rakes

GEMMA Collins has raked in a seven-figure sum ahead of her I’m A Celebrity comeback.

The reality star, 44, has gone from strength to strength since rising to fame on The Only Way Is Essex.

According to new accounts from her company, Gemma Collins Limited, she has brought in a near £1 million profit in the year to September 30, 2024.

Meanwhile, earnings show £230,134 in corporation tax is due within a year.

This reveals Gemma has pocketed a £950,000 profit – based on the 2023/24 corporation tax rate -working out at £2,600 per day.

The firm was set up in 2012 and is run by Gemma’s dad Alan, although she is reported in accounts as the “ultimate controlling party”.

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She channels her earnings from TV, various branding and business endeavours into the company.

As well as her performing arts firm, Gemma has also run four other companies.

These were Gemma Collins Boutique, Gemma Collins Clothing, Gems by Gemma and GemmaCollagen.

However, they would ultimately all have mixed fortunes.

Gemma Collins Boutique went into liquidation owing £76,215.

As for Gemma Collins Clothing, it was in the red as per its last accounts.

Elsewhere, Gems By Gemma held £41,505 at its last accounts and GemmaCollagen was set up in 2020 but closed in 2021 without filing accounts.

Other ventures

After over a decade, Gemma is set to make a return to the I’m A Celebrity jungle for the second All Stars series.

In April, The Sun first exclusively revealed bosses were in talks with her for a jungle comeback.

She originally competed in the 2014 series, only to memorably quit after just three days.

A source said at the time: “She hated it first time round but knows it would be TV gold for her fans if she gave it another go.

“The discussions could go either way but signing her would be a huge win for execs.”

The Sun later revealed her in the full line-up – which also includes Gemma’s 2014 campmate Craig Charles.

Continuing in her reality TV roots, she is set to front her own upcoming Sky series titled Gemma Collins: Four Weddings and a Baby.

The Sun revealed this eight-part series will follow Gemma’s life over the course of a year – including domestic moments, glamourous events and her IVF journey.

In September 2024, Gemma revealed the secret side hustle that has made her a millionaire.

PROPERTY QUEEN

Speaking exclusively to The Sun, Gemma revealed she has been quietly investing in property for the past few years.

This means snapping up properties before flipping them – then renovating and reselling them within a year.

Gemma told The Sun: “I’ve put money into property.

“I don’t worry about my future because I’ve put everything in place -but I’ve done it late in life.

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“I had normal jobs and I’m not sure there were pension schemes then, I am self-employed, so I did it late in life.

“I was 40 when I started to [invest], I wish I had the knowledge that I have now in my 20s.”

CELEBRITY Traitors star Tom Daley is diving head first into a pool of cash courtesy of a lucrative side hustle.

The champion diver raked in more than £100,000 from his knitting hobby in 2024 – two years on from setting up his Made With Love label.

Profit eluded him for the first couple of years, but his woolly items are now coining it in.

Annual accounts for MWLTD Ltd show he made a six-figure profit in 2024 and left £57,000 in cash in the firm’s coffers.

He sells £8.99 balls of wool, patterns and leisurewear via his website and would-be buyers are told by Tom: “A lot of you know that I absolutely adore knitting.

“It’s been a journey for me that started when I first picked up my knitting needles in March 2020. Fast forward and I’m so proud to introduce these kits to you all so that you can experience the joy I found learning to knit.

“I designed these knit kits to help encourage you to pick up those needles, learn the basics, and fall in love with knitting at the same time – all whilst creating something to show off or pass on.”

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Wool vest kits start at £53. A pattern and wool for a sweater costs up to £72.

Tom, who hosts Channel 4’s Game of Wool, has said he was banned from wearing his own knitwear when appearing on Celebrity Traitors.

The Olympic gold medallist, 31, revealed in a new interview that self-promotion was prohibited during filming for the BBC gameshow.

The former diving champion appeared as a Faithful contestant on the programme alongside singer Paloma Faith, presenter Stephen Fry and broadcaster Kate Garraway, with the Traitors being Jonathan Ross, Alan Carr and singer Cat Burns.

He also added that he was constantly knitting when they weren’t filming scenes for the show.

“Any time I was in the hotel, I was just knitting, knitting, knitting,” he said.

His latest foray into entertainment TV saw him murdered early on in Celebrity Traitors – and he wasn’t happy about it.

He told the Guardian: “They got rid of people who probably would have figured it out.”

Tom clashed with the show’s producers when he put forward the idea of returning from the dead so that he could continue to take part.

He explained: “I think what they should have considered is a resurrection, bringing someone back from the dead after, like, the first four murders.”

However, his novel suggestion was met with a disappointing no.

TV chef Jamie Oliver raked in £28.5million last year as he continued to bounce back from his restaurant chain collapse.

Jamie Oliver Holdings’ bumper 2024 income came from TV shows, book sales and restaurants.

It also covered his cookery school and fees for promoting Tesco.

Jamie’s Italian chain collapsed in 2018, with debts of £83million.

But he now has international brands and a restaurant in Covent Garden, central London.

Revenues were up from £27.1million in 2023, Companies House files show.

But profits took a slight dip to £4.6million last year, from £5.2million.

The chef and his wife Jools, both 50, received dividends of £3million.

A report said: “The principal drivers of this decrease in profitability were reduced revenue from the effects of the cyclical nature of long term partnerships contracts, partially offset by savings in central staff costs (excluding Owned and Operated sites)

“We have delivered new Jamie Oliver titles in both book and TV formats during the year and there has been continued strong performance from back catalogue book titles and our international television content distributor.

“The Board recognises that the Jamie Oliver brand is a key asset of the Group and is confident that the night controls are in place to protect its value.”

1

There were so many mines on Larisa Sysenko’s small farm in Kamyanka in eastern Ukraine after the Russians withdrew that she and her husband Viktor began demining it themselves — with rakes.

Along the front line at Korobchyne near Kharkiv, Mykola Pereverzev started clearing fields with his farm machinery.

“My tractor was blown up three times. We had to get a new one. It was completely unrepairable. But we ended up clearing 200 hectares of minefields in two months,” he said.

“Absolutely everyone demines by themselves,” declared Igor Kniazev, who farms half an hour from Larisa’s.

Ukraine is one of the world’s renowned breadbaskets, its black earth so rich and fertile you want to scoop it up and inhale its aroma.

But that dark soil is now almost certainly the most heavily mined on the planet, experts told the AFP news agency.

More than three years of relentless artillery barrages —  the most intense since World War II — have scattered it with millions of tonnes of ordnance, much still unexploded.

Experts estimate one in 10 shells fail to detonate, with up to a third of North Korean munitions fired by Russia remaining intact, their high explosives deteriorating where they fall.

Yet the drones revolutionising warfare in Ukraine may also transform the demining process.

Ukraine and many of the 80-plus nongovernmental organisations and commercial groups operating there already employ drones to accelerate the enormous task of land clearance, supported by substantial international funding.

Despite the dangers and official warnings, farmers themselves often take the initiative, like the Sysenkos.

They were among the first to return to devastated Kamyanka, which Russian forces occupied from March to September 2022.

Two weeks after Ukrainian soldiers recaptured the village, Larisa and Viktor returned to find their house uninhabitable, without utilities.

After waiting out the winter, they returned in March 2023 to take stock and begin cleanup, first removing the gallows Russian soldiers had erected in their yard.

Then they started demining, with rakes. “There were many mines, and our guys in the Ukrainian army couldn’t prioritise us. So we slowly demined ourselves with rakes,” Larisa said cheerfully.

Boxes of Russian artillery shells — 152mm howitzer shells specifically, Viktor noted with a mischievous smile — still sit stacked before their house.

“I served in Soviet artillery, so I know something about them,” the 56-year-old added.

That summer, Swiss FSD Foundation deminers discovered 54 mines in the Sysenkos’ field.

The deminers instructed the Sysenkos “to evacuate the house”.

“Their protocols prohibited us from staying. So we complied. The demining machine traversed the area repeatedly, triggering numerous explosions.”

While Kamyanka remains largely a ghost village with gutted homes, about 40 people have returned — far below its pre-war population of 1,200.

Many fear the mines, and several residents have stepped on them.

Yet farmers cannot afford to wait and have resumed working the vast fields of Ukraine’s renowned “chernozem” soil, famous for its intense blackness and fertility.

“Looking at surrounding villages, farmers have modified tractors themselves for clearance and are already planting wheat and sunflowers,” Viktor added.