Former EastEnders star Shona McGarty has entered the I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! jungle, and her ex-fiancé, David Bracken, has publicly broken his silence on the matter, showing his support just weeks after their split.
An Amicable Split and Public Support
David Bracken, a 38-year-old Irish musician, took to his Instagram Stories to share a sweet photograph of the former couple as Shona, 34, made her dramatic parachute entrance into the camp on Sunday night. He accompanied the image with the encouraging words: "Let's go girl! You got this."
The pair got engaged last year after meeting on TikTok two years ago, but ended their whirlwind romance just a few weeks before Shona travelled to Australia for the ITV reality show. Despite the recent split, sources confirm the separation was amicable, with the couple realising they were better suited as friends.
A Look Back at Their Relationship
David Bracken, a former member of the band Blessed, proposed to Shona during a romantic picnic in a Japanese garden in Kensington, West London. At the time, Shona gushed about the proposal, telling OK! magazine, "He brought a picnic, which was really sweet. It was lovely, I was in my element but I didn't think he was going to propose."
The actress, who rose to fame playing Whitney Dean on EastEnders from the age of 16, had already begun planning their wedding. She revealed they intended to marry in a Catholic church in West Cork, Ireland, to be near family.
Facing Fears in the Jungle
Shona's decision to join I'm A Celebrity is a significant personal challenge. Before entering the camp, she spoke candidly about her struggles, telling The Mirror from Australia, "My mental health, my anxiety and my depression has been pretty bad over the last at least four or five years, and that has stopped me from doing a lot of things I have always wanted to."
She added that she had reached a point where she no longer wanted to let anxiety control her life, stating, "I mean, even talking to you now, I am very nervous, but it is just something I want to do to challenge myself and to kind of prove to myself that I am bigger than this anxiety."
Before her relationship with David, Shona was linked to her EastEnders co-stars Max Bowden and Matt Lapinskas. She has also recently received critical acclaim for her stage performance in 2:22 A Ghost Story. Now, she faces one of her biggest fears alongside campmates including Ruby Wax, Kelly Brook, and Martin Kemp.
