Who is Nella Rose? The social media sensation turned divisive I’m a Celebrity star

Nella went from reading lists to the red carpet, gaining huge popularity on YouTube while studying at university (Getty)

Some people know me because they’ve seen a meme,” the influencer Nella Rose told Capital Xtra earlier this year.  “[Some] don’t know anything about me.” Since the 26-year-old social media star entered the I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! camp last week, that’s all changed. After just a few days in the jungle, Rose has inadvertently become the show’s main character – and has provoked the disproportionate levels of online vitriol that come with that dubious honour.

It all started with a clash over the campfire with First Dates maître d’ Fred Sirieix. When his age came up in conversation, the Channel 4 show’s resident cupid noted that, at 51, he “could be [Rose’s] dad”. The apparently throwaway remark didn’t sit well with Rose, who lost both of her parents at a young age; the next day, she confronted him, calling him “disrespectful” and a “weirdo” and even refusing to eat the food that he’d prepared.

The pair have since come to a tentative reconciliation, but her comments prompted a vicious backlash on social media: one that has so far arguably exceeded the ire directed at Nigel Farage, whose avowed right-wing views have prompted some I’m a Celebrity fans to boycott the series altogether. And Rose, who currently has 800,000 subscribers on her self-titled YouTube channel and 1.1 million followers over on TikTok, gained further airtime when she took Farage to task over his politics. “I’m stopping you getting a GP appointment? You’re not getting an appointment because the NHS is lacking funding,” she told the former Brexit Party leader when he suggested that immigration was impacting healthcare services.

Another contestant might have been hailed by anti-Farage viewers as heroic for their comments, and yet the youngest I’m a Celeb hopeful’s row with Sirieix (who, it should be said, has also called out Farage) seems to have already villainised her in the public’s eye. But a glance at her life story perhaps explains why she might have reacted emotionally in the pressure-cooker environment of the camp.

Rose, whose full name is Ornella Rose Hollela, was born in Belgium to a family of Congolese heritage, and moved to the UK with her mother Eseho Omolongo and older brother Albert when she was seven years old. Growing up in northwest London, she would reportedly watch videos of long-time I’m a Celebrity presenters Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly, copying their voices in an attempt to get rid of her Belgian accent (it’s a wonder she didn’t end up with a Geordie twang).

As a teenager, Rose wasn’t sure that university was the right route for her but, she later explained to The Guardian, she knew that if she didn’t attend, “my family would never let it go”. She ended up studying sociology at the University of Leicester, and started posting on her YouTube channel as a fresher, uploading fashion and beauty videos as well as frank, funny chats with her friends about university life. Her authenticity and sense of humour had viewers hooked, and it didn’t take long for her to start seeing social media as a potential career: her studies became “a hurdle that gets in the way”, she admitted at the time. “I have so many opportunities in London but I’m stuck in Leicester doing a flipping dissertation.”

Divisive: the 26-year-old’s row with Fred Sirieix sparked a backlash from some viewers

(ITV)

Rose’s student days were also touched by personal tragedy and upheaval. Just weeks after she turned 19, her mother died “in [her] arms” after a long illness. Then, while she and her brother were grieving, they received a letter from the council serving them notice, effectively evicting them from the family home. “I was planning on using my student loan and my little YouTube money to pay the rent and bills,” she later explained in a video. “But then my brother and I get a letter telling us we [have] 30 days to move out. So I’m in my second year of uni, I’m dealing with my mum’s death and now we’re homeless.” The siblings had to move out quickly, leaving many of their mum’s possessions behind. “We lost so [many] memories from living in that house,” she told her followers.

And while her life might have looked glamorous on social media, with Rose interviewing celebs, sharing fashion hauls and attending lavish influencer events with her fellow influencers, she was effectively without a home. “My uni room was my house or I was going on brand trips abroad in the holidays because I was running away from the fact I had nothing to call my own, nothing solid,” she said. “I was escaping my problems. You all thought I was living my best life, but in reality, I was homeless, living out of a suitcase and hopping from bed to bed.” Her words were a salutary reminder of the gap between real life and the shiny, happy version we present online. Finding a London flat to rent later gave Rose more stability, but she admitted to her followers that she struggled with living alone after her mum’s death. “I didn’t want this to be my life,” she confessed in a vlog. “I wanted to come home to my mum and live with my family.”

Influencer: Nella Rose’s social media fame has opened doors

(GettyT)

She continued to focus on her social media following, landed viral fame when her: “Are you not embarrassed?” catchphrase started doing the rounds on TikTok, and was eventually crowned PrettyLittleThing’s YouTuber of the Year in 2020. But Rose was hit by another devastating loss that same year: the death of her father Kamango Paul Hollela. “Watching you suffer for the past month has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life but at least you’re not in pain any more,” she wrote in a social media tribute to him, posted in May 2020. Dealing with grief during lockdown took its toll, she revealed to fellow I’m a Celebrity campmate Grace Dent this week. “Lack of self-discipline got me from a size 12 to a size 20,” she said. “My dad passed, I locked myself in the house for two months and drank every single day, ate every single day. I gained it all and it was the pandemic. So it wasn’t like I was leaving [the house] or working.”

In spite of yet another setback, Rose’s career continued to thrive. She landed her first TV gig as the co-host of Catfish UK for MTV in 2022, launched a fashion collaboration with PrettyLittleThing, and has hosted the Brit Awards red carpet live stream for two years on the trot, presenting alongside the likes of Drag Race star Michelle Visage and comedian Munya Chawawa. But I’m a Celebrity represents her biggest, most mainstream platform to date. Perhaps her now-settled row with Sirieix is proof that grief can hit us all in different ways (and that we don’t always get to see the full picture on reality TV).

Rose went into the camp vowing to “keep the morale and humour high” – and there’s still plenty of time left for her to do just that.