genuinely beautiful person. She predicted Pinnock could go a long way in the competition, then let slip the news she had only learned after filming wrapped: Pinnock had been pregnant throughout the shoot. She said she was sure the pregnancy had been going on the whole time they were recording, that she could not believe none of them had noticed, and that she had no idea how Pinnock pulled it off on the little sleep the cast were getting. When co-host Sally Nugent pressed her on the prediction, she laughed it off, insisting it was not inside information, just pure vibes.

In a final flourish of honesty, the actress revealed she has already removed herself from the show’s cast WhatsApp group. Proof that in the world of The Traitors, some exits really are permanent.

A secret hidden in plain sight

What makes the revelation so remarkable is that Pinnock’s pregnancy was never actually a secret from the public. The former Little Mix singer announced it herself back in July, in an emotional Instagram video filmed in a recording studio. Set to her own song “Heaven”, the clip ended with the camera pulling back to reveal her cradling a growing baby bump, alongside the caption: “As one chapter ends, another begins.”

Former bandmates Perrie Edwards and Jade Thirlwall were among the first to flood the comments with congratulations. The baby will be the third child for Pinnock, 34, and her footballer husband Andre Gray, who married in Jamaica in 2023 after seven years together. The couple are already parents to twin daughters, born in August 2021, whose names and faces they have deliberately kept out of the public eye.

The timeline is what makes Hesmondhalgh’s story click into place. The Celebrity Traitors was filmed months before it began airing on October 1, which means Pinnock would have been well into her pregnancy while competing in the castle. Since her announcement she has barely slowed down. She performed with her bump on full display at Brighton Pride on August 1, decorating her belly with tiny jewels. She wowed crowds at the Lazydays Festival in Southend-on-Sea. And she walked the runway for Di Petsa at London Fashion Week in a theatrical motherhood-themed look, all flowing fabric and sprayed liquid, afterwards calling it probably the most empowered she had ever felt. She explained that after keeping things conservative during her first pregnancy, this time she wanted the bump front and centre.

By early September she was sharing third-trimester updates with fans, describing how quickly things were progressing. The baby is expected before the end of the year, which means it could arrive while the show is still on air.

Pregnant, sleep-deprived and playing the game of her life

Anyone who has watched The Traitors knows the castle is no place for rest. The missions are physical, the paranoia is constant and, according to Hesmondhalgh, the cast were running on very little sleep. Doing all of that while carrying a child, and keeping it from twenty fellow celebrities, takes a level of composure most reality stars can only dream of.

It also adds a fascinating layer to Pinnock’s game. As a Faithful, her job is to spot deception while staying above suspicion herself. If she was quietly managing pregnancy symptoms, broken sleep and gruelling missions, all while reading the room for traitors, her fellow players may have been underestimating her from day one.

Hesmondhalgh certainly seems to think so. Her prediction that Pinnock could go far was delivered with the confidence of someone who has watched her operate up close, even if she did rush to add that it was feeling rather than a spoiler.

Julie’s bittersweet farewell

For Hesmondhalgh, the exit marked the end of a short but memorable stint. Best known to millions as Hayley Cropper, Coronation Street’s groundbreaking first transgender character, a role she played from 1998 to 2014, she brought warmth and candour to a game built on suspicion.

Her honesty about having no strategy at all may have sealed her fate at the round table, but it also made her one of the most likeable players of the series so far. And in classic Traitors fashion, her parting gift was not a dramatic accusation but a piece of gossip that has given fans a whole new reason to rewatch every episode.

If Pinnock was hiding a pregnancy under everyone’s noses, the question now is a simple one. What else is the castle hiding? With episodes airing every Thursday and Friday on BBC One, viewers do not have long to wait to find out.

More from CineVibe

• Harry Styles Just Credited an Ex-Girlfriend With Changing His Life
• Naomi Campbell Just Won the Fight to Clear Her Name
• Katie Price Handcuffed to Suella Braverman in Channel 4’s Wildest Celebrity Pairing Yet

Sources

• Edinburgh Live: Celebrity Traitors star opens up on co-star’s pregnancy
• JustJared: Leigh-Anne Pinnock bares baby bump at Brighton Pride