I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! contestant Shona McGarty made her much-anticipated arrival in the Australian jungle on Sunday night, but her dramatic parachute entrance wasn’t the only thing viewers were talking about.
Just weeks before flying out to take part in the show, the 34-year-old actress ended her engagement to Irish musician David Bracken — a split that surprised fans given the pair had announced their engagement only last year. The timing led many to wonder whether things had turned sour behind the scenes.
McGarty and Bracken, who first connected on TikTok, had been together for two years. He proposed during a picnic in a Japanese garden in Kensington, a moment she later described as “beautiful” and completely unexpected. They had even started to discuss a wedding in West Cork, where both have family roots.
But despite the abrupt end to their romance, sources insisted the parting was amicable. “They are on friendly terms and want different things,” one said. “There are no hard feelings. Shona is focusing on her career.”
Until now, however, Bracken hadn’t publicly commented on the break-up.
As McGarty joined fellow campmates Ruby Wax, Kelly Brook and Martin Kemp in the jungle for the series launch, Bracken quietly broke his silence online — and in a way that made clear there was no lingering tension.
The 38-year-old posted a photo of the former couple together on Instagram Stories, accompanied by a supportive message: “Let’s go girl! You got this.”
It is the first time he has acknowledged the split or her I’m A Celebrity appearance, effectively putting to rest speculation that the separation had been acrimonious.
McGarty, who left EastEnders earlier this year after more than a decade as Whitney Dean, has been candid about her reasons for signing up for the show. Speaking from Australia ahead of her entrance, she admitted the experience was partly about confronting her fears.
“My mental health, my anxiety and my depression has been pretty bad over the last at least four or five years,” she told the Mirror. “It has stopped me from doing a lot of things I’ve always wanted to.”
She added: “Even talking to you now, I am very nervous, but this is something I want to do to challenge myself and prove to myself that I am bigger than this anxiety.”
