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Tulisa Contostavlos is among the 10 famous faces braving the Australian outback for of I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here! 2024.
The N-Dubz singer, 36, was confirmed to be taking part last week, alongside Coleen Rooney and McFly singer Danny Jones. You can see the full I’m a Celeb line-up here.
“I’m a big softie and I’m an emotional person,” Contostavlos said of how she thinks she’ll fare in the jungle. “I will probably struggle in the first few days as doing something like this is a big deal for me.
“I haven’t been thrust this much into the spotlight in a while and I have avoided it out of irrational fear,” she added. “I will probably be the most emotional when I first go in. It will take me a while to settle in, but I know I will get past that.”
Contostavlos was first thrust into the limelight when the hip hop group she joined with her cousin Dappy and their mutual friend Fazer was awarded the Mobo award for best newcomer in 2007. N-Dubz were signed to Polydor the same year and their debut album went double platinum with four UK top-40 singles, including“Ouch”, “Papa Can You Hear Me?” and “Strong Again”.
The trio’s success continued. In 2009, N-Dubz released their second album, Against All Odds, which went platinum and preceded their first top-10 single “I Need You”. The same year, the group secured their first UK number one on Tinchy Stryder’s track “Number 1”.
Shortly after N-Dubz third album was released in 2010, Contostavlos won a coveted seat on the judging panel of ITV’s The X Factor alongside Gary Barlow, Louis Walsh, and Kelly Rowland for the 2011 series. She won her first season with the girl group Little Mix and the public attention on her intensified. “I wasn’t prepared for that level of celebrity, and it was a massive shock,” she said in 2018.
At the height of her fame, Contostavlos’ ex-boyfriend Justin Edwards then leaked a sex tape they had filmed 10 years earlier. The N-Dubz singer was relentlessly shamed and ridiculed online and eventually released a YouTube video in response.
“When you share an intimate moment with someone that you love, you care about and you trust, you never imagine for one minute that that footage may at any point be shared with the rest of the UK or the rest of the people around the world,” she explained at the time.
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She told The Guardian in 2018: “The sex tape release was life-shattering at the time, but it’s made me the person I am. “I’m OK with it.”
One year later, The Sun on Sunday undercover journalist Mazher Mahmoodalleged that Contostavlos had fixed a drug deal for him after an elaborate, expensive, months-long ruse. In reality, the only drug the singer had ever taken was weed and, the following year, the case was thrown out and Mahmood – also known as the Fake Sheikh – was found guilty of conspiring to pervert the course of justice.
Contostavlos has since said she debated suicide during the ordeal. “I hadn’t got my head around it enough to want to go that far, but I was getting there,” she told The Guardian. “That was my lowest…It was only three days after that I was back in a training session, ready to go to the studio.”
The singer published a book about the trial, which she began writing as soon as she discovered she’d been charged. “I’d been blacklisted from everywhere, I couldn’t f***ing do music, I just had to ride it out. But I couldn’t just sit there and do nothing, so I thought I’ll use this time to write, and then even if I go to prison, I can still make money out of a book,” she said.
Contostavlos’ solo music career has been dormant since the 2012 release of her sole album The Female Boss, which was a critical failure. In 2022, she re-joined N-Dubz for a reunion tour and new album, which was welcomed by nostalgic fans but failed to perform commercially or critically.
Despite claims that Contostavlos is using I’m a Celeb to revamp her career, the former X-Factor judge has said she hopes to be out of the entertainment industry entirely by the time she turns 40 in four years time. “I just want to live as peaceful and happy a life as possible, surrounded by peaceful, happy people who I love and who love me. That’s all I ask,” she said.
Although Contostavlos has been cleared for all I’m a Celeb challenges, she was diagnosed with Bell’s palsy, a temporary weakness that usually affects one side of the face in 2020. For 12 years, the singer has experienced “horrific” health issues separate from the condition – explaining in an interview that she has felt a sensation akin to ants crawling across her face. Last month, Contostavlos revealed one of the several doctors she had seen found “three chronically infected cysts” in her cheek.
Looking ahead to her time on the ITV programme, Contostavlos said of her I’m a Celeb casting: “My number one mission is to be my true authentic self. If me being my authentic self connects with people in a mass way, then it must mean I’m doing something right in life.”
Meet all of the I’m a Celebrity contestants for 2024 here.
