SHE’S TOFF TO A GOOD START!
Latest queen of the jungle Georgia Toffolo was paid a pittance compared to her I’m A Celebrity camp mates but experts predict that she could now make £5m thanks to her new stardom
THREE WEEKS ago she was a little-known reality TV star, familiar only to fans of E4’s Made In Chelsea. Now she is queen of the jungle and known to the nation. Interviewed yesterday on This Morning, Georgia Toffolo expressed amazement that presenter Holly Willoughby even knew her name.
But it is this down-to-earth likeability that explains why 23-year-old Toff – as she is known to family and friends – took the crown in ITV’s top-rated show on Sunday. Her reported pay packet to take part in I’m A Celebrity was £13,000 – a pittance in a show where big stars can be paid 20 times that amount. But now media experts predict the former head girl could earn £1million in the next year alone.
“Her agents have played a blinder,” says celebrity talent scout Barry Tomes. “A lot would have turned down such a low fee but they obviously took it knowing her character – it’s the right kind of programme for her. If they play the game she could earn up to £5 million in the long-term.”
So who is the former law student who did not even expect to be liked by viewers?
Although she has been happy to play the jungle game – showing off her toned physique in eyecatching bikinis – the gamine blonde has also demonstrated she is able to look after herself.
Born on October 23, 1994 and describing herself as “quite athletic” Toff is no stranger to success and self-determination.
As a child she was a keen tennis player who scooped top prizes in several tournaments at the same tennis club in Devon where Grand Slam champion Sue Barker started out. Raised in London and Devon after her parents divorced when she was very young, she attended Stoodley Knowle Convent School in Torquay, where she was head girl, before boarding at £31,755- a-year Blundell’s School in Tiverton – described as a “distinguished rural school of ancient lineage”.
HEAD of the debating society at Torquay Girls’ Grammar, where she sat her A-levels, she studied law at Westminster University before dropping out of her degree – twice – to pursue her TV career in 2014. She was soon a favourite on the scripted reality show Made In Chelsea, which follows the lives of affluent bright young things in London.
“I’ve been on freshers’ week twice, that’s the only degree I have,” Toff told Holly Willoughby. “I dropped out twice from a law degree because I didn’t have time to do everything at once.”
But some viewers have been surprised by her family background. When the socialite was reunited with her mother Nicole in the jungle, Toff’s mum appeared to be nowhere near as posh as her daughter. In fact Toff ’s background is actually working class. Her father Gary, 52, who used to run a car repair business, now works as a commercial property landlord and collects scrap metal to sell. “I’m not a toff but so what?” he says. “I’m just a standard guy, a normal Devon guy who works for himself.”
Nicole embarked on a second marriage to a company director when Georgia was five but that relationship did not last.
But despite her fledgling TV career, which also saw her appear on several TV dating shows, Toff – who split with boyfriend James Middleton shortly before entering the jungle – has kept an interest in more serious issues.
After working at a solicitors in Devon she did two years of voluntary work and in January 2015 started work for think tank Parliament Street as head of events. A member of the Conservative Party since 14 and a keen Brexiteer, she said her intention was to get young people voting.
“Winning the support of more young people could mean the difference between success and failure so it’s time politicians took these audiences seriously,” she said.
In March she was attending an awards event at the House of Commons when the Westminster terror attack took place. Locked inside as events unfolded she used her Twitter account to focus on the bravery of security personnel.
Despite swanning off to Australia for I’m A Celebrity she still “technically” works as an HI-YA: Toff in Made In Chelsea editorial assistant at The Lady magazine, once edited by Rachel Johnson, daughter of 77-year-old Stanley Johnson with whom Toffolo struck up an unlikely alliance in the jungle despite a huge age gap.
She is also said to make “thousands” promoting products on Instagram, where she has more than 725,000 followers happy to follow her every move.
Good genes certainly appear to run in her family. Photographs of her grandmother – to whom she talks daily – reveal a woman every bit as stylish as her granddaughter.
“I want to use this for good,” Toff says of her win. “I’m going to do lots of research and hopefully do something great.”
Her future would assured as she is. seem as