GK Barry is a force of nature and her star on the rise, as she opens up exclusively about her partner Ella, the primetime TV show she’s co-hosting and her rise from ‘freaky kid’ to podcast queen
GK Barry wasn’t sure if anyone would bother watching when she started putting out her brilliantly unfiltered content on TikTok during the Covid lockdowns in 2020. But bothered they were — and in 2022, she launched her podcast, Saving Grace.
Fast forward to 2025, and the 25-year-old is one of the most sought-after women on television. Fresh from a stint on I’m A Celebrity last year, she’s now a regular panellist on Loose Women and soon to be co-host of a new primetime ITV show. Here, the relatable star, real name Grace Keeling, talks about being “a bit of a weirdo” as a kid, her plans for proposing to girlfriend Ella Rutherford, and her latest exciting TV show.
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“We’re two peas in a pod,” beams the podcast queen, softening when we ask about home life with her girlfriend, Ipswich Town midfielder Ella, 25, who she went public with last summer. “We’re constantly laughing at each other. She’s my wife!” she adds. They’re not married yet, however — though discussions are underway.
“Ella’s always like, ‘When are you proposing, then?’ She asked me to be her girlfriend, so it’s definitely me getting on the knee. But we need to explore more countries, see which we like, then I can propose there. “I’m not proposing in Skegness. She just needs to be patient — but patience isn’t one of Ella’s virtues!”
Now “flourishing in her WAG era” according to Ella, Grace confesses she had little clue about football when they first met. “I knew there were sweaty people that would kick a ball about and sometimes swear. Now, I know what a corner means. I know they sell prosecco in the bar… and I do like planning my outfits around the kit.”
Grace admits her I’m A Celebrity stint introduced her to a whole new audience. “The day me and Ella got back from Australia we went to get pie and mash — obviously — home comforts. And it was like a scene out of a film. Mums didn’t care about their daughters, they wanted a selfie for themselves. It was amazing. But I do struggle sometimes, as I’m actually quite shy. I love when people come and say hi, it’s just me. I’m an anxious gal!”
Grace also battles imposter syndrome. “I started this whole thing by accident, I expected nothing — though when I was a kid I did want to be a Pussycat Doll, which didn’t quite work out. Being in the public eye was an amazing accident. Even in the jungle I’d be like, ‘What exactly have I done to be sitting here beside Tulisa and Coleen Rooney?’ I’m not sure, but I’m not complaining.”
Looking back at her experiences in Australia she admits it feels like a “fever dream”. “I lived in a jungle for three weeks and had a shower in a cave. I can’t wrap my head around that. It’s one of the best things I ever did but it was so tough.”
Part of a WhatsApp group with her jungle mates, Grace stays in touch most with Reverend “The Rev” Richard Coles, Melvin Odoom, Dean McCullough, Tulisa and Maura Higgins.
Of the famous vicar she says fondly, “I love that man. I sometimes forget when I text him he doesn’t have an iPhone. So I’m sending emojis and he goes, ‘I can’t see the little blocks you’re sending.’ I think he has an old Nokia, bless him. He’s so wholesome.” She also teases a potential show with The Rev, but that’s “the only hint” she’ll give right now.
And tech-obsessed Grace admits the jungle taught her an important lesson. “I can’t switch off from social media. But it made me realise, if I want to take a minute, I can. Nothing disastrous will happen.” She adds, laughing, “The jungle also taught me I should never be trusted to cook rice and beans, or there’s a strong chance I’ll accidentally set fire to the place…”
Meanwhile, her podcast Saving Grace is still firing on all cylinders — and Grace can’t quite believe what started as banter with mates has become such a huge success. “I didn’t think anyone would watch it. I was getting my mates on. Now we have amazing celebrity guests.”
One of her favourites to date is comedian Katherine Ryan. “I love this woman. When she came on it was such a surreal moment. Rob Beckett, too — he’s a comedian I always watched. We stay in contact, it’s really nice.”
And there’s no topic off-bounds. Grace recalls, “We’ve spoken about vagina surgery, insane drunken moments, the craziest place they’ve had sex… unfortunately nothing’s off the cards.”
She’s taking the podcast — and her signature chaos — on a UK tour, Jungle Fever, from August to more than 16 locations nationwide, and jokes that it’ll be like an “oversold hen do with lots of audience participation, a Bushtucker trial and some very special guests”.
But that’s not the only career update. Grace is also set to appear this August on ITV primetime show Celebrity Sabotage alongside Joel Dommett, Judi Love and Sam Thompson, and admits she spent the whole filming process “crying laughing”.
Explaining the show’s premise, she says, “We’re all in mission HQ and we are sabotaging. Each week, members of the public come in thinking they’re taking part in an ITV show similar to some ITV shows you might know — some dating, some betrayal, some baking — but then, we have real celebrity guests hosting these fake shows.
“Every time we get a successful sabotage, we win them loads of money. It’s so humbling. We’re dressing up as bushes, hedges… We’re in different costumes every day. I’ve never been near so many twigs in certain areas.”
The star became Loose Women ’s youngest ever panellist last year, something she describes as a dream come true — though her first few shows were scary. “I was terrified. I begged them, please wait till I’m in the groove before you put me on the panel with Janet Street-Porter! I did my show with her and she was adorable. But I was so scared at the beginning, thinking this audience doesn’t know me — I’m some young woman off TikTok. But now I love it.
“Sitting with Kaye [Adams], Denise [Welch]… Loose has me, Olivia [Attwood], Frankie [Bridge] giving a different perspective. It’s fascinating, they’re such interesting women. They’ve lived a life.”
There are downsides to Grace’s rising fame, however, such as online trolls. “There’s also added pressure when you get bigger, as some people look up to you. I’ve got a young female audience, and with that comes responsibility. So I did feel I had to fix up in that way.
“I had a lot of comments about my skin during the jungle and how much it helped younger people seeing me on TV with my spots out, so I make sure to post without make-up too, so my followers see another side to photo shoots and glam.
Grace is a busy lady — she’s also collaborating with winemaker Echo Falls on a campaign that highlights the importance of female friendship, and she says it’s the wine she’s been drinking with her girlfriends since the “dawn of time”.
Female friends are central in her life, she adds. Her perfect girlie get-together would involve a daytime bottomless brunch with a game of Uno and a good gossip.
As for burning ambitions, Grace still has a few. Her girlfriend would like her to do The Traitors, but she admits she’d swiftly get the boot as she “always looks guilty when she’s not”. She would also love to be a guest on The Graham Norton Show — but her dream is to one day have her very own chat show, in the style of Alan Carr: Chatty Man .
It’s a far cry from the little girl who, growing up, she says, was “a bit weird and try-hard” and would get nasty comments from kids at school. She honed her talents at making others laugh in order to survive.
“Little Grace was such a freak. I wanted to be Evel Knievel and had this vicious bob — shorter at the back, longer at the front. I made Dad set me up a ramp in the garden which was 2cm off the floor and I’d jump off it. I’d get him to film me like I was doing my own talk show, chatting absolute waffle to the camera. So I’d say, if you have a kid like I was — don’t worry, because they might go into the jungle in the future!”
Grace admits it initially took her parents a while to come on board with her launching a career on TikTok. “When I left uni I told them I was going to do TikTok full time and my mum was like, ‘Are you?! I’m not sure. You need a back-up, this isn’t going to last long.’ Even my mates were like, ‘What are you doing?!’ and I was like, ‘Bear with…’ I was determined.”
As her fanbase began to grow and people stopped her on the street, her parents realised she was making a success of it — and now they couldn’t be prouder of how far their daughter has come.
“Mum will be at the supermarket checkout and go, ‘Have you got TikTok? Follow my daughter, GK Barry — you probably know her,” she laughs. “It’s cute — but it’s also mortifying. People are like, ‘Met your mum, she made me follow you.’ And at my dad’s work, he has them all watching my podcast or Loose Women .”
Grace has no regrets, not even about some of the more out-there videos uploaded to TikTok over the years. “I’ve made mistakes and will again but there’s nothing I haven’t learnt from, so no regrets. Apart from wearing green eyeshadow in 2016. That was an awful idea.”
GK Barry’s limited-edition Echo Falls Summer Berries isavailable from July until the end of summer at all majorgrocery stores. See Echo Falls on Instagram @echo_falls
Source: Mirror
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