There doesn’t seem to be much some celebrities won’t do to gain a few months of airtime. Ski jumping? Circus skills? Eating mealworms? Yep. If recent times have taught us anything it’s that if producers can think it up, there’s always a celebrity desperate enough to do it on TV. No matter how degrading.
With the Jump back on our screens this Sunday, we’ve decided to rank all the recent celebrity reality shows from the least to most humiliating.
12. Strictly Come Dancing
Admit it, you almost want to be a celebrity just to appear on Strictly. Learning a skill, tick. Glamour, tick. Looking gorgeous on TV, tick. It carries a high risk factor of course, you could end up looking more like Gregg Wallace than Frankie Bridge. But the show managed to revive Alicia Dixon’s career a while back, elevating her from one third of a 00s band we’d kind of forgotten about to a TV reality judge. The chances are you’ll fall in love with your beautiful professional dance partner too.
11. Celebrity Masterchef
As a nation we love shows about fancy-looking food. BBC’s Masterchef carries a certain air of sophistication. Plus, being able to fillet a fish or whip up a chocolate fondant is seriously cool, and being able to show it off on national telly is the perfect way to get airtime without lowering yourself too much. Unless of course you’re a bad cook and likely to just stare blankly at Monica Galetti when she asks you to prepare a pheasant for roasting. Then it’s just embarrassing.
10. Dancing On Ice
For celebs not high profile enough for Strictly, there’s ITV’s inferior ice-dancing substitute. This is pretty low down on our list because it’s a more transferable skill than ski jumping and gymnastics – there are plenty of opportunities each winter to pirouette on ice.
The line ups always include a few soap stars, usually Corrie or Emmerdale, and former professional sportsmen and women – ie. people you’ve mainly heard of and some who are actually currently on TV or famous for something other than being on reality TV (although there are exceptions of course).
9. The Jump
Another show that teaches celebs a skill. The Jump has the added desperation factor of being quite dangerous – proving that some people will risk serious injury and possible death for air time. But it’s balanced out because at least the ‘skill’ is a bit elite (skiing’s posh innit). Series two includes a mixture of people who only became celebs through another reality show (like Louise Thompson, Stacey Soloman and Joey Essex), reality show regulars (like Phil Tufnell, Ashley Roberts and Jodie Kidd), and a hairdresser.
8. I’m Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here!
This is a tough one. Eating camel penis on TV is just about as degrading as it gets. However, for the average D-lister the jungle carries more accolades than CBB. With the likes of Michael Buerk and Edwina Currie, I’m a Celebrity ranks slightly higher than it’s (sort of) equivalent set inside the walls of a house.
Jake Quickenden is obviously the exception. Prepare to see him in a few shows towards the top of this list over the next few years, before he either disappears into obscurity or gets a brief stint as a presenter on an ITV2 show or Heart FM.
7. Celebrity Squares
Last year’s revival of this 70s show, where Warwick Davies asks celebs sat in noughts and crosses boxes trivia questions while non-famous contestants predict who got the questions right or wrong, isn’t so degrading in the sense that it’s just a glorified quiz. It’s always a bit embarrassing if the celeb has a shocking amount of general knowledge though, and it’s no Celebrity Mastermind.
6. Celebrity Big Brother
Sitting around in your pyjamas, having to ration bananas and doing ridiculous tasks that largely make you look like an idiot – CBB has a pretty epic degrading factor.You’ll get celebs on here deemed not high profile enough for The Jump, token American models (like Cami Li), people too boring for the jungle (like Nadia Sawalha), and one-time celebs desperately trying to cling on to the minuscule amount of public profile they still have by their fingertips (like Kavana). Oh and there’s Alicia Douvall, who’s biggest claim to fame is doing several tabloid kiss-and-tells on people no one really wants to admit they’ve slept with.
5. Celebrity Come Dine With Me
As if the normal version wasn’t embarrassing enough, Celebs can test out their culinary and dinner party hosting skills against three or four other celebs equally desperate to show off their horribly decorated homes and mediocre cooking skills. A poor man’s Masterchef if you will. It always gets a bit nasty and catty but they vow to stay friends afterwards (sure). Sinitta, Jodie Marsh and Nicola McLean, to give you an idea of contestants’ calibre…
4. Tumble
The skill this time is gymnastics. In skin tight leotards, this show only manages to escape the top of the list because the show below has a higher paralysis-or-death factor. The BBC show may be great for the likes of TOWIE’s Lucy Mecklenburgh, who could get a modelling deal off the back of airtime in a leotard. But watching H from Steps on a pommel horse is just hugely unnecessary.
3. Splash
OK they’re learning a ‘skill’ which is probably what the z-listers tell themselves as they try to perfect diving from a 10 metre board with a back flip and minimal splash. Really though, it’s an embarrassing excuse for screen time. It works better for celebs eager to show off their toned bodies, but flopping into the pool belly first then emerging with wet hair plastered to your face and make-up running, only to listen to Tom Daley’s analysis, is quite frankly just about as humiliating as it gets.
Well, almost…
2. Celebrity Dinner Date
On this corker of a show you’ll see the likes of Joe Swash or Amy Childs go to three different dates’ houses to eat their food and rate the night out of three. Let’s be honest, you’d have to be seriously desperate to go on a show where the rest of the people aren’t even celebs, and one that broadcasts to the nation exactly what you’re like on a first date.
And the winner is…
1. Get Your Act Together
Celebrities in a circus? That’s a joke right? Nope. The line up reads like a who’s who of people whose careers didn’t go the way they wanted. Elliot Wright from TOWIE, Ray Quinn who was once in X Factor and, wait for it, Sinitta make up the Z-listers willing to do whatever it takes to get some precious airtime. The “skills” they learn definitely aren’t transferable and plate spinning doesn’t even look cool.
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