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Look who is going into the jungle: I'm A Celebrity Australia 2017 lineup revealed

Ebony Bowden

 The competition on season three of I'm a Celebrity ...Get Me Out of Here! is set to be hotter than ever before with a motley crew of headstrong celebrities moving into the jungle camp.

Roseanne star Tom Arnold is the Ten reality series' top international drawcard while reclusive Australian Idol winner Casey Donovan is also stepping back into public life.

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I'm A Celebrity Australia 2017: Cast skydive into jungle

Series three of Network Ten's I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! has kicked off with some cast members skydiving into the South African jungle from a plane. Vision courtesy Network Ten.

On the athlete front, Olympian Lisa Curry is set to make waves in the South African jungle camp while retired Collingwood player Dane Swan takes a surprise route post-AFL.

Shockjock Steve Price, My Kitchen Rules alumnus Ash Pollard, actor Jay Laga'aia, singer Natalie Bassingthwaighte, comedian Nazeem Hussain and former Miss Universe Australia Tegan Martin complete the camp of 10.

Understandably, all the celebrities were nervous just days before joining the reality television show which is infamous for its gruelling conditions, death-defying challenges and stomach-churning tucker trials.

Some contestants were more clear about why they were starring on I'm a Celebrity than others, but most agreed it was a chance to get out of their comfort zones and challenge themselves.

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For Donovan, the series was a chance to kibosh her crippling anxiety.

"It was a tough decision," she said of signing on to the show. "You're putting yourself on the line, it's a little bit tricky, but why not?"

"I've been struggling with anxiety for the last two years so why not put yourself in a position where your anxiety is going to send you into an overdrive? I just thought it's time to get it out of my system and face the fear."

Bassingthwaighte said she wanted to come out of the experience "with clarity" after working like "a bull at a gate" her whole life.

"I feel like I've been working like a crazy person for so long and even though this is still work, with no phones, no computers, no whatever, I'll really have time to breathe and have space."

But some stars were unclear on how they'd ended up in South Africa, mainly Swan, who kept describing himself as "unemployed" and "a bum".

"I got off the plane and thought, "F---, I'm in South Africa. What's going on'?" the laconic sportsman said.

"In fact, I'd prefer my profile to be decreased," he added. "But I watched the show last year so I didn't want to be sitting there in a couple of weeks eating dinner going 'that could have been me'."

Politics has the potential to rule the jungle camp this year, with conservative and liberal-minded celebrities alike forced to cohabitate the show's confines.

Tom Arnold is a staunch opponent of US President Donald Trump, while Steve Price has been chastised for his pro-Trump comments in the past.

Speaking to Fairfax Media just days before entering the camp, Nazeem Hussain also attacked One Nation leader Pauline Hanson for her dog-whistle politics.

"I want to understand other people from other backgrounds and beliefs," the Muslim comedian said. "I think so many of the problems in Australia could be overcome if we actually shut up for a second and listened."

"Instead the loudest people get the most votes. Pauline Hanson got half a million votes and she just says the most incendiary, nonsensical, sensationalist shit.

"I know I'll learn a lot from this experience and I know that, especially young people, we tend to hang out with people who are like us."

Meanwhile, Lisa Curry was full of praise for Hanson after starring alongside her on Celebrity Apprentice Australia in 2011, describing the controversial politician as "really lovely".

Alex Mavroidakis, I'm a Celebrity's executive producer of trials and reality, said he was proud of the cast for season three.

"Obviously you do everything you can to get a potpourri of characters and I believe we've done that," he said. "To me casting is like setting up a dinner party.

"If you're setting up a dinner party and you want it to be an arse-kicking night of fun and frivolity, you go right, we'll invite him because he's funny, we'll invite her because she might fancy him, we'll invite him because he'll annoy her.

"I believe we'd got a real core of funny and really nice people in there and a couple of really prickly people in there too."

I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! premieres at 7pm on January 29 on Channel Ten.

(This journalist travelled to South Africa as a guest of Channel Ten.)

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