I'm A Celebrity 2025: Kelly Brook's jungle U-turn; what she's said about Ant and Dec feud; and being 'childless by choice'
The Geordie pair insist there's 'no bad blood' between them and Kelly…
Kelly Brook became the very first confirmed name for I’m A Celebrity 2025 after she touched down in Australia, insisting she was simply visiting her Auntie Sheila.
After years of swerving offers from ITV, the model and broadcaster has finally said yes to the jungle – and according to sources, bosses are absolutely thrilled.
But who exactly is Kelly Brook? If you’ve somehow missed her over the years, here’s everything you need to 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
Kelly Brook’s rise began early. As a teenager she won a beauty competition, and her career took off almost immediately. She fronted campaigns for Walker’s Crisps, Bravissimo and even Foster’s Lager, quickly becoming a familiar face.
Her name soon became a regular fixture in the tabloids, and Kelly moved into Page Three modelling. From there, lads’ mags came calling, leading to high-profile shoots with Playboy, FHM, GQ and Loaded.
But her glamour-model era ended up opening doors far wider than the UK press. Kelly used that momentum to break into acting, securing a string of film roles. She’s appeared in more than a dozen movies, including Piranha 3D, the 2003 reboot of The Italian Job, Survival Island, Ripper: Letter From Hell, and even played herself in Keith Lemon: The Film.
Not bad credentials for an I’m A Celebrity star heading into the jungle.
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.”
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?
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…
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 said she had ‘two disastrous days’ on the show. Piers claimed Ant and Dec were upset they weren’t consulted about her being hired for the show and not impressed by her question…
Read more: I’m A Celebrity viewers divided as new campmates Vogue Williams and Tom Read Wilson make debut
