When the I’m A Celeb cast got their photos taken with their friends and family on Wednesday, there was one notable absentee: Tulisa Contostavlos.
Fellow campmates, newspaper columnist Jane Moore and Radio 1 DJ Dean McCullough, who was also axed from the show, had hoped the former N-Dubz singer would join them for a hard-won mini-break at their five-star hotel, the £1,000, – -one night JW Marriott on Australia’s Gold Coast.
This Sunday, the three would reunite with the remaining contestants for the finale – when the new king or queen of the jungle will be crowned, followed by the wrap party where cast and crew let their hair down.
But that wasn’t to be. As I revealed in the Mail this morning, Tulisa fled Australia in an apparent fit of rage just hours after her deportation on Monday evening.
She didn’t tell her jungle mates, while ITV was sworn to secrecy when revealing her movements.
Tulisa’s disappearance left her new friends on the series concerned for her well-being. An insider said: ‘She was so smiling, so fun – and she seemed to be in a good place when she arrived on the show.’
She had befriended Coronation Street star Alan Halsall, who is still in the jungle, and became a ‘great member of the group’.
But after Tulisa was evicted, she “lost her shit,” a source said. When the cameras stopped rolling, I’m told, she looked angry and upset.
Some suggest this was because she wanted to win; others believe her return to the spotlight was simply too much.
On Instagram, Tulisa explains her lack of performance after being kicked out of the jungle, including in the spin-off show
The singer was the third campmate to be evicted during Monday night’s show
Tulisa had spent 11 years in the TV wilderness after her stint as a judge on The X Factor in 2011 and 2012
After all, Tulisa had spent 11 years in the TV wilderness following her stint as a judge on The of World Journalist Mazher Mahmood, to whom she allegedly helped supply cocaine. However, her subsequent trial failed when it emerged that Mahmood had altered the evidence, resulting in Tulisa being completely acquitted.
After such a stressful time in her life, it’s no surprise that she was apprehensive about her return to TV more than a decade later.
Before heading into the jungle, Tulisa, 36, told the Mail: ‘I don’t think I could have done this unless I was in such a strong, content place. So it could only be now. That couldn’t have happened before.’
She admitted she had an ‘overwhelming fear’ of being on TV, but added: ‘I feel like I’m in some kind of healing cycle… since all the c***, since X Factor, since the trial. ‘
For her, appearing on I’m A Celebrity was to ‘complete the cycle’.
No doubt the money helped too. Tulisa’s deal with ITV, believed to have cost more than £100,000, was orchestrated by YMU – the famed talent agency that employs the likes of Ant and Dec, Claudia Winkleman and Davina McCall.
The agency’s plan to return Tulisa to the TV stratosphere now appears to be falling apart. “It could be a struggle now,” the source said.
Tulisa turned down the chance to appear on I’m A Celebrity in 2014, with a friend telling me it would have been a ‘disaster’. Nothing seems to have changed.
How did it all go wrong?
As I revealed yesterday, her fast and furious departure from Australia was sparked by a feud with her good friend Michelle McKenna and Michelle’s boyfriend Daniel Johnson, a claim her PR team today insists is untrue.
Tulisa makes a statement to the press after being accused of assault during an altercation at the V Festival in Essex
N-Dubz reunited in 2023 – Tulisa with Richard Rawson and her cousin Costadinos ‘Dappy’ Contostavlos (right)
The pair had agreed to take care of Tulisa’s social media output while she was in the jungle. They flew to Oz and got to stay at the JW Marriott thanks to ITV. However, it seems that they enjoyed themselves a little too much in Tulisa’s eyes.
In one of the Instagram stories posted from her account, Michelle shouted at her young daughter who was watching I’m A Celeb: ‘Look, it’s Auntie TT.’
“It was like something out of Shameless,” said a source close to Tulisa, referring to the Channel 4 comedy-drama set on a council estate and following a dysfunctional working-class family.
“It was so unprofessional,” the source said. “It’s one thing to do it from her own account, but to do it from Tulisa’s page just didn’t seem right. Following your social media when taking part in a show like I’m A Celeb is really important – and can make the difference between coming first or second and making it to the final.’
The pair also appeared to disregard the time difference between Britain and Australia, posting content in the middle of the night.
“They were completely wrong,” said a source, “who knows, Tulisa might have stayed if they had been more aware of her social media.”
It seems like a negligence on the part of Michelle, who is no stranger to show business as she was a singer like Tulisa. The two women became friends in the late 1990s and crossed paths on the pop festival circuit, with Michelle being part of Manchester-based urban music band Platnum and Tulisa one-third of chart-topping hip-top trio N-Dubz.
Their bond became so strong that Tulisa moved from London to Congleton in Cheshire during her TV break, partly to be close to Michelle and Daniel, who live in nearby Alderley Edge.
But drama is never far away from the trio, according to a source who knows them. Indeed, in December 2022, police were called to an N-Dubz concert at Manchester’s AO Arena after Daniel rowed with the venue’s security.
And as one industry insider emphatically puts it, “TV companies really don’t like drama.”
She may have been aware of this, but as soon as Tulisa’s plane landed in Manchester today, her PR team took pains to emphasize that there had been no falling out between the star and Michelle.
But while it’s undoubtedly gaining traction, it remains to be seen whether Tulisa’s dramatic escape from Oz and her remaining commitments to I’m A Celeb will spook the TV executives she had hoped would shape her comeback.