After 11 years, 150 contestants and far too much animal genitalia being eaten, I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! is changing things up in 2026. While the reality show is known for being broadcast live from South Africa — with viewers being able to vote for which celebs participate in tucker trials and who gets booted from the jungle — this year’s season has been entirely pre-recorded.
Filming began in late November and wrapped just before Christmas, and three alternate endings were recorded so the Australian public can still decide who will be the king or queen of the jungle.
But before you go and complain about I’m A Celebrity removing a core part of its DNA, host Julia Morris has revealed that the pre-record actually added a lot more spice to the show.
How pre-recording impacted I’m A Celebrity 2026
The long-running presenter told PEDESTRIAN.TV ahead of Sunday’s launch that this season is “the toughest series ever” because the contestants must choose each other for trials. Forget about singing Kumbaya around the campfire — it’s basically giving Survivor.
“In taking something away from our audience to be able to vote, what it does is it makes incredibly confronting moments for our celebrities because they have to choose someone,” she explained.
“I think a lot of the time they want to choose someone they probably assume is the most efficient for that trial, so they can eat, but it puts a lot more jeopardy into the competition. It generates a lot of conversation like, ‘How dare you pick me?’, even though they have a system.”
Basically, if celebs signed up for the show thinking they knew how things were going to work, they quickly learned otherwise.
“I feel this is a series that shows incredible resilience in our celebrities. It’s quite competitive, it’s exciting, there’s lots of laughs, and this particular combination of celebrities finds their way to each other and shows us how it’s done,” Julia continues. “It’s just a fantastic series.”
Major changes to the edit
Not only can fans expect the show’s format to be different, but they will also likely notice some big changes to the edit.
Production sources told P.TV that Channel 10 and producers are “genuinely buzzing” about what pre-recording the series has allowed them to do. Instead of just smoothing out the rough edges, they’ve been able to take the show’s storytelling and editing to a level fans haven’t seen with this format before.
According to one insider, producers used the extra time and breathing room to go “full mastermind mode” and shape the season to make it undeniably the best version it could be.
“We’ve never had this much time to make the show work this well,” they claim. “Every package, every beat, every storyline has been tightened. Every episode is designed to leave you hanging. It’s deliberate, and it’s going to completely change the way it feels to watch.”
Production insiders believe this could be the thing that drags people back into the nightly ritual of reality TV, and honestly, it’s kind of genius.
The big question is whether the changes will ruin the show’s authenticity, but I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. Because yes, we will be watching.
I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! premieres 7.00 Sunday, January 18 on 10
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