Claudia Winkleman has announced that she is leaving her own chat show after just one season.
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The popular host debuted The Claudia Winkleman Show in March and ran for seven episodes. Guests included Jeff Goldblum, Niall Horan, Lisa Kudrow and James McAvoy. The show was produced by Graham Norton’s production company, So Television, but received mixed reviews. Now, Winkleman has announced that she will not be returning, citing anxiety as the reason for her departure.
“I’m incredibly grateful to the BBC for giving me the opportunity, to the guests who agreed to come and chat to me, and the production team who were simply excellent,” Winkleman said in a statement. “Sometimes you have to try something to see how it fits, and I realised I was just too nervous to enjoy it. Maybe one day I will give it another try, but for now I already have the best jobs in the world and absolutely love the shows I’m doing.”
Those shows include the UK version of The Traitors as well as its celebrity edition, and music competition show The Piano, which recently began its fourth season. Variety has reported that the decision to leave was Winkleman’s rather than the BBC’s.
The fourth season of The Traitors UK aired in January, and made NME’s list of the best shows of 2026 so far. “It was always a tough ask to top Alan Carr’s tears and Celia Imrie’s fart from 2025’s Celebrity Traitors, but the fourth season of The Traitors UK delivered,” the show’s entry explained. “This mere mortals version gave us a secret traitor (Fiona, wickedly brilliant), a boyfriend-girlfriend mystery (Ellie-Ross) and the first ever joint winners (Rachel-Stephen), as the game spilled over with tensions. Yes, the tasks are still annoying, but the fashions (Stephen’s trousers, anyone?) and the foul-ups (Hugo’s exit) were what made it.”
English (US) · 