The Traitors Host Alan Cumming Remembers A Frightening Moment With The Contestants

Peacock reality show "The Traitors" is a murderous game of deception and deceit, a complex web of lies and manipulation that's utterly juicy to experience. Under the watchful eye of host Alan Cumming, the show puts various reality stars and minor celebrities together in a Scottish castle, encouraging them to backstab and betray one another in pursuit of a monetary prize. 

Cumming, best known as an actor, told The Hollywood Reporter that he views his deviously-entertaining, dashingly-dressed hosting persona as just another role. "I act my socks off in 'The Traitors,' just like I did on 'The Good Wife,'" he insisted. But Cumming really had to put those Tony-winning acting skills to the test during one frightening moment in Season 2. That season concluded with a challenge that required the remaining contestants to raise a sail aboard a boat in the middle of a Scottish loch, but as they were filming, a storm struck. 

"Me, the contestants, and some of the crew ended up going on this two-hour journey in a f***ing mental storm," he revealed to Buzzfeed. While "Below Deck" star Kate Chastain was used to choppy waters, not everyone else had their sea legs. "Things careening off the shelves, people upstairs vomiting, and the cameras falling into the sea," he recalled. "And then Kate and I just shooting the breeze and having whiskey."

Alan Cumming is used to high-stress situations while filming "The Traitors." In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Cumming explained the tense selection process in each season premiere that reveals which contestants will play the game as "Traitors" — the ones who "murder" their competitors each night in secret (if you like reality-show scheming, here are 12 shows like "The Traitors" you need to watch).

In each season premiere, Cumming walks around the show's iconic Round Table, tapping blindfolded contestants on the shoulder if they've been selected. "They have those blindfolds on for a long time, like 40 minutes or something. And I go around, around, around," he said. There's a lot of pressure to do it right, because the selected Traitors determine the course of the game. "It's actually one of these moments in the show where I'm terrified," Cumming confessed. "It's terrifying in case I f*** up." Thankfully, it seems that the show films him touching every single contestant on the shoulder, just in case they need the shot. Then he does it for real.

Mostly, though, Cumming loves to laugh on set. Appearing on a panel for the show at Televerse (via Instagram), he admitted, "There's nothing funnier to me than a Housewife getting wet, honestly. Like, a Housewife falling into a loch off a pontoon. I'm like, see you tomorrow."

Those tense moments Alan Cumming experiences on "The Traitors" pale in comparison to how much he loves his job. This has been quite a critically-acclaimed gig, and in 2024, all that hard work paid off with an Emmy win. He took home "Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality Competition Program," which was handed out at the Creative Arts Emmys — while Cumming was fast asleep.

He shared a shirtless Instagram selfie from bed the next morning, writing that he'd been dreaming about his alarm clock going off too early. "Of course the reason I was dreaming this is that my phone had been buzzing constantly for about twenty minutes with people trying to tell me I had won the Emmy!" he wrote. Cumming rattled off everyone he would have thanked had he been there, concluding with his husband. "Thank you forever to Grant Shaffer who supports and loves me in everything I do and will always receive the most votes in my castle," he wrote.

The next week, "The Traitors" picked up "Outstanding Reality Competition Program," and that award was televised; Cumming himself accepted the statue onstage. "I want to thank ... the cast and crew, who works so hard and gets so wet [in the] Scottish weather," he said (via YouTube), perhaps thinking about that stormy boat experience. "I also want to thank Scotland," he added. "I owe it everything and it's such a beautiful co-star."