Alan Cumming Shares Secrets From ‘The Traitors’ and Beyond in Parade’s Exclusive Cover Story

February 28, 2025 at 08:30 AM EST

The Traitors Emmy winner reveals how he celebrated his big win, what changes are ahead for Season 4 and why he’s not slowing down at 60.

Link to cover story

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Parade, the premium legacy entertainment and lifestyle brand, released its latest cover story featuring an unfiltered, exclusive interview with actor, producer and director Alan Cumming. In the interview, the Emmy- and Tony Award-winner dishes on the contestants and his costumes on The Traitors, which became the No. 1 unscripted TV series in the U.S., why he could die happy never being in Cabaret again and what it’s like being 60.

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Alan Cumming Shares Secrets From ‘The Traitors’ and Beyond in Parade’s Exclusive Cover Story (Photo: Business Wire)

Read the full interview here. Video link here. Notable quotes are below.

On his Emmy win (for The Traitors): “It’s very affirming about just going with your gut, you know? I loved the show from the start, and it's very reassuring when something you really like and nobody else can understand why you're doing it, all of a sudden becomes this huge juggernaut of a success.”

After his Emmy win, he says, “I just went to a little vegan diner that I love called Vegan Glory. It's just in a little strip mall. I went there with my husband while the Emmys were still on. I got all my glam clothes off. I got changed in the car into my sweatpants. Then the next day I was back in Scotland filming.”

On being 60: "I like being this age. It's very exciting. In the same way that I subvert the form of a competition reality show host on The Traitors, I hope I'm also subverting the expectations of what you're supposed to be like when you turn 60. In terms of myself and my body, everything's still working. I sort of joke that I keep waiting for something to fall off like an old car or to stop feeling horny or to stop being curious. I think that's the thing. I'm just curious about life, and so it doesn't feel like I've changed much.”

On possible future Traitors contestants: “I bet some of the [Spice Girls] would go on. I think it’d be hilarious actually. [Martha Stewart is] very resourceful, very wily. She’s got all the qualities. I think she’d be a hoot. I would have liked Snoop Dogg, but I don’t want him now,” he says, referencing the rapper’s performance at Trump’s inauguration. “What the hell, Snoop Dogg?”

On a Romy and Michele sequel: "I think it's happening. I think it has to do with misogyny in Hollywood that the film has not been made into a sequel already. If it was two men in a successful film like that, they would have made many sequels, and as those men get older we would have thought, 'Oh, they're still handsome,' but there's a thing about seeing older women carrying a film."

On never doing Cabaret again: “I could die happy never being in Cabaret again. People always want me to sing songs from Cabaret. The number of times I'm hosting these awards, and people say, ‘Wouldn't it be a great idea if you sang “Willkommen”?’ I was like, ‘Nope. No. Never.’ Cabaret has been so good to me and changed my life really, but I think I'm a moving-on kind of person. I feel a bit embarrassed by resting on my laurels.”

On queerness and politics on TV: "It wasn't a good look at all for a trans woman of color to be the first person put off [of The Traitors Season 2]," Cumming says about the unconscious biases that led to Peppermint's exit. "That happened, and it wasn't through any sort of blatant malice, but nonetheless, it just hurt. I was hurt by that. It hurt my sense of the way the world should be. But prior to that, I had said, there are not enough queer people on this show. That's why we've got so many queer people on this season, just giving more visibility to queer people. Especially now with what's happening with [Donald] Trump's America. If people are scared of something because they don't feel comfortable with it, or they don't know people who are trans, I think seeing them on television, hopefully, will make you think that they're not so scary, and why are you being asked to hate them so much?”

"I would say I understand how you have got to the place you are," Cumming says, directing a message to the show's more conservative viewers. "I think a lot of people are angry and didn't know where to put their anger and along came this person who offered you places and people to place your anger. But I would ask that if you love The Traitors, and you love the contestants and you love the theatricality, and frankly the queerness, of the show then maybe you should connect that to how you vote. Your government is persecuting some of the people that you love on this program.”

On spilling secrets: "I'm the worst person at keeping a secret," he says. After returning to New York following Season 1's filming, Cumming was having a drink with a comedian at his bar Club Cumming. “He said, 'Oh, I hear you just did this reality show,'" Cumming remembers. "And I'm like, 'Yes, it's such fun.' And he went, 'Oh, I absolutely love Cirie [Fields],' and I went, 'Oh she wins.' I just told him. He still talks about it apparently, that I just ruined it for him. I understand now the water-cooler effect of the show, how important it is for everyone to be watching it together at the same time.”

To read this story, or any of previous Parade cover stories, click here.

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