The last two years have been transformative for Oti Mabuse. She’s a mum. She almost won I’m A Celebrity. She’s back as a judge on Dancing On Ice. And she’s got a “sizzling” adult novel coming out later this year. But rejection still ails her, just as it does anyone else.
She received a blow in 2023, though, when ITV decided to cancel her short-lived Saturday morning breakfast show.
It was a turning point for her, she later said. A “huge lesson” and evidence that you learn much more from failures than from successes.
Following her I’m A Celebrity stint, Oti enjoyed a jungle-themed welcome home party. Since then, she’s kept up her busy schedule, which includes promoting a leisurewear line.
Dancing On Ice judge Oti Mabuse gets as down about rejection as the next person
Among Oti’s superpowers in the I’m A Celebrity jungle was a knack for enabling others to feel comfortable sharing quite personal stories about their lives.
She came close to winning the competition. That, among her other successes, might make it appear as if she never experiences failure – or doesn’t ever feel down.
But she does, just as much as the next person, according to an interview with The Times from January 2025.
I get a lot of ‘not yet’, ‘not now’ or ‘you’re not the right person’.
“I do get down. A lot actually. You know, sometimes when you see someone and they’re happy, you just assume everything is alright, but I get a lot of nos for things that I go for. I get a lot of ‘not yet’, ‘not now’ or ‘you’re not the right person’.
“So I do 100% get down. I don’t talk about it a lot, so people assume that I don’t, and before coming out of the jungle I used to be scared to talk about it and be like: ‘Yeah, people don’t want to hear that.’ But when I do get down I try my hardest to either cry it out or talk to my friends.”
The I’m A Celebrity jungle showed her the power of being honest
It took “eating rice and beans in a jungle to realise” she could just talk openly about it, she added.
Before I’m A Celebrity, Oti said she “would have probably given you media-trained answers and not been genuine and open and honest with you. I think my experiences have started changing me, and for the better.”
She had a particularly compassionate attitude towards campmate Melvin Odoom, and shared the concerns she had during her time in the jungle when she came out.
Oti told Dermot and Alison on This Morning (December 13) that she was “extra protective” over him, because of the ways she knows that he is sensitive.
“I was extra protective over Melvin,” she said, “because I know him, and I know how sensitive he is. He’s really strong but when you get him down – it takes a lot to get him down. I just wanted to be there for him every step of the way, because he was there for me.”
Watch Oti Mabuse on Dancing On Ice, Sundays at 6.25pm on ITV.
Read more: Oti Mabuse addresses her ITV breakfast show being cancelled as she brands it a ‘huge lesson’
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She’s had plenty on her plate…
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