I'm a Celebrity Names Circulate as ITV Says the Line-Up Is Still Speculation

I'm a Celebrity has a date and, if the papers are right, a camp. Only one of those is official. ITV has confirmed that the 26th series starts on Monday 16 November at 9pm on ITV1, STV, ITVX and STV Player, a Monday launch rather than the usual Sunday. Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly present, live from Australia. The companion show, I'm a Celebrity... Unpacked, returns on ITV2 and ITVX with Sam Thompson and Kemi Rodgers. Asked about the names, an ITV spokesperson said: "Any names suggested for I'm a Celebrity are just speculation."

The speculation is now specific. The Sun has published what it says is the full line-up of 12, and on Tuesday morning that list was being repeated as if the contracts were already on the plane. They may be. They are not, on the record, ITV's list. Treat every name below as a report, not a casting announcement. The broadcaster usually confirms the camp in the days before the first trial, which leaves about a fortnight of this.

The 12 names in circulation

As reported, the camp would be: Wayne Rooney; Joanna Page; Ade Adepitan; Sharmarke Mohamud, known as Sharky; Chloe Burrows; Ricky Wilson of Kaiser Chiefs; AJ Odudu; Mariella Frostrup; the model Leomie Anderson; Claire Sweeney; Leigh Francis, the comedian behind Keith Lemon; and the stand-up Jack Skipper. The Sun described Rooney as the show's biggest signing and said he wanted to take on the trials in front of his sons. Page, it said, had told friends she wanted to make her children proud. ITV has not commented on either claim beyond the general line that names are speculation.

Two of the reported names sit close to shows this desk already covers. Claire Sweeney finished a three-year run as Cassie Plummer in Coronation Street in August, with viewers left unsure whether the character was alive. Her on-screen son, Alan Halsall, was in the jungle in 2024. Leigh Francis is a Leeds act in a list that also includes Ricky Wilson, from Keighley, which is why the Yorkshire papers led on the pair on Tuesday. Adepitan's reported place comes with a note that the camp would be adapted. That, too, is unsourced beyond the newspaper.

Why the list is being printed anyway

By this point in a jungle year, papers are often early rather than wrong. That is a habit, not a standard of proof, and it is why this piece will not call anyone a campmate until ITV does. What the reports do show is the shape ITV is being said to want: a football name large enough to lead the trails, a sitcom lead, a soap exit, a pop singer, a model, a broadcaster over 60, and two internet-era faces in Sharky and Chloe Burrows. It is a camp designed to be argued about at work, which is the only rating that has ever mattered to this format.

The other autumn competition has not gone away. Lawrence Robb left Strictly on Sunday after the first three-couple dance-off, and the BBC has the remaining couples back on Saturday 7 November at 6.30pm, the official halfway point, with Delta Goodrem hoping to return from a rib injury. For a week, British television has a ballroom and a rumour of a jungle. Only the ballroom has names it is willing to stand behind.

What to watch for next

The useful test is simple. If ITV trails a face before 16 November, that face is in. If a name falls out of the Sun's twelve and is replaced without a correction, the list was a draft. Rooney is the name that would change the size of the launch. Page is the name that would take a BBC audience onto ITV for three weeks in November. Sweeney is the name Weatherfield will argue about. Until a press release says so, they are three reasons to keep the sentence in the conditional.