Former model Rachel Hunter was only in the jungle for a matter of days, but in that short time she unintentionally became the calm, wise one that other campmates were drawn to.
“I am who I am. I wouldn’t be like, ‘Oh yeah, everyone came to me’ – everyone shared deeply with each other,” she insists. “Everybody played an important part; Nathan [Valvo] was really funny and uplifting, Mia [Fevola] had this beautiful grace about herself and Gary [Sweet] was very much a father figure. It was beautifully cast.”
Reiterating that everyone brought something different to the I’m A Celebrity… table, the mother-of-two, 56, believes that at the end of the day, seeing each other as people first, not celebrities, was the key to finding genuine connections.
“It doesn’t matter who we are, what we’ve done before, to see some of these people – some are reality, some of them actors, singer – to see those dissolve and see the quality of the person and their beautiful stories they shared, was pretty amazing to witness,” Rachel tells Woman’s Day after her shock elimination.
“Intimate conversations that would happen by the fire… we would laugh, because they’d be super intense and then someone would go, ‘I have to go get firewood!’”
Rachel admits she would have liked to stay in the show for longer, saying, “I had cancelled everything right to the end of the show, I was like, “I’m in to stay all the way’ and go as long as I could.”
As a longtime yoga devotee who runs retreats around the world, she found the switching off and embracing the solitude of jungle life far easier than many would.
“I spend a lot of time in different remote areas, alone and in places where I’m not speaking the language,” she explains. “Obviously when you’re put into more of a TV situation, you’re there with 12 -13 people in close, close quarters, there’s weather conditions, and you’ve got hours and hours with each other… it’s an interesting concept.”
One of the stories she shared from her past was the origins of her high-profile “magic” marriage to rocker Rod Stewart in the ‘90s, revealing that it ultimately ended in divorce because she was too young for marriage. Did Rod wish her well before she headed into the jungle?
“No, no, no,” she laughs. “We’re 30-something years that we haven’t been together, I’m sure he would if… I don’t ring him every day and tell him all my career options!”
With yoga retreats pencilled in for the remainder of 2026, Rachel will be getting ready to jetset around the globe again soon, stopping everywhere from Glastonbury and Morocco to India. However, she always has one role that brings her back to one spot for a while – that of grandmother to two-year-old Louie and baby Elsie, who will celebrate her 1st birthday next month.
“I’m not the round the corner grandmother because I’m moving around all the time, but they’re beautiful [grandkids], beautiful parents,” Rachel says of her son Liam, 31, and his wife Nicole Artukovich.
“I don’t really stay in Los Angeles and Liam and Nicole and the kids are in Los Angeles, so when I’m there I go down and see them. It’s beautiful seeing your kids flourish into these parents and go through that process.”
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