Strictly Come Dancing season is upon us, and among this year’s 15 contestants is the former Geordie Shore cast member and I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! winner Vicky Pattison.
The TV star, 37, was the 11th celebrity announced to be taking part in the 2025 series of the BBC dance competition, saying she was “absolutely buzzing” but also “terrified” of messing up.
“I am not a natural dancer! However, it’s such an amazing opportunity for me to step out of my comfort zone and to challenge myself in a completely new way,” she said.
“I just really hope I don’t make too much of a fool of myself.”
Pattison shot to fame on the MTV reality show Geordie Shore – a hectic series that followed a group of young Newcastle locals as they party around the Toon – in 2011.
During her time on the show, alongside co-stars including Charlotte Crosby and Holly Hagan, Pattison’s catchphrase “tash on” (her own slang for snog) caught on and was added to the online Collins dictionary.
While filming the show’s seventh season in 2013, Pattison was arrested for throwing a stiletto at another club goer who she incorrectly thought had thrown ice at her, injuring a security member who intervened.
The reality star was sentenced to 180 hours of unpaid community service and paid compensation to the two victims. She left Geordie Shore the following year.
Pattison went on to feature on a slew of programmes, including Ex on the Beach, Celebrity Juice, and her own agony aunt MTV show Judge Geordie, before landing I’m a Celebrity in 2015.
After charming the public with her thick accent and jaunty approach to challenges, Pattison beat Union J singer George Shelley and The Only Way is Essex star Ferne McCann to be crowned Queen of the Jungle.
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“Aye, bring it on,” she said, as she was handed her flowery crown and hefty wooden sceptre before breaking down into tears and crossing the bridge to meet her mum.
Pattison’s broadcast career had a notable upturn following her time in the Jungle. She became a regular panellist on ITV’s daytime programme Loose Women in 2016 and regularly appeared on This Morning alongside Ferne McCann.
The star returned to the I’m a Celeb universe to present the series’ spin-off show Extra Camp alongside Joe Swash, Chris Ramsey and Stacey Solomon, before re-entering the Jungle on the Australia edition of the series in 2018, finishing in fourth place.
After appearances on the Channel 4 “on the run” series Celebrity Hunted and the BBC cooking competition Celebrity Masterchef, Pattison released the critically acclaimed Channel 4 documentary Vicky Pattison: Alcohol, Dad and Me, during which she admitted that watching herself drunk on Geordie Shore now brings her out in a cold sweat. “I have abused it in the past,” she said.
This year, Pattison received backlash after releasing her own AI-generated deepfake porn video for the documentary Vicky Pattison: My Deepfake Sex Tape. Campaigners and abuse survivor groups criticised the move, dubbing it “gross” but Pattison stood by her decision, saying she wanted to “make a lot of noise” about the issue.
Off-screen, Pattison has written multiple Sunday Times best-selling memoirs and novels, including her 2014 hit autobiography Nothing But the Truth. She is currently the host of Heart Radio’s Saturday afternoon show and hosts two hit podcasts: Get A Grip with Angela Scanlon and BBC’s Love Bombed.
Pattison is a vocal women’s health campaigner and has spoken openly about her experience of premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), which can cause mood swings, irritability, depressed mood and anxiety. Pattison said the extremes to which she experiences those symptoms has “terrified” her.
Ahead of her Strictly debut, Pattison broke down in tears due to feeling overwhelmed and out of her depth, but she is desperate to make the most of the opportunity. “I thought I was doing an alright job of hiding it but obviously I’m not,” she said. “I am worried that I will get in my own head.”
