SHE left the sparkle of Strictly Come Dancing behind to head out on the run for Celebrity Hunted.
But Katya Jones couldn’t be happier about it, revealing her frantic attempts to shed her usual glamour before she hit the road with pal Aimee Fuller.
The pro dancer leads a line-up including Ed Gamble, James Acaster and Nicola Thorp who tried to evade capture for the Stand Up 2 Cancer special, which airs on Channel 4 next week.
Katya told me: “I always stay true to myself and I’m not anxious about looking rough.
“It’s a side people haven’t seen of me that I’m happy to show them.
“I’ve been trying to get my hair extensions out for days, but I don’t think I’ll have time to do it.
“So you might get some trails of hair left behind as my extensions fall out while we’re running! Who knows?”
When Katya was first booked to appear, I told how producers hoped she would crack under the pressure and divulge the details of her notorious snog with her dance partner Seann Walsh on 2018’s Strictly, when she was married and he had a girlfriend.
But it sounds like she was too busy worrying about a different kind of dirt.
She added: “Do our business in a bucket? Wow, I hadn’t thought about that!
“We love a comfortable life. We love a good bed, but at the same time, we don’t shy away from getting down and dirty.
“But you never know. When you’re tired on the run, it might not go to plan.
“I’m quite excited about that side of it actually, about how we’re going to react in those extreme situations.
“We can talk the talk, but can we walk the walk?”
Aimee, a former Team GB snowboarder turned TV presenter and sports personality, is up for the challenge, too.
She told me: “I mean, I have gone to the toilet on the side of a mountain many times.
“The worst was at the World Snowboarding Championships in China, where half of the snowboard field was holding onto the pine trees in the woods due to a dodgy dinner the night before.
“So I am no stranger to having to rough it.”
The girls had plans beyond just avoiding capture on the show, which has the same basic premise as its civilian version Hunted, which began in 2015.
Pairs of individuals are challenged with behaving as fugitives on the run for two weeks, trying to outsmart the expert skills of current and former cops, as well as intelligence officials.
Aimee said: “I’m wondering if we will have time to do a bit of a yoga or something in the morning.
“But my concern is that I’ll waste a pair of knickers doing yoga.
“So maybe if we’re in the wilderness, I’ll just go butt naked and do the proper stuff when the cameras are not around!”
I think that’s a different kind of reality show altogether, Aimee.
FOR real-life couple Nicola Thorp and Nikesh Patel, Hunted was far more than just a TV challenge.
The actors said they saw being on the run together as a relationship test – which they seem to have passed with flying colours as Nikesh popped the question shortly after filming.
As they tried to evade capture, Nicola, best known as Corrie’s Nicola Rubinstein, met many of Nikesh’s family for the first time.
She said: “When we’re older, we’ll look back and go, ‘what a crazy thing we did’
“And I think if we can get through two weeks on the run together, we’ll be set for life!”
The pair have kept their relationship private until now.
Before the trip, Nikesh added: “We are relatively private and I think that’ll be a step out of my comfort zone for sure.
“We’ve had lots of discussions and we might need some sort of signal so that if we want to have a row we do it off camera!
“No relationship goes through this kind of challenge normally, without some kind of tension.”
NO surprise This Morning’s life change experts Nik and Eva Speakman manage to improve their lot while evading capture.
The couple turned to ITV pal Alison Hammond for help and ending up knocking back champers in her hot tub.
Eva said: “When we turned up at Alison’s house, she didn’t let us in.
“She said she didn’t recognise us because we were in one of our disguises!
“She put us up. She got us a driver and she gave us a bit of cash so we could buy food.”
Nik added: “We had some champagne and a dip in her hot tub.
“It was in the middle of the heatwave, and all I had were long pants.
“So I borrowed some of Alison’s son’s shorts, which I still have, actually.”
And some swimming trunks as well, presumably.
COMEDIANS Ed Gamble and James Acaster had a barrel of laughs, turning the task into a one giant pub crawl.
Ed said: “We managed to get at least one good pint in every day.
“We had some amazing food, and we went to some fantastic pubs all across the country.
“I don’t know how much of it will make the edit, but we drank a lot of beer because it was so warm as well.
“It was the height of summer. So we were waking up, slathering on factor 50 and going to the pub a lot of the time.”
The lads even ended up at the Taskmaster house.
Ed, who has featured on the quiz show, added: “We watched the sun set from the Taskmaster house.
“They had a fridge of beer, so we helped ourselves and slept there the night. It was great.
“We set up a trap for the Hunters, Home Alone style!”
AS a social media influencer, Saffron Barker spends her days taking photos of herself to post online – hardly the handiest skill for a Hunted contestant.
But the former Strictly contestant reckons it could help her stay calm.
She laughed: “Because of my job, actually, because I get recognised quite a lot when I go out, I feel like I’m somebody who’s so aware of people around me anyway, I’m so used to people taking pictures and stuff of me from afar . . .
“This scares me more than dancing live on Strictly, that’s for sure!”
Saffron is paired with telly brainbox Bobby Seagull – who has his own connection to Strictly.
He said: “I’m friends with some of the Strictly crew, like Oti Mabuse, but because Katya is doing the show she’s already got them in the bag [as helpers].
“For example, I asked Mike Bushell if he would be willing to help me but he was like, ‘I can’t help you, bro, I’m already helping Katya!’”
