Kelly Brook became the first confirmed star for I’m A Celebrity 2025 after she landed in Australia claiming she was Down Under to visit her Auntie Sheila.
After years of turning down offers to take part in the jungle series, the model and broadcaster has finally agreed to enter the iconic ITV reality show. And, a source told The Sun, show bosses couldn’t be happier.
“They’ve been after Kelly as a campmate for years and think she could possibly be their sexiest contestant ever. She’s glamorous, witty and a familiar face to ITV audiences.”
But who is Kelly Brook? Just in case you’ve been living under a rock, here’s all we know…
What is Kelly Brook famous for?
Kelly Brook is a model, actress and presenter. She shot to fame as a Page Three girl and was named FHM’s Sexiest Woman in the World in 2005.
Her early modelling success led to numerous TV appearances, including on The Big Breakfast, Strictly Come Dancing and as a very short-lived judge on Britain’s Got Talent (but more on that later!).
She then transitioned into acting, appearing in films such as Ripper, Survival Island, Piranha 3D and Taking Stock. In recent years, she’s been a familiar voice on Heart FM, co-hosting the Drivetime show alongside Jason King since 2019. She’s also a regular panellist on Loose Women.
Kelly Brook’s modelling career and Page Three
It all began as a teenager. Kelly Brook won a beauty competition and her career had already started to set off.
She modelled for Walker’s Crisps, Bravissimo, and even Foster’s Lager!
She became a household name after her name was in the tabloids, and then Kelly Brook started posing for Page Three. Lads’ mags reached out, and she was then featured in the likes of Playboy, FHM, GQ and Laoaded.
But her Page Three days helped skyrocket her career into Hollywood – because Kelly Brook has movie credits to her name too.
The I’m A Celeb star has featured in a dozen films, from Piranha 3D, The Italian Job (reboot in 2003), Survival Island, Ripper: Letter From Hell and played herself in Keith Lemon: The Film.
Kelly tells fans ‘she’s no longer a young bikini model’
The former Page Three model actually issued a plea before her stint in I’m A Celebrity, with Kelly Brook asking fans to be kind.
She knew that her shower scenes would have all eyes on her, but wanted to remind viewers about the passage of time.
“Obviously, I am not a 20-year-old bikini model anymore. You know, life changes and your body changes,” she told The Mirror ahead of the jungle debut.
“And I just hope people are accepting of me and how I look now, and not comparing me to how I used to look. You know, I am a very different person. I am older, but I am still strong and I am still fit, and that is the most important thing.”
She added: “I feel really confident.
“I feel like my body is in good shape. I just feel great. I am 46, I embrace my curves. I embrace my body. I ran a marathon this year….so I am proud of that.”
Kelly Brook’s baby heartbreak
In one of her most emotional interviews, Kelly opened up about the trauma of losing her baby six months into her pregnancy in 2011 while with former rugby player Thom Evans.
Speaking on the How To Fail podcast earlier this week: Kelly said, “[It] was the most traumatic, horrific thing that I’ve ever been through. Our relationship didn’t survive that. I just had to pick myself back up and just move forward.”
She revealed that she still carries the pain daily. “Even though it was more than that, I have to treat it like a miscarriage because it’s the only way I can cope.”
She previously told Fabulous magazine that she’d suffered a second miscarriage. “I tried to have a baby, but it didn’t work. You can feel quite a bit of failure if you go through miscarriage… but I got through it.”
Now happily married to model Jeremy Parisi, Kelly has made peace with being “childless by choice”.
“We haven’t tried for children, we haven’t gone down the IVF route,” she told The Sun. “It’s not something that we have considered, and I don’t think that should be a taboo. I look at the beautiful life we have and how we don’t have the burden of that.”
Kelly Brook and Jason Statham
Kelly’s seven-year relationship with Fast & Furious star Jason Statham remains one of her most talked-about romances. They dated from 1998 to 2004 and were once engaged. She later revealed that she ended the relationship after feeling neglected when his Hollywood career took off.
“I just felt so neglected in that dynamic,” she said on How To Fail. “I fell out of love with him because he didn’t show up for me the way I showed up for him.”
Kelly said she became a “people pleaser” in the relationship but eventually found her voice. “It hasn’t served me. As I get older, I’ve become more of a selfish [bleep] and I don’t really care anymore.”
She even admitted to punching him in the face at Madonna and Guy Ritchie’s wedding after he flirted with another woman. She wrote in her autobiography: “Jason started to swing his hips from side to side and do a little jive with his arms, saying: ‘Gywnnie, Gwynnie, Gwynnie. Sexy, sexy, sexy!’ He turned round, only to be met with my fist in his face.”
Kelly Brook’s ex-boyfriends
Kelly has been engaged multiple times. After Jason Statham, she dated actor Billy Zane, rugby players Thom Evans and Danny Cipriani and Gladiators star David McIntosh.
She and Billy Zane reportedly split due to conflicting lifestyles and distance. In a confession on Loose Women recently, Kelly also shared details of the time she pretty much jilted her fiancé at the altar, while wearing her wedding dress. Speculation online points to the mystery fiancé being Billy Zane.
She shared: “The jet was waiting, we were going to Vegas that day, and I was just crying. It was like a movie, it was all very dramatic. I was in a dress, it was just horrific. It was the most horrific thing.”
Despite the drama, Kelly revealed that she and the mystery man stayed together for a while after the aborted ceremony. “He kind of came around to it and understood why. I’m not going to mention who it was.”
Kelly also opened up about the emotional weight behind her decision to cancel the wedding, citing a significant age gap and a sense of being pressured into something she wasn’t ready for. “I was 25 and they were like 42, a lot older. They should have known better.”
She claimed that she felt “manipulated” and “coerced” into going through with it.
Cheating scandal
With Cipriani, his alleged unfaithfulness led to the break-up. She caught him messaging other women, and The Sun reckons Danny may have “been unfaithful with up to seven women”.
Kelly dated Thomas Evans for three years, but the couple called off their engagement following the loss of their first baby.
Meanwhile, McIntosh proposed weeks into their romance, but they split after nine months. Kelly has since described Jeremy Parisi, her husband, as “the full package” and said: “I knew he was different”.
The happy couple wed in a lavish £500,000 ceremony in central Italy.
Has Kelly been in the jungle before?
This is Kelly’s first time taking part in I’m A Celebrity. But she has slammed the show more than once!
In 2019, she told Heart FM fans: “I can think of a million things I’d rather do.”
“I’d rather go and work in my local pub. I don’t think I could be on the show, as I really don’t because I hate confined spaces. I don’t want to eat eyeballs or sheep testicles and all the things they have to eat on there.”
Sticking the knife in further, Kelly continued: “Even if I had a huge tax bill and I had to pay it really urgently, I still wouldn’t do it. I know that they offer them so much money, so I understand why they do it. But when you’re eating stuff like that on the telly, where do you go from there?
“It’s kind of like the beginning of the end in my opinion!”
Then she claimed she would never do the show, telling Express in 2022: “I don’t like spiders, I don’t like enclosed spaces and I’m not a fan of Ant and Dec.”
So what happened, Kelly?
In a video posted to I’m A Celebrity’s official Instagram account before her debut, Kelly admitted: “I’ve never camped. I’ve never slept outside.
“That’s wild. It’s just not something that’s ever appealed to me to be honest.”
Also not a great start for the model! But there is a silver lining…
Kelly added: “I have been Googling the health benefits of eating worms, kangaroo, sheep’s testicles. Apparently they’re full of collagen. So I’m seeing this really as a beauty retreat.”
Kelly Brook’s rift with Ant and Dec
In 2009, Kelly was axed from Britain’s Got Talent just six days after joining as a judge. She later claimed that Ant and Dec were part of the reason.
“There was nothing I could do in this country after BGT. The people at ITV were telling me that I had upset Ant and Dec,” she told the Daily Mail. [They] had never been anything but pleasant to my face, but, clearly, they didn’t want me on the show.”
In their book, Ant and Dec claimed Kelly didn’t know their role on the show, which she denied. “Of course, I knew who they were. I hadn’t spent every Saturday night at home watching BGT, but I had seen it,” she hit back.
Despite the tension, Dec told Metro in 2013, “There’s certainly no bad blood from our side. We haven’t seen her since.”
Ironically, she’s now set to work alongside them in the jungle. And, more than that, Kelly said in her interview with ITV ahead of entering the jungle that the Geordie duo would be her “dream” campmates. We can’t wait to see how this one pans out…
Piers Morgan breaks silence over Kelly Brook’s feud with Ant and Dec
After seeing Kelly was signing up for the jungle, Piers couldn’t help but give his take on the whole ordeal. Remember, Piers was on Britain’s Got Talent, so he knows some insight into Kelly Brook’s feud with Ant and Dec.
He wrote: “As Kelly Brook goes into the I’m A Celebrity jungle, a throwback to when she very briefly appeared as a judge on Britain’s Got Talent… for just two disastrous days!
“Be interesting to see how she interacts with Ant and Dec given she still blames them for being fired so fast and ruthlessly… which isn’t far from the truth. They weren’t happy they hadn’t been consulted by Simon Cowell about Kelly’s sudden hiring – and even less happy when she asked them what they did on the show…”
Why she signed up for I’m A Celebrity
Kelly’s change of heart came after two life-affirming experiences: completing the London Marathon and competing in Celebrity Race Across the World with Jeremy.
“We did Race Across the World and I ran the London marathon this year, two things I never thought I had in me,” she said. “I’m such a fan of the show that I thought, maybe I could do it.”
Still, she admits she’s nervous, especially due to her fear of heights. “I’m terrified of escalators,” she confessed, somewhat bizarrely, as there are none in the jungle. “But it’s now or never.”
Despite her fears, Kelly is determined to embrace the I’m A Celebrity… experience. “I want to come out from something so mad, fun, and brilliant and have a spiritual awakening.”
She’s packed plenty of bikinis and isn’t ruling out a white bikini jungle shower moment à la Myleene Klass. “It’s definitely an iconic moment, isn’t it?” she said. “It’s scary, but I have got lots of swimwear options.”
Watch Kelly on I’m A Celebrity tonight at 9pm on ITV1.
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