Former King of the Jungle Sam Thompson is about to head back to where he was crowned. The I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! winner will be thousands of miles from home, living and working with another woman for a month, so he feels the need to declare his love for the person he will miss the most. ‘My girlfriend is the one. I want to have a child.’He’s talking about Talitha Balinska, a 25-year-old digital creator, DJ and model. ‘She’s the mother of my kids. I know she is.’ Well, not yet, but he clearly wants her to be. ‘I’m 34. I wouldn’t be with her unless she was the absolute love of my life.’ Are they going to get married? ‘I hope so. Soon.’ Great, but has he actually asked her? ‘Informally. We’ve talked about what our wedding would be like. She knows.’There’s laughter from the sofa beside him. Capital Radio DJ Kemi Rodgers has not heard him be so bold about this before. She’s the other woman in question, and she’ll be sharing the camera and an apartment block with him as they host I’m A Celebrity… Unpacked, the spin-off show that brings gossip and reaction from the jungle every night – or day, as it will be Down Under – when the show returns later this month.‘That sounded weird,’ admits Sam, but it’s this open-hearted chat that made him famous when he first appeared on our screens in the reality show Made In Chelsea in 2013. It’s also what got him crowned King of the Jungle in 2023 and has made Staying Relevant, his podcast with his best mate Pete Wicks, so popular. He was diagnosed with ADHD and autism a few years ago, and made a documentary, Sam Thompson: Is This ADHD?, about it, as well as writing a children’s book, You, Me & ADHD, donating all his fees to the charity ADHD UK.‘I recently apologised to my dad because he worked really hard to send me to a really good school and I failed most of my exams,’ he says. ‘He said, “Sam, mate, you are what you are. I’m so happy for you because I’m so glad you are where you are.”’He first met Talitha when she modelled for his sunglasses range three years ago, but he was dating reality star Zara McDermott at the time. Their five-year romance ended in 2024, and Zara began dating Louis Tomlinson from One Direction. ‘Suddenly there were paparazzi outside my window,’ says Sam. ‘I thought, “Oh, this is what it’s like!”’Zara and Louis are now living together – how does he feel about it? ‘Every ex I’ve had has been super-respectful. There’s no throwing mud. Some things just come to a close. I’m happy they’re happy.’ Producers put Sam Thompson and Kemi Rodgers together on Unpacked two years ago, with Joel Dommett as the main host, but this year it’s just the two of them Sam Thompson became King of the Jungle on the 23rd edition of I’m A Celebrity… back in 2023Talitha took some persuading when they met again last year, possibly because of the storm of attention surrounding him. ‘She turned me down three times.’ He met her in a pub, tried to talk and it went disastrously. ‘I went back to my pie. But I said to my mate, “I can’t sit here knowing my future wife has just left the pub without me saying anything.”’Sam ran outside but couldn’t find her. She didn’t reply to his messages. He tried again. ‘She replied with a one-word answer, full stop. I’m going to sound like a stalker… I turned up to the gym where she worked out. I was doing weights, hoping I’d see her. Eventually she showed up. I said, “Look, you can just say no, but can I take you out on a date? If, in the first five minutes, you think it’s bad, you never have to speak to me again.” She said, “You can have five minutes of my time.” We never looked back.’ Talitha now lives at his Chelsea home.Sam’s relentlessly positive charm has earned him almost three million Instagram followers. He’s also just been making a series about men for ITV with Pete Wicks. ‘We’ve been together for 35 days straight. I feel energised, but Pete looks about 76, like I’ve sucked the blood out of him. He’s ready for me to go to Australia.’Producers put Sam and Kemi together on Unpacked two years ago, with Joel Dommett as the main host, but this year it’s just the two of them.Kemi’s life has been much less public than Sam’s until now, with an idyllic-sounding childhood in Eastbourne, East Sussex. ‘I had the best time growing up. I only realised I was mixed-race when I moved to London,’ she says. ‘My whole life until then was spent in a very white town, but it was never an issue. I feel grateful. That’s not the same in my adult life, being online. You get some horrible comments. But I’m so glad my childhood was happy.’Kemi, 31, studied multimedia journalism at Bournemouth University before getting her break at Capital Extra. She now hosts a morning show on Capital, makes quirky history reels on social media, and is an ambassador for the National Trust. It was her work at Capital Radio that caught the attention of producers at I’m A Celebrity…, who took a chance on her.There is one sweet thing she has not realised is still up online: a blog she wrote aged 17, detailing her plans for the future. ‘How did you find this?’ she says when I show her. ‘You’re going to make me cry!’ She reads it out loud. ‘“Get a work placement. Gain more experience… then get a regular slot on a radio show. Move up to bigger radio stations. Try and do television interviews, and then dream job? Unsure.” Oh my God!’Her mother works in the NHS and Kemi used to as well. ‘I worked in the vascular department at the hospital during Covid. That was tough. I was thinking, “You’re seeing a lot more boxes go down the corridor with people in them.”’ She was still doing shifts there when she started presenting on Capital Extra. ‘Monday to Thursday I worked as an NHS secretary, then at the weekends I’d be on the radio, on the graveyard shift until 6am.’Sam adds his own Covid story. His sister Louise, who was on Made In Chelsea before he joined, was seriously ill just after the pandemic. ‘She had two haemorrhages post-birth, that was terrifying. I was at an ITV event and three beers deep the second time. Mum called and said, “Louise is bleeding out. You need to be at the hospital.”’There was a snag. Visitors were still not allowed. ‘I snuck into the hospital, half-cut, past all the guards. People would buzz themselves through doors and I’d follow. I managed to find her. They tried to make me leave but I said, “I’m not going.” They were sweet, they let me stay. She got through that, then was in pain from her colon. So they whipped that out. She’s flying now. She’s the strongest person.’Sam and Kemi are about to leave for Australia, so do they stay in the same hotel as Ant and Dec? ‘I expected that at first,’ admits Kemi sheepishly. Sam laughs. ‘We’re miles away. I thought, “It’ll be so luxurious. The bed’s gonna be enormous.” Then we were like, “Wait, why are Ant and Dec going the other way?”’Sam and Kemi stay in an apartment block at a beach resort. Their days are upside down, says Kemi, because New South Wales is 11 hours ahead of the UK. ‘We wake up about 11pm. We bundle into the car looking like a sack of potatoes. You have your undereye mask and start work about 2am.’ Sam Thompson lives with his girlfriend Talitha Balinska, a 25-year-old digital creator, DJ and model. He says he hopes to marry her and have children with her one dayThey both stress that the set really is deep in the jungle. ‘It’s full of bugs. It’s horrific,’ Kemi says. ‘You have strip lights on and these bugs are just flying around.’Sam got used to it as a campmate. ‘There are huntsman spiders everywhere. So cool. The thing I hated most was the cockroaches. There are so many of them. Kemi, she’ll get a butterfly land on her and scream.’They watch Ant and Dec present I’m A Celebrity…, then go on air at 10pm UK time. ‘The changeover is hectic, but they’ll wait and chat to us before we go on, which is so nice,’ says Kemi.‘Dec gave me amazing advice about doing a double act,’ Sam adds. ‘He said, “Disagree agreeably. Me and Ant barely ever argue, but if we do it won’t be in front of anyone. We always have each other’s back before anything else. We’re best mates first.”’He’s in awe, still. ‘They were my childhood heroes. I remember sitting on my living room floor with my parents, watching the jungle. Now when they finish we do our show, and they’ll be having their food, watching us.’After the show, Kemi reads by the pool and Sam goes to the gym. Bedtime is around 4pm. ‘You’re basically living with each other,’ says Sam. ‘You spend your days off together. It’s intense.’Won’t their partners get jealous? ‘Oh no!’ says Kemi, who’s engaged to Thomas Hannett, a senior producer at Capital. ‘I don’t think there’s any of that. You know my fiancé, don’t you Sam?’ He nods. ‘Yeah, he’s a good lad. We’ve been to the pub together with Tali, all four of us, so everyone knows each other. With us two it’s very brother- sister.’ Kemi adds, ‘Yeah, sensible older sister!’Will their other halves come out to Australia? ‘Last year I got engaged out there,’ says Kemi. ‘This year, he can’t get time off.’ When are they getting married? ‘No dates in the diary yet.’Sam jumps in. ‘Am I coming?’ She pauses for a fraction of a second, but he spots it: ‘There was a space then…’ She protests, ‘No!’ He’ll get an invitation, although it sounds like he’ll be issuing his own soon. But he’s only thinking about Unpacked for now. ‘I’ve got my other half coming, but only for the last ten days. You need to get your head in the game, so I said to my girlfriend, “I want you there, but I want to bed in first.”’Kemi says, ‘This is important to both of us. You can’t hide on live TV. You can see if we’re having a laugh. Hopefully everyone is also having a laugh with us.’Sam agrees. ‘This is the first time we’ve done this show together on our own. It’s huge for us. We’re determined to make it the best it can possibly be.’I’m A Celebrity… Unpacked starts Monday, 16 November, on ITV2 and ITVX.