Lord Ivar Mountbatten brought a genuinely singular résumé to Season 3 of The Traitors, one built on royal proximity and a personal history that made him one of the more unusual casting gets in the show’s history.
His connection to the British monarchy is close enough that few American reality shows have ever had a cast member like him.
A Second Cousin of King Charles III
Lord Ivar Alexander Michael Mountbatten is a second cousin of King Charles III, and further back, a third cousin once removed of the late Queen Elizabeth II and a first cousin once removed of Prince Philip, making him one of the closest members of the extended British royal family to ever appear on an American reality competition show.
The First Openly Gay Royal Relative
Mountbatten is also documented as the first openly gay member of the monarch’s extended family, a fact that’s been reported across UK and US press well before his Traitors appearance. He married his husband, James Coyle, in a small ceremony in 2018, following years, by his own account, of concealing his attraction to men earlier in his life.
Part of the First Four-Way Win
In the game itself, Mountbatten played the full season as a Faithful and was part of the surviving group that reached the finale and correctly banished the last remaining Traitor, Britney Haynes, to end the season. That result made him one of the four co-winners alongside Dolores Catania, Dylan Efron, and Gabby Windey, the first four-way Faithful win in the American version’s history, and NBC and other outlets covered the moment through interviews with all four winners about how the unusual ending played out.
Life Since the Finale
Since the finale, Mountbatten has discussed the experience in interviews, including how he and his fellow winners chose to spend their share of the prize money. What makes him a unique case in this cast isn’t gameplay technique. It’s that he’s arguably the single most unusual casting choice the show has ever made, a titled member of the British aristocracy playing a format built around court-intrigue-style betrayal, who happens to also be a genuine historical first within his own family.