After a stint on I’m a Celebrity, the N-Dubz singer is preparing for her next act. She discusses the trauma she has lived through – and why she still has faith in the future

Why does anyone go on I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here!? Sometimes there’s an obvious reputation-washing agenda, which annoyingly seems to work – people who are really hated come out more popular (Matt Hancock, for example). Other times it looks as if they need the money. For Tulisa, born Tula Paulinea Contostavlos 36 years ago in north London, her recent stint sounds more like aversion therapy. “I had a lot of fear surrounding exposure,” she says, “and I got to the point where I thought: ‘Am I holding on to this fear because of what people have done to me in the past? Am I letting other people change my perception of what my career is and could be?’ I didn’t want to feel that way any more.”

It wasn’t really about winning (she got voted off in week three) and, as for the rest, the result was inconclusive. She didn’t stick around to watch the winner crowned, as is customary, but flew home from Australia early, overwhelmed. “I came out, still followed by cameras, all tits and teeth, and it wasn’t until I was on my own that I felt this introvert-overload. I was hyperventilating, crying. It was too much.” She was never able to determine, “Is this about a fear I have of being in the spotlight? Or is the person I’ve become just not the kind of person that wants fame any more?”