Gemma Collins: ‘I’m finally revealing the real me on I’m A Celebrity South Africa’

She said it would never happen, but Gemma Collins is officially returning for redemption on I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!

The GC infamously quit her first stint in the jungle back in 2015 after just three days, complaining she had malaria (she didn’t), and packed her bag, vowing never to return.

Well, lo and behold, the undisputed queen of reality TV has gone against her word and has joined the likes of Sir Mo Farah, former Queen of the Jungle Scarlett Moffatt, and Harry Redknapp for the second series of I’m A Celebrity… South Africa.

I was blessed enough to be there the moment the All Stars cast was announced at a special screening at London’s Ham Yard Hotel, and naturally, everyone was talking about the comeback of all comebacks: Gemma.

That’s the good news. The bad news is you’ve got a little longer to wait for her return.

Adam Thomas, Sinitta, Seann Walsh, Beverley Callard, David Haye, Sir Mo , Ashley Roberts, and Scarlett will be the first I’m A Celeb icons setting foot in the South African camp, with Gemma among the four latecomers, which also includes Harry, Craig Charles, and Jimmy Bullard.

Strutting onto the stage in full leopard print, Gemma told the press, including Metro, that returning was ‘one million per cent’ the best decision she ever made.

She said: ‘Obviously, it didn’t work out for me the first time around in there, so when I got asked to do it again, I knew I’d spent my whole life with this black cloud hanging over my head.

‘I’m older now, and I just thought, “I have to do this, whatever happens to me in my life, I must go back into that jungle.”

‘It was one regret that I had, and I was absolutely bricking it, I was petrified. My makeup artist slapped me at Heathrow Airport, and I went, “I don’t think I can actually go through with this,” but I took a deep breath, I went in strong and, to be honest, I think I shut it down.’

By now, whether you’re a reality TV fan or not, you’ll be familiar with the work of art that is The GC. From everything that came out of her mouth on Celebrity Big Brother to gracefully sliding on the rink face-first on Dancing on Ice, she has likely become the most meme-able person on the planet – and rightly so.

But according to Gemma, this is the first time we’ll see the real her.

‘It’s not the GC in there, it’s Gemma Collins, as you’ve never seen her before,’ she insisted. ‘You’ll see me vulnerable in there, you’ll see me thinking I’m Lara Croft, but I am delighted with who I got to do it with because we did have a good crack.’

Although I got to watch a teaser of highlights from the series, which was filmed last year, and while there might have been laughs, there were also some almighty fallouts.

Ant and Dec teased that there will be rows aplenty. ‘You will witness arguments we probably haven’t seen in Australia for a while,’ they said.

To the surprise of no one, it looks as though Gemma will be at the centre of at least one of those arguments. At one point, she snaps at one campmate: ‘I ain’t no joke, darling.’

But according to Gemma, difficult campmates and the trials didn’t even faze her this time. Of course, the proof will be in the pudding when we get to watch the series ourselves, but she was still hard done by in a way that only Gemma Collins can be hard done by.

She recalled: ‘The trouble for me was the copious amounts of washing up because I was on camp duty with Adam Thomas, and obviously it was a massive camp. I’m not gonna lie, I’ve got two dishwashers at home, but you know what? It was all part of camp life.

‘It really grounds you again going in there. You just go back to simplicity, it breaks you in ways you’ve never been broken before. I left some trials broken to within [an inch] of my life – I just can’t describe the pain I felt.’

So has she been reborn? Has persevering with I’m A Celebrity changed her for the better?

She said: ‘I obviously went in there as Gemma Collins, the GC with the bravado, and she’ll have a laugh and whatever. But I was so stripped bare going in there, and because I knew it was so disastrous the time before, I had no chance to back out of any of it.

’It helped my self-esteem a million percent and it just made me realise that when you think you can’t, you absolutely can. That was just so powerful to take that away. Whenever you’re scared, whenever you think of putting yourself down, I’m not going to do this, you just remember who you are, and you go in and do it.

‘I’ve not got this dark cloud hanging over my head anymore. No one can say nothing about me because I’ve done it – redemption.’

I’m A Celebrity… South Africa returns to ITV in April.

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