TikTok stars Jamil and Jamel Neffati have joined the cast of E4's Celebrity Coach trip, making their small screen debut on the reality series in Portugal.
The 28-year-old identical twins have accrued over 17 millions of followers on TikTok, but said Coach Trip was a “blessing” as it had always been their dream to be on TV.
The pair are known to their social media followers for their comedy sketches and impressive matching wardrobes - and even have identical neck tattoos of a red letter ‘n’, in reference to their surname.
The Polish-born twins, who have a reported net worth of £685,000, joined the reality trip hot on the heels of Love Island ’s Paige Turley and Finn Tapp and are the only TikTokers on the roster so far.
The cast of the E4 show also included actors Linda Robson and Lesley Joseph as well as Geordie Shore stars Sophie Kasaei and James Tindale.
The twins said they ended up having to explain TikTok and what they do “to almost everyone” on Coach Trip, but added that it made them feel “unique on the coach”.
The Neffati brothers said: “They quickly realised how big TikTok is, because wherever we went there were so many people that would recognise us, because with us it's not only the British audience, but it's worldwide audience.
“They were recognised as well, but most of the time these were British tourists, and with us it was just local people or even people from other countries visiting Portugal.
“Sometimes you might notice when we are doing interviews between activities, we are trying to stop laughing because people were stopping behind the camera and were asking for pictures and we couldn't focus. The crew had to get used to it.”
The pair managed to keep their appearance on the show under wraps from fans before it was announced, but made sure to pack their tripod and filming lights for Portugal so they could continue to shoot content in between filming for E4.
Jamil and Jamel said the reaction from their fans was overwhelmingly positive and said neighbours at their Lancashire home even stopped them on the street to congratulate them.
They said: “I couldn't believe it. Before we were recognised as faces from TikTok but they didn't know who we actually were.
“The TV show gave us an opportunity to show our personalities, who we actually are because most of our content is just comedy without us even speaking. Now people recognise us even more and it's really nice.”
When Jamil and Jamel started to gain a following on TikTok, they said they decided to take being identical twins “to another level” and started ordering two of everything to dress in matching sets, like they had as children.
They said: “With the twin factor, we always dress the same because we are twinning every day. It attracts so much attention.
“We don't even have to be known for social media - people stop and look around the world. People in London, LA, Berlin are stopping to take a picture and then they ask who you are - even on the Hollywood Boulevard Walk of Fame they were doing it.”
Looking back on their decision to join the Celebrity Coach Trip, the fashion-forward twins said it was the “perfect” debut show for them with a range of fun activities to fill the days.
They said: “It was amazing to do those things in Portugal but also to do it with famous people.
“We loved everyone from the cast. There were all different people, different shows, different personalities.
“The only thing that people could not like as much is obviously voting, but that was the least worrying thing for us because we were too focused on having fun.
“That was our motto before going there and probably before doing anything else in future - that we are just going there to have fun.
“We're just making friends. There's no room for enemies. We hope that the friendships we made on the coach are going to last very long.”
Jamil and Jamel hope that their appearance on the E4 reality show will mark a move into television to eventually split their time between the small screen and their social media channels.
They said: “As kids, we always dreamed of being on TV because there was no such thing as social media.
“Obviously now we are doing it, we love it and I can't imagine ourselves stopping doing social media and just being focused on TV but we would like to do both - doing more shows and maybe having our own show in the future would be amazing.”
