Martin Kemp, the 64-year-old musician and actor, is among the stars entering the jungle for the 25th series of I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here, which returns to ITV on November 16. The London-born star first rose to fame as the bassist for Spandau Ballet, the iconic 1980s pop band formed by his brother Gary Kemp.
Spandau Ballet enjoyed chart-topping success with hits like 'True', 'Gold', and 'Through the Barricades', with four albums reaching the UK top ten. The band split in the early 1990s following a royalties dispute, after which Martin and Gary turned to acting, starring together in the 1990 film The Krays as the infamous gangster twins.
Martin married Shirlie Holliman in 1988; she was part of the pop duo Pepsi and Shirlie, who gained fame as backing singers for Wham!. The couple have two children: daughter Harley Moon, 36, and son Roman, 32. After moving to Los Angeles in the early 1990s, they returned to the UK in 1995, where Martin recovered from surgery to remove two benign brain tumours.
In 1998, Martin joined the cast of EastEnders as villain Steve Owen, becoming one of the soap's most iconic characters. He won a National Television Award for Most Popular Actor in 2000 and multiple British Soap Awards, including Villain of the Year and Best Actor. After leaving the show in 2002, he appeared in various TV dramas and became the face of furniture chain ScS.
Martin is no stranger to reality TV, having placed third on Celebrity Big Brother in 2012 and appearing with Shirlie on The Masked Singer in 2023 as 'Cat & Mouse'. He follows his son Roman, who came third on I'm A Celebrity in 2019. The pair host a podcast together, 'FFS! My Dad Is Martin Kemp', and previously presented ITV's Martin & Roman's Sunday Best!.
Ahead of entering the jungle, Martin revealed he took advice from Roman, who told him: 'Don't take it seriously, just enjoy it.' Martin joked on Instagram that he was more scared of Roman's reaction if he didn't make it as far as his son did.
