One former Strictly Come Dancing favourite is reportedly set to swap the famous ballroom for the ITV jungle.
Ballroom dancer Oti Mabuse could be travelling Down Under this November for the 23rd series of I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! The TV personality, 34, famously quit the BBC show in 2022 after winning the glitterball twice.
She stole the crown once with soap hunk Kelvin Fletcher and more recently with comedian Bill Bailey. Since then, she has gone on to become one of ITV’s biggest names on the judging panel of Dancing on Ice.
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Now, an ITV insider has told The Sun that the star will be jetting down to the Golden Coast just one year after she gave birth to her daughter. They told the publication: “Oti is a brilliant name for I’m A Celebrity, she’s hugely popular and well-liked by the ITV audience so bosses are over the moon she could be a campmate this year.
(Image: PA)
“She’s very much seen as being part of the ITV family or stars and is always guaranteed to be great fun.” Should the reality star agree to take part in the festive reality show, she may miss her daughter’s first birthday when the show kicks off in mid-November.
It comes after the South African dancer explained how stressful her daughter’s birth was last year, with both mother-and-child taking weeks to recover. The Latin dance champion and her husband, Romanian dancer Marius Lepure, went through hell when their first child arrived prematurely.
The infant had to be placed in an incubator and spent six weeks in hospital in critical condition with jaundice. Meanwhile, Oti also developed sepsis – a life-threatening condition where the body responds wrongly to infection and attacks itself.
(Image: ITV/Charlie Sperring/REX/Shutterstock)
Speaking about her terrible ordeal, she recalled: “I think we didn’t hold her for about a week because she was still in an incubator with the wires, and with jaundice so she was under blue light. And she had infections because it turned out that I had sepsis.
“What happened was the bacteria around the womb which protects your body, when it breaks it attacks the baby. So she had infections that they didn’t have time to diagnose, so they had to give her antibiotics and see if she was okay…
“The NHS, the doctors, the midwives, they were amazing… I was taken down in a wheelchair and I couldn’t get up and hold my baby. That was traumatising and emotionally very, very exhausting.”
(Image: Instagram)
Thankfully the star bounced back and is now loving being a mum. Should the star agree to go into the jungle, viewers will be sure to see her competitive side come out.
Oti previously hinted that she would love to become a campmate one day, and previously revealed in an interview: “If it works and it feels right then I’ll do it at that moment.” Two other names who have been linked to the 23rd series include Coronation Street star Alan Halsall and influencer GK Barry.
An ITV spokesperson insisted: “Any names suggested for I’m A Celebrity are speculation.” Want all the biggest Showbiz and TV news straight to your inbox? Sign up for our free Daily Star Showbiz newsletter.
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
