Restaurant critic Grace Dent and former maitre d’ turned TV presenter Fred Sirieix are set to join the classic ITV show I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here.
The show is returning down under for its 23rd season and Grace and Fred are amongst the confirmed line up announced earlier this week. They’ll be joining eight other celebrities including former politician Nigel Farage and JLS star Marvin Humes.
The show will begin airing on Sunday 19 November at 9pm, and usually runs for around three weeks, with new episodes broadcasting every evening.
Grace is a restaurant critic for the Guardian who often appears as a guest judge on MasterChef. She has written a number of fiction and nonfiction books including the recent release Comfort Eating inspired by her podcast of the same name.
‘I think I’m going to scream from the minute I get there,’ she says in ITV’s teaser for this season. But she seems confident about this new challenge, going on to say that she knows she can ‘go the full way.’
Fred is best known as the maitre d’ from the First Dates’ restaurant on Channel Four, as well as his travels around the world as one third of Gordan, Gino and Fred: Road Trip with co-stars Gino D’Acampo and Gordan Ramsay.
Less optimistic about the experience, Fred says: ‘I’m not just scared of the bushtucker trials, I’m scared of everything.‘ He may be concerned by all the jungle critters but he’s excited to do something to take him out of his comfort zone.
Used to Michelin-star meals at high end restaurants, it will be interesting to see how the two fare when faced with a diet consisting mostly of rice and beans, although they may be front runners for the infamous eating trials. ‘I am going to be so hungry I actually think a testicle will be quite tempting,’ said Grace when asked about the trials.
In other news, have you been keeping up with MasterChef? Check out who’s competing in the the new season of MasterChef: The Professionals 2023.
