Lionesses legend Jill Scott saw her popularity soar when she was crowned queen of the jungle by winning I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! with many viewers falling in love with her quick wit and laid-back nature.
Now, though, the Sunderland native is working on what she knows best, and what she ultimately wants to be known for: football.
The European Championship winner, who retired after England Women's title-winning exploits last summer, is edging further out of her comfort zone as she works on the sport which became her life, but her off-the-field role comes with new challenges of its own.
Jill Scott's I'm A Celeb earnings
Jill, a Walkers and Starling Bank ambassador, was reportedly paid £120,000 for her I'm A Celebrity appearance in 2022, after she was part of the history-making Lionesses team to win the Women's Euros on home soil last summer. Jill and her team-mates were given a £55,000 bonus for their silverware-lifting exploits, according to reports. Last year, Heart had Jill's net worth as somewhere between $1.5million (£1.3million) and $4million (£3.4million).
New England punditry role
With 161 England caps to her name, Jill Scott is more than qualified to offer her insight into what goes on on the pitch - and that's exactly what she's doing for Channel 4 during their coverage of England men's Euro 2024 qualifiers.
Having conducted a number of pitchside interviews with ITV during the Qatar World Cup last year, the 36-year-old discovered a buzz she likened to that experienced during her playing career. She is now hoping to follow in the footsteps of her former England team-mates Karen Carney, Eni Aluko and Fara Williams by becoming an established football pundit.
“I had that buzz, a bit of an adrenaline rush,” Jill told The Times. “Did it go well? Did it not? As a player, you trained all week and it was like you had your exam day at the weekend. Do you fail or do you pass? I miss that.
“Will it be a challenge? Yes. I think it will challenge me the most out of any of the work I am doing now. But if you don’t challenge yourself, you don’t grow. I have built up resilience. I was constantly getting told from the age of seven that girls shouldn’t play football and was left in tears by some really nasty comments.
“After I do this punditry the only feedback I will look for is from Channel 4 and from my peers. I learnt to do that as a footballer."
As for women broadcasters sometimes being held to higher standards than their male counterparts, Jill says: "Sometimes I feel like a man will make a mistake in this world and it is a mistake, but a female will do it and it’s because they are female. So we have still got massive strides to make moving forward. By being visible it is helping make this the norm, rather than it being seen as ‘it’s ticked a box’.
“You have players like Kaz [Carney], who has played over 100 times for England. Fara, the most-capped player [with 177 caps]. They deserve to be doing punditry as much as a male person. For me to say, ‘No, I’m not going to do this’ because of comments I will get, I would have felt like I am letting the next generation down.
“If you hide away because you are scared of criticism, you are then making a young girl fearful of doing it. Will there be stick? Of course there will be, but every time I got picked for England in my last two years it was like, ‘Why is she still playing? Her legs have gone!’ ”
Jill will also be at the Women's World Cup in Australia and New Zealand this summer in some capacity, with the BBC and ITV only last week agreeing a deal with FIFA to broadcast the tournament in the UK - five weeks before it kicked off.
Marriage, coffee and Jill Scott's other job
Since winning the Euros, retiring from football and becoming queen of the jungle, Jill certainly has a bit more time on her hands to plan her wedding to fiancee Shelly Unitt. The couple got engaged in March 2020 but then Covid got in the way of their plans.
After winning I'm A Celeb, Jill was greeted on the famous jungle bridge by Shelly, who is the sister of former England player Rachel Unitt. They have been together for around seven years.
The pair co-own Manchester coffee business Boxx2Boxx, which opened in April 2021 and is named after Jill's infamous role as a box-to-box midfielder. The now-retired footballer is no stranger to a few shifts at the popular drinking spot, with Manchester City's Kevin De Bruyne among the clientele.
Coaching
Jill has already completed the Uefa B licence and wants to achieve the A badge in future.
“I did eight years at City and I fell in love with the detail that I was opened up to, so hopefully in the future I will do a bit of coaching with the younger age groups. I know there has been a lot of talk about Emma Hayes [the Chelsea Women manager] and people like that going into the men’s game and I truly believe they can do it," Jill previously said. "It just takes one and then it is not a story any more. You know you are getting somewhere when those firsts aren’t firsts any more. I’ve had female managers and male managers and never thought, ‘You’re a man, you’re a woman.’ It was just about the job they did for the team.”
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