Who is Maura Higgins? I'm A Celebrity late arrival set for ITV show after ongoing rumours

After a wealth of rumours and a few raised eyebrows when they didn't appear on the conformed list of contestants last week, I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here's new arrivals were confirmed on Wednesday night. And one of them is Maura Higgins.

Given just how popular the ITV show is, speculation on who was going to be on the I'm A Celebrity 2024 line-up was rife, long before the new series was due to start and, following the decision of Tommy Fury to 'pull out' of appearing to concentrate on another 'lucrative' project, Maura saw her name linked for the first time.

Given that sources claimed a 'deal was done' and the Irish star had been surprised, it came as a big surprise that she wasn't on the list of celebs that was released by ITV at the start of last week and then was also missing from the launch episode on Monday night.

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However, after a few days of being 'missing in action,' Maura is due to make her entrance on I'm A Celebrity before the week is through, along with Rev Richard Coles, the other late arrival to the jungle.

Who is I'm A Celebrity's Maura Higgins?

Maura, 33, first shot to fame when she went into Love Island as an early bombshell in 2019. After making a play for Tommy and then giving viewers one of the moments of the series when she gave lothario Tom a real dressing down, Maura made it all the way to the final with now ex Curtis Pritchard.

After Love Island, Maura, who counts Strictly pro Giovanni Pernice as one of her exes, was signed up by ITV to take part in Dancing on Ice in 2020 and more recently, has returned to her Love Island roots, by being the host of spin-off Aftersun for the American version of the dating show.

Before she had even set foot in the jungle on Thursday night, Maura had already made some major waves in the betting, climbing up to third in the latest odds.