Background and career
Gemma Clair Collins (born 31 January 1981) is an English media personality and businesswoman. She rose to prominence whilst appearing on the ITV reality series The Only Way Is Essex (2011–2019) and went on to appear on various other reality television shows, including I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! (2014), Celebrity Big Brother (2016), Celebs Go Dating (2018) and Dancing on Ice (2019). Known for her diva persona and alter-ego "the GC", she became the subject of several internet memes and is considered a prominent figure within the British hun subculture. A sales executive by trade, Collins created her own plus-size clothing brand and owned a fashion boutique in Brentwood, Essex, as well as releasing a fragrance and a line of cosmetics. She has also collaborated with numerous brands to endorse their products alongside her own. Collins published two autobiographies and starred in her own ITV reality television franchise Gemma Collins: Diva (2018–2020). She went on to host the eponymous The Gemma Collins Podcast (2019–2024), as well as its spin-off The Gemma Collins Love Lounge (2020–2021). In 2022, she fronted a Channel 4 television documentary, Gemma Collins: Self-Harm & Me, based on her personal experiences and embarked on a theatre tour, The GC's Big Night Out. In 2026, she appeared as a contestant on the second series of I'm a Celebrity... South Africa and starred in the Sky One reality series Gemma Collins: Everything. All At Once.
Gemma Clair Collins was born on 31 January 1981 at Oldchurch Hospital in Romford, East London. She is the daughter of Joan Collins (née Williams; 21 February 1955 — 29 July 2026), who worked as a part-time hairdresser, and Alan Collins, the director of Unisystems Freight, an import-export shipping company. She has an older brother named Russell, who is also a director of their father's company. Shortly after her birth, the family moved from a house in Collier Row and Collins was raised in Rise Park where she attended Rise Park Infant School. Collins described her childhood as being "filled with love" and said that although money was "tight", her father still managed to take them on family holidays and said she has "very happy memories" of her early years. Collins then went on to attend Frances Bardsley Academy for Girls. She enjoyed performing arts from a young age and attended dance lessons and stage school. At the age of 14, she began attending the Sylvia Young Theatre School and successfully auditioned for a part in The Sound of Music. Collins' mother was encouraging and said she knew that her daughter would one day become famous. Collins was bullied at school for being outgoing and confident, and so following the success of her father's business, her parents decided to move her to Raphael Independent School, a private school, for her final year of education. She left school at the age of 16 with a G in GCSE Maths. Reflecting on her time at school, Collins said "I remember sitting in the exam room for my maths GCSE and thinking, "I'm going to be famous, I don't need maths." Collins had various Saturday jobs as a teenager, including working in a sweet shop and at the clothes shop Warehouse, before becoming a waitress at a local pub called The Orange Tree. After leaving school, she subsequently signed up to a media studies course at South Essex College but stopped attending after a few weeks as she found it boring. Collins also held a job at the clothes shop Benetton and spent several weeks working in a care home, looking after those who were suffering from mental illnesses. Her first appearance on television was in the ITV documentary Snobs, which aired in January 2000. The series focused on people who believed they were a different class. Following her appearance on the show, Collins, aged 18 at the time, visited an agent who told her that she "had charisma but was too fat to be on TV" and suggested that she should lose two stone. Collins held various admin jobs and roles working on reception during her twenties, as well as being an assistant to a senior executive at stockbrokers Cantor Fitzgerald which Collins said she "blagged" by being confident in interviews. She subsequently worked at a recruitment agency in London before becoming a receptionist at a BMW showroom in Harold Wood, where she retrained to become a sales executive.
In January 2011, Julie Childs, mother of Collins' friend Amy, suggested to producers of the ITV2 reality series The Only Way Is Essex that Collins would be an appropriate subject. They visited Collins' house and subsequently filmed her and her friends for two weeks. After returning to work as a car sales executive for a week, she was cast in the programme and began appearing in The Only Way Is Essex from its second series beginning in March 2011. Her first scene saw her attempting to sell a car to Kirk Norcross and taking him for a test drive. Collins ultimately quit her job to appear on the programme full time, and was paid £50 a day for her early appearances on the show, which she described as a "massive risk". Her mother Joan joined the programme during the fifth series in April 2012. From September 2011 until March 2013, Collins wrote a regular column in the tabloid magazine Closer. In April 2013, she released her debut autobiography Basically...: My Life as a Real Essex Girl, which became a bestseller in its first week of release. In January 2014, Collins took part in the second series of the ITV diving competition Splash!. During training, Collins suffered severe bruising and admitted she had to overcome a fear of water. She became the third celebrity to be eliminated after losing the splash-off to Michaela Strachan in the first heat. In November 2014, she took part in the fourteenth series of I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! on ITV. During the first episode of the series, Collins and her campmates were required to travel into the jungle via helicopter, however she refused to do so, becoming hysterical before the helicopter had taken off and was instead driven into camp. She and her fellow campmates Carl Fogarty, Craig Charles, Nadia Forde and Vicki Michelle were sent to live in the basic camp, "Celebrity Slammer", following a public vote prior to the series launch. After believing she had caught malaria and struggling with the lack of food, Collins withdrew from the series on the third day after spending 72 hours in the jungle. She was subject to online trolling and ridicule from the show's viewers after her exit, later revealing that she was attacked and robbed by a former boyfriend the day prior to flying out to Australia, as well as her mother's health issues, which contributed towards her reasons for quitting the show. Collins received a reduced fee for her appearance, the entirety of which she donated to the charity Save the Children. In August 2015, following the conclusion of the fifteenth series of The Only Way Is Essex, Collins announced she would be leaving the show after four years. However, she subsequently returned for the Christmas special episode of the sixteenth series and continued to appear on the programme sporadically for the next four years, with her appearances becoming less frequent in latter series due to her other commitments. She made her final appearance on the show during the twenty-fifth series in November 2019. Collins was voted the show's "Most Iconic Cast Member" in the special anniversary episode TOWIE Turns 10: All Back to Essex in September 2020, for which she made a cameo appearance in a video acceptance message. In January 2016, she entered the Celebrity Big Brother house to participate as a housemate in the seventeenth series. Collins became known for her "diva outbursts" on the show, one of which saw her refuse to be locked inside a cage as part of a shopping task and proclaim to fellow housemate Darren Day that she was "claustrophobic", which would become one of her most well known memes. Her other notable moments in the house included gifting Tiffany Pollard a pair of Dolce & Gabbana shoes for her birthday, before taking them back, resulting in a confrontation, as well as confiding in the former that she believed she was pregnant, ultimately discovering she was not. Collins also struggled with being unable to maintain her hair within the house, exclaiming to Big Brother that her "hair was frazzled" and berated them for not providing heated rollers. She would later sacrifice the hot water in the house to receive a blow dry as part of an immunity prize. Collins received nine nominations from her housemates throughout the series, facing a total of three evictions, two of which she survived on days 11 and 18 respectively. She also won immunity from the fifth eviction after receiving a "gold mask" during the "Forgotten Theatre" task. Three days prior to the final, after being nominated against soap actresses Danniella Westbrook and Stephanie Davis, she became the seventh housemate to be evicted, having received the fewest votes to be saved, spending a total of 29 days in the house. In October 2016, Collins appeared on Sky News where she was interviewed by Kay Burley about the campaign to remove the word "Essex girl" from the Oxford English Dictionary. Collins described the definition, which stereotypes Essex girls as "unintelligent, promiscuous, and materialistic", as derogatory and suggested that the meaning be changed. The expression was removed from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary following the campaign in December 2020. In January 2017, Collins took part in the second series of Sugar Free Farm, alongside five other celebrities as they attempted to live on a sugar-free diet. During the show she attempted fishing and despite the strict detox plan, Collins said she actually gained weight during the process. In June 2017, Collins returned to Big Brother, as a special guest for a shopping task on the eighteenth civilian series, spending four days in the house alongside fellow ex-housemates Marnie Simpson and Nicola McLean. In October 2017, Collins presented the BBC Radio 1 Teen Award for Best TV Show to Love Island and, after announcing the winner, fell through an opening in the stage. The clip later went viral on social media. In an interview with Irish News, Collins said "the seriousness of it is, it could have been really fatal". After the video's widespread attention, further videos of Collins were used as memes, including scenes from her appearances on The Only Way Is Essex and Celebrity Big Brother.
In January 2018, Collins appeared on Celebrity 100% Hotter in an attempt to change her style. Collins admitted she was "terrified" about having a makeover but said she was keen to try out some different trends. In February 2018, she took part in the fourth series of Celebs Go Dating. During her time on the show, Collins walked out on one of her dates within the first few minutes after he branded her a "diva" due to her being late, whilst she was also reprimanded by the dating experts after she failed to turn up to her date with Laurence, who was planning to take her to Paris. In June 2018, she released her second book, titled The GC: How to Be a Diva, in which she provides advice and self help for women to gain confidence. In an interview on Loose Women, she admitted to using a ghostwriter. She also guest starred in a promotional advert for Netflix's Orange Is the New Black. Collins went on to appear in Gemma Collins: Diva España, a one-off reality television special which aired in August 2018. In September 2018, Collins took part in the thirteenth series of Celebrity MasterChef. She was eliminated in the second round of the third heat after her sea bass served in greaseproof paper failed to impress the judges. In November 2018, Collins was the subject of a song released by Tallia Storm, titled "It's the GC (Diva Forever)". The song was featured in one of Collins' clothing advertisements for Boohoo.com and later became the theme song of her television franchise Gemma Collins: Diva. In December 2018, Collins took part in a one-off celebrity special of All Together Now. Collins first performed "Big Spender" by Shirley Bassey where she received a score of 88 after impressing the judges with her vocal ability, which secured her a place in the top 3. She then sang "This Is Me" by Keala Settle and The Greatest Showman ensemble and subsequently finished in third place with a score of 39. Between January and February 2019, Collins took part in the eleventh series of the ITV skating competition Dancing on Ice, alongside professional partner Matt Evers. Her debut performance saw her skate to "Crazy in Love" by Beyoncé, in which she performed the splits on ice and attempted to lift her partner Evers at the end of the routine. She scored 16.0 out of 40.0 points, ultimately receiving the most votes from the public and got through to the next week, with 28.23% of the vote. Following her performance to "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" in Musicals Week, in which Collins was dressed as Marilyn Monroe and concluded with her being suspended in the air on a giant diamond ring, saw the couple receive 13.0 out of 40.0, the lowest marks of that year's series. Collins subsequently had an on-screen argument with judge Jason Gardiner, who made comments about her weight and lack of commitment to the series, and accused him of selling stories about her to the press. Despite finishing bottom of the leaderboard, they made it through to the following week, where Collins showed notable improvement during her routine to Celine Dion's "It's All Coming Back to Me Now, however she suffered a fall towards the end of the performance, catching her toe pick on the ice and ultimately falling flat on her face, causing her significant injuries and enduring damage to her knee. Despite the fall, the couple received 16.5 points out of 40.0, their highest scores of the competition and subsequently progressed to the next week. For week five, Collins skated to "Look What You Made Me Do" by Taylor Swift, whilst dressed as the Evil Queen for that week's Fairy Tale themed episode. She scored 13.5 points out of 40.0, after which she broke down in tears and admitted her loss of confidence after her fall the previous week. Despite finishing bottom of the leaderboard again, Collins was voted through by the public. In week six, they skated to "Survivor" by Destiny's Child, with Collins attempting the three required elements for that week's routine. They scored 15.5 points out of 40.0, before ending up in the skate-off for the first time against Ryan Sidebottom and his professional partner Brandee Malto. After their skate-off performance to Whitney Houston's "Queen of the Night", which Collins admitted they "hadn't practiced for weeks", they became the fifth couple to be eliminated from the competition, after the judges unanimously voted to save Sidebottom and Malto, ultimately finishing in eighth place.
In April 2019, Collins began filming for her own reality series, Gemma Collins: Diva Forever. The series premiered in August 2019 on ITVBe. The pilot episode premiered to a total of 673,038 viewers, and was the most watched episode on ITVBe in that week. The same month, Collins began hosting a podcast on BBC Sounds, titled The Gemma Collins Podcast. It was also reported that Collins had signed a record deal with Universal Music Group, and was set to release a single with Naughty Boy after the pair met at the BRIT Awards 2019 and had been impressed by Collins' vocal ability, however plans for this never materialised. Diva Forever was subsequently renewed by ITV for a second series, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, production was suspended. As a result, Collins filmed a new reality series, Gemma Collins: Diva on Lockdown, which featured Collins and her family in lockdown and aired between April and May 2020. In August 2020, Collins began hosting a second podcast on BBC Sounds entitled The Gemma Collins Love Lounge. In September 2020, Collins hosted a drive-in bingo event for the company PlayOJO at EventCity in Manchester. In October 2020, Gemma Collins: Diva Forever & Ever premiered on ITVBe. In December 2020, Collins released a charity single, a cover of "Baby, It's Cold Outside" alongside her Celebrity Big Brother co-star Darren Day, with proceeds from the single going towards Rethink Mental Illness. The music video was released at the end of Gemma Collins: Diva for Xmas, which aired two days prior to the single's release and transpired to be the final episode of the show. In February 2021, Collins appeared on Piers Morgan's Life Stories, where she discussed her early life, career, relationships, and miscarriages, as well as her struggles with her weight and online trolling. Collins also appeared as a special guest on the second series of RuPaul's Drag Race UK to participate in the Snatch Game segment of the show. In December 2021, the final episode of Collins' podcast on BBC Sounds aired after six series, as well as four series of the Love Lounge spin-off, prior to the former's move to Acast the following year. The same month, she appeared on the Christmas Special episode of The Weakest Link, and was voted off in the second round after incorrectly answering a question about the number of beds in a twin room. Collins also returned to Celebrity MasterChef to compete in the Christmas Cook-Off episode, along with other former contestants Joe Swash, Les Dennis, Mica Paris and Rev. Richard Coles. She first cooked a sticky figgy pudding in which she mistook cranberries for chillies, but was praised for her second dishes of smoked mackerel pâté and festive gnocchi. She did not win the episode, however judge Gregg Wallace described her mushroom, chestnut and brandy sauce as "magnificent".
In February 2022, Collins fronted a documentary on Channel 4 titled Gemma Collins: Self-Harm & Me. The documentary followed Collins as she opened up for the first time about her personal relationship with self-harm and saw her speak to experts as they investigated what was behind the rise in cases of self-harm in the United Kingdom. It received positive reviews and Collins was credited for raising the subject of self-harm and for showing audiences a different side to her. It was subsequently nominated within the Authored Documentary category at the 27th National Television Awards. Collins said she was "blown away" by the nomination, reflecting that "it was the scariest thing to be so honest with [herself], however the response [she] got from the show was totally overwhelming. In March 2022, Collins visited her former school Frances Bardsley Academy for Girls, as part of BBC 100's Share Your Story in which various celebrities returned to their old schools to share their experiences and inspire pupils.
