I'm a Celebrity star forced to work in coffee shop after spending all their money

Ten years ago, George Shelley came second on I'm a Celebrity after finding fame in X Factor boy band Union J. But, after spending all his money, he had to take coffee shop shifts to stay afloat. Doing so may have been a blessing in disguise as it led him back to music.

George, 32, was first introduced to the British public in 2012 when he auditioned solo on The X Factor. Though he was eliminated from the show during the bootcamp stage, he was invited back to judges' houses as part of a boy band, Union J. The band ultimately came fourth.

The singer then appeared on I'm a Celeb in 2015, placing second. A year later, he left Union J to pursue an acting and broadcasting career, joining The Capital Breakfast Show for fourteen months and guest-starring in shows like Benidorm. His on-screen appearances have been rare.

Now, he is in a new band, Lightlines, but has revealed that before this, he was working in a coffee shop, having spent all his music and TV money. He told The Sun: "Last year I was just grafting a lot, doing a lot of social media for other people, video editing and coffee shop work."

He added that he wasn't very good at being a barista and regularly broke things, but that he had to do the work because he'd "given up" on music. "I did smash a lot because I'm quite high energy. I'm always knocking things over and slipping over. I'd given up on music."

But working in the coffee shop – Chi Chi's coffee shop in Enfield, North London – turned out to be the very thing that led George back to his singing roots as it introduced him to his Lightlines guitarist, Alex Pothecary.

Alex was actually George's boss. When he realised his new barista was a famous singer, Alex revealed that he had a Masters in musical composition and the two started playing together.

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Shortly after, George met the third Lightlines member, drummer Will Jackson, in another coffee shop, and they became a trio. "The songs that I write by myself, they're very introspective and deep," George said. "And when I realised these boys could play guitar and drums, I was like, 'This feels really right'."

In July of this year, they released their first single, Wasted. On the debut single, George sings about "pills and bars" and "getting wasted" and it's based off of his real life experiences after the death of his sister Harriet in 2017.

"When my sister passed away, dealing with the grief on top of the rejection of the industry, it was a lot. My coping mechanisms were toxic for a long time and I was just in the wrong environments."

George now has periods of complete sobriety to focus on making music. The band are preparing to release their first album and George has explained one of the reasons he's thrown himself into it is to have "agency" over his life.

He said: “A big part of me doing music again is to make sure I don’t hand over my autonomy, and that I have agency over my own life and my creative choices.”

He also added that he's not against getting a odd jobs, like being a barista, again. “If in a month’s time I need to get some cash in, I’ll just do some night shifts somewhere or do some gardening.

“I’ve not got an ego, thinking that I’m too good for having to work again.”

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