Former England rugby player Joe Marler was a standout star of the first-ever Celebrity Traitors and was quick to correct rumours about how much he actually earned for his appearance
Joe Marler revealed he earned £30,000 for his appearance on The Celebrity Traitors last year. The former England rugby star emerged as the breakout star of the hit BBC spin-off series, which was broadcast between October and November 2025.
Marler made it to the final episode of the programme but ultimately couldn’t persuade his fellow ‘Faithfuls’ that Alan Carr was a ‘Traitor’, resulting in his elimination from the game in a late twist that crowned Carr the winner of a prize sum for charity.
Despite enduring disappointment on the show’s first Celebrity edition, the Harlequins icon was reported to have earned a substantial fee for his participation. Unlike the regular series, which wraps up this week, the celebrities received a flat-rate for taking part instead of a daily rate.
Richard Osman and journalist Marina Hyde appeared to reveal the details on their podcast The Rest Is Entertainment last year, with Hyde claiming everyone received the same payment of £40,000 for the nine one-hour episodes, shot over three weeks in a Scottish highlands castle.
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“They were able to pay everybody a blanket £40k fee, right? I am spilling all my tea today. They’re paying them a £40k fee,” Marina said. However, Marler revealed after the show concluded that this wasn’t accurate.
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When asked by The Times about his earnings and the rumoured £40,000 sum, Marler replied: “Yeah, Daisy (his wife) read that too. She said to me, ‘Hold on, I thought you only got 30?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I did.'”
He then explained that he didn’t believe they all received identical payments. That didn’t bother him, however, as £30,000 was still a substantial sum of money.
“No, I don’t think everyone got paid the same,” Marler added. “But I’m not bothered. It was 30 grand whether you lasted two days or three weeks – a no-brainer.”
Marler, throughout his stellar 15-year rugby union career, is reported to have accumulated nearly £4million, courtesy of his sponsorship deals, podcast, various other projects and his last contract, which earned him £450,000-a-year.
The 35-year-old made it to the final stages despite the Faithfuls’ dismal showing throughout the series, where they struggled at multiple roundtables before eventually succeeding in eliminating a traitor in Jonathan Ross.
Marler was the only Faithful to accurately identify Cat Burns and Carr as the surviving Traitors, captivating viewers with his unique character and remarkable investigating abilities in the process before becoming a target himself.
Since then, the former England prop has become one of the real success stories of the programme thanks to his soaring fame, which has created new opportunities for him following his rugby retirement in 2024.
One such example is his new podcast, Joe Marler Will See You Now. The podcast, which launched in November, sees Marler welcoming famous guests to his ‘clinic’ for mock psychological assessments.
