We’re still in the early days of I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here where the campmates are all best of friends, happy to co-operate, and eager to accept jobs like 'clean-up duty' or 'camp chef'. The hunger hasn’t quite set in, so when their fellow contestants fail to bring back any stars from a Bushtucker Trial they still get a pat on the back for trying. However, it’s only a matter of time before the bean and rice diet turns people’s hunger into anger, and suddenly it’s not so fine when the nation’s favourite scaredy-cats are selected for the next trial.
This year, GK Barry and Dean McCullough have quickly been tapped as this season’s chosen cats and have already completed two challenges each to varying degrees of success— most recently the pair received zero out of a possible ten stars in their Drown in the Dumps trial.
Many viewers at home may be wondering who GK Barry is, and how exactly she earned a spot on I’m a Celeb alongside featherweight boxing champion Barry McGuigan, McFly’s Danny Jones, and _Dancing on Ice’_s Oti Mabuse.
Her rise to fame began in 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, GK Barry was simply known as Grace Keeling, and she was studying film at Nottingham Trent University. She began making videos under the username GK Barry— a combination of her initials and her best friend Tatiana Barry’s surname— and she quickly amassed a following, gaining over 1 million followers in a single year.
Looking back, Grace admits she struggled to find her voice in her early TikToks, and they’re very different to the material she releases today. One such early video was a Boris Johnson impression, and Grace later admitted, ‘One thing I have learned is don’t be political online because it doesn’t go down well. I had a lot of people in the comments with British flags in their name coming for me.’ Her very first TikTok was a video detailing how a boy from her area cheated on her— a video where she included his username and full face, a move the more media-savvy GK Barry of today would never make. Early videos also feature the ‘put a finger down trend’ where she once again reveals a lot of personal information— ‘I can’t watch this TikTok because it got me in so much trouble, what a stupid idiot. I don’t know why I put that online’— and what she now admits is a ‘fake Essex accent.’ Gradually, Grace found her niche, and the likes and follows came rolling in.
After gaining momentum online, in April 2022 she officially launched her own podcast, Saving Grace under The Fellas Studios, where her first guest was fellow TikToker Max Balegde. In November 2022, she dipped her toe into the world of reality competition shows and participated in Footasylum's Locked In online reality series. In this show, ten creators battle it out in challenges over two weeks to see who will come out on top and win £10,000. From here onwards, she frequently collaborated with fellow influencers like Nella Rose, Chunkz, and Yung Filly — who is currently under investigation for multiple rape charges. In February 2024, she welcomed Chunkz and Yung Filly onto her podcast, but she removed the episode later this year following the charges against Filly.
In February 2023, she made her first TV appearance on Love Island Aftersun, and fronted a KFC campaign that same summer. Now, she is a bona fide household name, with her second Saving Grace tour in March 2024 selling out and featuring guests like TOWIE legend Gemma Collins, Love Island’s Hannah Elizabeth, glamour model Katie Price and many more. In August 2024, she became the youngest ever Loose Women panellist, and was born the same year as its first episode back in 1999. In October, she appeared on Big Brother Late & Live, and she has previously been a contestant on The Weakest Link, The Wheel and CelebAbility. She's also in her first high-profile relationship with Ipswich Town footballer, Ella Rutherford. Thanks to her I'm a Celeb appearance, she's well on her way to becoming a household name.