GK Barry lifts the lid on I'm A Celeb - and the one thing that would make her 'book an early flight home'
Social media sensation and podcaster GK Barry is thrilled to be joining I'm A Celebrity, despite knowing that many viewers may not recognise her. The 25 year old TikTok star, whose real name is Grace Eleanor Keeling, boasts a whopping 3.6 million followers on the platform and over 60,000 subscribers on YouTube. She also hosts a successful podcast called Saving Grace, where she shares snippets of her life and chats with celebs. However, she's aware that she might not be familiar to some of I'm A Celeb's older audience.
She confessed: "Do you know what? I'm so aware that I'm going to go in there and no one's really going to know who I am. I'm so aware of that, so I do need to make a good first impression, but I'm always that person that makes friends with, like older people. If I'm in a room with someone, I'm going to go to the mums. So I feel like, hopefully they see that from me and end up liking me. And if they don't, I'll just book an early flight home. That's absolutely fine."
She added: "I feel like it's quite nice to maybe get like a different like another demographic listening to me. Obviously, I've got the Gen Z down but I think it would be nice to have, like a bit of a different audience as well to be included in so, yeah, I think it's quite exciting."
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The social media influencer also admitted that she's anticipating a tough time with the show's digital detox. Speaking from her hotel room as she prepared for the upcoming filming, she said: "I'm in hell. I've been what, I've been counting cars that have been driving past listening to Hits on the telly. And there's only so many times you can hear Wham. It's getting to me now."
She went on to reveal her motivation for joining the show, saying: "I'm going to be honest. I'm not doing this show for the fun, because when I see this show, I don't look at like running around a field of daisies. It looks terrifying. But I feel like the people that I'll meet in there and the possible more like future jobs that I can get with ITV is like the main reason for me doing it like I'd love to do, presenting and stuff. So I think this is a good step forward. And also, my other camp mates are forced to speak to me. So it's a win win situation. I can find out all the Goss."
GK also shared that she's eyeing the opportunity to boost her TV career following her jungle stint, much like former winners Emily Attack and Vicky Pattinson benefited from their time on the show.
Candidly, she added: "Listen, I'm going to be honest. I'm not doing this show for the fun, because when I see this show, I don't look at like running around a field of daisies. It looks terrifying. But I feel like the people that I'll meet in there and the possible more like future jobs that I can get with ITV is like the main reason for me doing it like I'd love to do, presenting and stuff. So I think this is a good step forward. And also, my other camp mates are forced to speak to me. So it's a win win situation. I can find out all the Goss."
In her typical humorous style, she also joked about hoping the jungle diet might give her a beach body but ruled out winning the series: "I do not think that's gonna happen. And also, I've been very in denial that I've been going on this show for a while. It's only since I arrived yesterday that I was like, oh shit. Actually, I'm going in. So I'm just taking it every day as it comes, hoping, you know, with the rice and beans diet, I come out looking like Kate Moss, and that's all I can ask, really."
She also hinted that her fans may be surprised to see a different side of her in the jungle. On showing the real her, she said: "I'm actually quite reserved, and I'm actually quite shy. So yeah, that could actually be really disappointing for people to see. But so yeah, I'm just a bit more toned down than I am on my tik tok. And I don't sound like a London cab driver all the time."
