Gogglebox Star Reflects on Refusing to Be Weighed on I’m A Celebrity

Yvie Jones has revisited the powerful moment she refused to be weighed on I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! Australia. 

At the time, the Gogglebox Australia star shared a powerful speech, revealing her battle with an eating disorder and slamming the show’s decision to check the weights of the participating celebrities on the show. 

‘I saw the numbers and I was the only one in the triple digits,’ the 51-year-old told the podcast Well Enough Alone – A Guide To Thriving Solo this week.  

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‘All I could see was double digits and me at the bottom and I thought that’s how they’d written us, like thinnest to fattest’ Yvie continued. 

‘The thing that really got me at the time, and I’ve never, ever spoken about this publicly, was Angie [Kent] was at the top and she only weighed 52kg, and I was at the bottom and I weighed 112kg. So that’s more than double her.

‘It was just so blatantly embarrassing and shameful. Are they doing this to stitch me up? These are the things that were going on in my head.’

Yvie said that she was anxious how her message would be received, but in the end it was for the greater good.   

‘I knew TV enough to know if I did it right, I could make this powerful enough to just help one woman. Just one woman, that’s all I wanted to do,’ she said. 

Yvie Jones (pictured) has revisited the powerful moment she refused to be weighed on I’m A Celebrity …Get Me Out Of Here! Australia

‘When I finished, everyone clapped. The crew were behind me and I turned around to look at them and they were all crying, and the majority of them were men… It was a really defining moment.’

The powerful episode came during the 2018 season of the jungle based reality show.  

Yvie refused to be weighed, instead using the platform to speak about her eating disorder for the first time.

She broke down as she talked about body image and how she ‘wished we lived in a different world where what we looked like doesn’t matter’.

During the weigh-in, Yvie revealed that she wouldn’t be taking part, telling her camp mates: ‘I’ve had an eating disorder most of my life.

‘I saw the numbers and I was the only one in the triple digits,’ the 51-year-old said. ‘All I could see was double digits and me at the bottom and I thought that’s how they’d written us, like thinnest to fattest’. Pictured on the show in 2018

‘I’ve never, ever spoken about this publicly. Angie [Kent] was at the top and she only weighed 52kg, and I was at the bottom and I weighed 112kg. So that’s more than double her’ she said 

‘I was growing up in a house where I was told that one of the worst things to be was overweight. I can’t actually tell you the last time I weighed myself.

‘I know a lot of people think they understand but unless you’ve had an overweight problem you don’t understand what it’s like to go through life being solely judged on the weight you are and the clothes that don’t fit you properly.’

A year later, the reality revealed she ‘still struggles every day’ with an eating disorder on Hit Network’s Summer Breakfast, during an emotional chat with Grant Denyer. 

In a bid to inspire others, Yvie began: ‘I see myself as someone who still struggles every single day with an eating disorder, what I see in the mirror, on TV, and read on the internet from well-meaning none-professionals and professionals.’

She went on to say that she’s now decided to ‘love herself anyway’, revealing that she talks to herself in the same way she would a vulnerable friend or child. 

‘When you think something awful and judgmental about someone – including yourself – always remember that the first thing your mind thinks is how society has taught us to be. The second thing is how you really actually feel,’ she said. 

‘Re-program your mind, embrace yourself. We are so much more than what we see in the mirror.’

Yvie is best known for starring on the reality TV series Gogglebox Australia from 2015 to 2018. She has been friends with Angie Kent (left) for well over a decade