Updated: 30 Nov 2025Author:
David Frederickson

I’m A Celebrity 2025 has turned into a full-time feud factory – and the jungle PR machine is loving it

  1. Leadership rows and dunny duty drama put Shona McGarty, Lisa Riley and Angryginge at the heart of a simmering camp feud.
  2. Jack Osbourne faces Viewer’s Court over ‘bullying’ claims after snapping at Ruby Wax in a high-pressure cave trial.
  3. Alex Scott’s shock first elimination, contraband salt confession and “I feel free” quote reset the winner conversation overnight.
  4. Kelly Brook’s old Ant and Dec feud resurfaces, colouring how every look, joke and bottom-two moment lands with fans at home.
  5. Tom Read Wilson, Vogue Williams and the current favourites show how the jungle has become a ruthless PR and redemption machine.

The jungle is boiling over – and not just because of the campfire

When dunny duty becomes a national talking point

This year’s I’m A Celebrity 2025 has quietly shifted from a show about creepy crawlies to a show about people acting like creepy crawlies under pressure. The latest flashpoint came when EastEnders star Shona McGarty was crowned camp leader with Emmerdale’s Lisa Riley as her deputy, and they promptly parked YouTuber Angryginge on both washing-up and dunny duty. Viewers didn’t miss the fact he seemed to have landed the jungle’s equivalent of a zero-hours contract with no perks beyond fresh air and trauma.

The Independent’s live blog spelled out how Shona and Lisa reshuffled tasks and how unimpressed Angryginge was at being handed the glamorous combo of dishes and toilet maintenance – a double shift nobody applied for when their agent sent over the contract. Some fans saw it as simple division of labour; others decided they were watching a slow-burn power play, with Ginge cast as the nation’s overworked intern.

Shona, Lisa and the optics of “strong leadership”

What’s really fuelling the chatter isn’t just who cleans what, but how leadership is framed. When Shona and Lisa bark orders, there’s a split between viewers praising them for “getting things done” and those accusing them of veering into bossy territory. Swap in a male leader, and suddenly the same tone gets rebranded as “decisive” – funny how the jungle always doubles as a sociology seminar.

For Shona in particular, this is a high-stakes moment. She’s balancing the need to keep camp functioning with the risk of being edited into “moody soap star with clipboard”. Handle it right and she leaves as a grounded EastEnders favourite who can run a set and a campsite; handle it badly and she becomes that meme where your manager asks why you haven’t completed seventeen tasks they assigned you six minutes ago.

The ‘bullying’ row that turned a cave trial into social media court

Jack Osbourne, Ruby Wax and the joyless team-building exercise from hell

Then there’s Jack Osbourne, who managed to turn a grim cave trial into a national debate on tone of voice. During a challenge that saw six celebs – including Ruby Wax, Alex Scott, Kelly Brook, Aitch and Angryginge – crawling into tight spaces with creepy crawlies for company, Jack’s frustration boiled over as Ruby struggled to keep pace. According to fan reactions and tabloid recaps, he repeatedly told her to “focus” and corrected her sharply as the pressure climbed.

The team still banked a solid star haul, but that wasn’t what stuck. Instead, social media lit up with viewers accusing Jack of bullying and being disrespectful towards Ruby, pointing out the age gap and how rattled she looked. A minority defended him by arguing that the trial needed someone cracking the whip to avoid total chaos – the jungle’s eternal “Are they a leader or just loud?” dilemma.

Why this row matters beyond one sweaty trial

In a standard series, this would blow over after a few nights and a wholesome campfire chat. But in 2025, every raised eyebrow becomes a split-screen debate on X and TikTok, with clips slowed down, lip-read and over-analysed like a Champions League VAR call. Jack now sits in that awkward TV limbo where he has to keep performing, while knowing every sigh and side-eye will be replayed by people who already think they know his character arc.

For Ruby, the storyline is different. She’s emerging as the older campmate battling both the trials and the intensity of younger, more hyper personalities around her. If the edit leans in her favour, she walks out with public sympathy and a quiet-hero narrative; if it doesn’t, she risks being remembered as the “one who slowed down the trial”, which is brutally unfair for anyone who’s ever needed a breather halfway through a spin class.

Alex Scott’s exit: contraband salt, bottom-two shock and “I feel free”

The first elimination that reset the whole game

The first eviction of I’m A Celebrity 2025 has already changed the temperature in camp. Former Lioness and BBC pundit Alex Scott was revealed as the first star sent home after landing in the bottom two with Kelly Brook. Reports from The Independent confirm hosts Ant and Dec announced that pairing, surprising both campmates and viewers, given Alex’s huge football profile and squeaky-clean TV image.

Alex’s reaction was telling: she said she felt “free” leaving the jungle and described the experience as “incredible”, but admitted she struggled with some of the bigger personalities. She gravitated towards Shona McGarty as a quieter ally, hinting that constant noise and conflict weren’t exactly her natural environment. Essentially, she signed up for character building and found herself in a 24-hour freshers’ week with insects and limited snacks.

Salt smuggling and the power of a tiny scandal

Of course, no modern reality exit is complete without a micro-controversy, and Alex duly obliged with the contraband salt saga. Coverage of her departure notes that she smuggled in salt packets from her hotel and kept one hidden until her exit interview, where she dramatically revealed it to a horrified Ant and Dec. In football terms, that’s the equivalent of sneaking your favourite energy gel onto the pitch and hoping VAR doesn’t clock it.

It’s small, silly and absolutely perfect for social media. Fans who already liked her saw the stunt as proof she’s resourceful and quietly rebellious; critics painted it as bending the rules. Either way, Alex leaves with a headline-friendly story, a sympathetic “not built for constant chaos” narrative, and the sense that she’ll be back on our screens very soon, this time with access to unlimited condiments.

Kelly Brook vs Ant and Dec: the feud that refuses to log off

Old Britain’s Got Talent drama in a new jungle

As if camp politics weren’t enough, Kelly Brook has arrived with a fully pre-heated subplot: her long-reported feud with Ant and Dec. The Independent’s coverage revisited claims that Kelly believed the duo’s reaction to her short-lived Britain’s Got Talent stint had damaged her presenting prospects. That history is now being replayed in the context of every cutaway, eyebrow raise and gag the hosts aim in her direction.

Even if Ant and Dec are being perfectly professional, viewers are watching their interactions with Kelly like body-language detectives with too much time and Wi-Fi. A slightly awkward laugh becomes “proof” of lingering tension; a warm intro is reinterpreted as over-compensation. For Kelly, it means every Bushtucker trial and bottom-two appearance carries a subtext she didn’t exactly ask for, but can definitely use if she plays her cards right.

How a rumoured feud shapes the edit

The jungle is as much about narrative as it is about spiders, and a long-running light-entertainment beef is storytelling gold. Kelly now sits in a rare category: she’s simultaneously a glamour figure, an early-series underdog and the subject of a meta-story about how British TV treats its female presenters. If she delivers a few emotional moments and some proper graft in camp, she could flip the script from “career knocked back” to “career rebooted live at 9pm”.

From a trending perspective, it’s catnip. You’ve got nostalgia for mid-2000s talent shows, present-day reality chaos and two of the UK’s most familiar presenters caught in the middle. Social media loves nothing more than re-litigating ancient TV drama as if it happened last night, and Kelly’s jungle run plugs straight into that instinct.

PR arcs, fan favourites and why this series is built to trend

Tom Read Wilson’s “real voice” and the softer side of the jungle

It’s not all conflict and cave-based shouting. Another moment sparking conversation is Tom Read Wilson revealing his “real voice” to a stunned camp. As the Independent recap notes, the Celebs Go Dating favourite, known for his RP accent, dropped into a lower, huskier register while flirting playfully with Kelly Brook, delighting the campmates and giving viewers a rare dose of unproblematic joy.

That kind of clip works beautifully online: it’s short, surprising, a bit flirty and doesn’t involve anyone being covered in actual rodents. It also reinforces Tom’s persona as charming and self-aware, the sort of contestant who can survive even as feuds swirl around him. In a series packed with sharp edges, he’s one of the few delivering moments you can share with your mum without having to explain what “dunny duty” is.

Why Aitch and Angryginge are suddenly frontrunners

Current coverage suggests favourites to win include rapper Aitch, Angryginge and Tom Read Wilson, with Vogue Williams also shining after smashing a brutal Wrecking Balls of Rage trial. Aitch brings youth, music credentials and a relaxed sense of humour, the kind of energy that makes late-series campfire chats feel like actual conversations rather than audition tapes for panel shows. He’s also savvy enough to know that being laid-back on camera is its own form of strategy.

Angryginge, meanwhile, is turning enforced toilet duty and trial pressure into content that resonates with younger viewers. He’s the stand-in for anyone who has ever been over-scheduled by a boss who “hates micromanagement” and then sends twelve follow-up messages. If he keeps combining graft with self-deprecating humour, he could ride the wave of sympathy created by those chore allocations all the way to the final.

The jungle as 24-hour reputation management

Step back, and this year’s I’m A Celebrity 2025 looks less like a reality show and more like a live-streamed PR lab. Jack Osbourne is trying to prove he’s more than rock-royalty chaos, Ruby Wax is reminding viewers of her resilience, Alex Scott has banked a relatable “this was a lot” exit, and Kelly Brook is renegotiating an old narrative with Ant and Dec in the background. Every trial, chore reshuffle and campfire secret is a data point in the public’s mental spreadsheet.

That’s why the series is trending so hard across UK social feeds right now. It’s not just the bugs and the Bushtucker; it’s the way long-running media stories, old grievances and new alliances collide in real time. If the next week delivers another messy trial, a tearful heart-to-heart and one more shock elimination, the jungle won’t just crown a winner – it’ll decide who leaves with the best upgraded reputation and who goes back to Google results they’d rather not scroll through.

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