I’m a Celebrity 2019 launch – as it happened: Caitlyn Jenner, Nadine Coyle, Ian Wright and co enter the jungle

TV and radio stars will face a number of challenges in the Australian bush and compete to be crowned king or queen of the jungle

I'm A Celebrity: meet the 2019 celebrity campmates

I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! has returned for a brand new series on ITV, hosted by presenting duo Ant and Dec.

This year's clutch of celebrities includes Caitlyn Jenner, Good Morning Britain presenter Kate Garraway, Girls Aloud singer Nadine Coyle and retired footballer Ian Wright.

The show's new cast additionally includes retired rugby player James Haskell, ex-EastEnders actor Jacqueline Jossa, who played Lauren Branning until 2018, and comedian Andrew Maxwell, best known for providing voiceover for the MTV reality show Ex on the Beach.

DJs Adele Roberts (Radio 1), Roman Kemp (Capital FM), and Myles Stephenson, who won The X Factor in 2017 with his band Rak-Su, have also joined the show.

The launch saw the contestants face a number of challenges just to get to the campsites, from skydiving (Coyle and Jenner) to balancing precariously from the top of a building (Garraway, Wright, Maxwell, Jossa, Kemp and Stephenson).

Contestants have been split into two teams, with each at a different campsite.

Jenner has already emerged as a clear favourite, with fans on social media praising her for her level-headed and apparently fearless approach to each task.

The liveblog has now closed

See the full list of celebrity contestants here, and read our columnist Fiona Sturges's thoughts on the show here.

I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here continues Monday 18 November at 9pm on ITV

Key Points

• 10 contestants are competing to be crowned king or queen of the jungle
• Comment: Why does I'm a Celebrity keep trying to drum up controversy?
• ITV scraps bushtucker trials where contestants have to eat live

[17 November 2019 18:27 · roisin.oconnor]

Hello and welcome to The Independent's liveblog for I'm a Celebrity.... Get Me Out of Here!

It's me, your favourite cynical reality TV blogger, desperately hoping I won't have to do another one of these after tonight. But who knows, maybe this series will turn out to be a fascinating study of human behaviour and we'll all come away feeling like we've learnt something. 

[17 November 2019 19:04 · roisin.oconnor]

The celebrities will be skydiving (nope, me neither) down to the camp, which marks the first challenge of the competition. Place your bets now for who screams the loudest – my money's on Myles Stephenson from Rak-Su (an X-Factor band, obviously a raging success).

[17 November 2019 19:16 · roisin.oconnor]

Our columnist Fiona Sturges isn't impressed by any controversy surround the show – she's more interested in the interactions between celebrities. Read why below: 

[17 November 2019 19:24 · roisin.oconnor]

  ↵Fortunately, they've actually scrapped the challenges where contestants have to eat live bugs, so Fiona (and the rest of us) will be able to spend less time covering our eyes and more time seeing who's first to start whining about the lack of home comforts (proper tea and coffee facilities, spas, champagne on tap, etc)

[17 November 2019 19:32 · roisin.oconnor]

Would you go on I'm a Celeb? I cannot for the life of me think of something that could persuade me to do it.

[17 November 2019 19:41 · roisin.oconnor]

Here's the full line-up in case you forgot the dazzling list of famous faces taking part

[17 November 2019 19:53 · roisin.oconnor]

What are your "jungle snacks"? Live-blogging basically means you can only pick stuff you can eat or drink with one hand, so I'm going for gin and some stale crackers I found at the back of my cupboard. 

[17 November 2019 20:03 · roisin.oconnor]

And now I ask, if you could bring ONE thing with you to the jungle, what would it be? You can tweet your answers to me @Roisin_OConnor or leave a comment here. I'm still pondering my answer but it'd probably be headphones. I'd just drown out the celebrities with some Taylor Swift until I was the last one standing.

[17 November 2019 20:15 · roisin.oconnor]

"More aggravating in recent years has been the requirement that, in the run-up to and throughout the show, old controversies must be exhumed and new ones concocted – because watching terrified famouses soil themselves in the dark in a tunnel of hungry rats apparently isn’t enough. Certainly, the absence last year of the host Ant McPartlin following a drink-driving incident and stint in rehab, and the decision to temporarily replace him with This Morning presenter Holly Willoughby, was presented as a matter of life-altering importance." (Reader, it wasn't.)

[17 November 2019 20:24 · roisin.oconnor]

This year's contestants:

Reality television personality Caitlyn Jenner, Good Morning Britain presenter Kate Garraway, Girls Aloud singer Nadine Coyle and retired footballer Ian Wright are among the biggest names confirmed by ITV.

The show's new cast additionally includes retired rugby player James Haskell, ex-EastEnders actor Jacqueline Jossa, who played Lauren Branning until 2018, and comedian Andrew Maxwell, best known for providing voiceover for the MTV reality show Ex on the Beach. 

Also joining the show are DJs Adele Roberts (Radio 1) and Roman Kemp (Capital FM), along with Myles Stephenson, who won The X Factor in 2017 with his band Rak-Su.

The highest-paid celebrity is believed to be Jenner, who will earn a reported £500,000 for her appearance.