Saffron Barker
Saffron Autumn Barker (born 24 July 2000) is an English influencer, YouTuber and podcast host. She is best known for her time on the seventeenth series of Strictly Come Dancing, the fifth series of Celebrity Hunted, and as a runner-up on The Celebrity Circle. In September 2019, The Sunday Times named Barker as their top female influencer. Early life Saffron was born in Brighton, East Sussex, on 24 July 2000, to Darren and Wendy Barker. She has two biological brothers, Jed and Casey, and a foster brother, Jordan. She attended Longhill High School in Rottingdean. Career 2015–2016: Career beginnings Barker was a member of four-piece girl band Born2Blush with bandmates Libby Whitehouse, Jazmine Tiley and Georgia McNamara. The group disbanded when she was 15-years-old, which seen her "left devastated", but it ultimately led to her opening a YouTube channel. Barker subsequently opened her self-titled YouTube account on 30 July 2015, where she still continues to create content about lifestyle and beauty, fashion and fitness. On 27 October 2015, she opened a side channel, solely dedicated to video blogging. Barker has over 2 million subscribers on her main channel. 2017–2018: Kids' Choice Awards, digital series and YouTube Rewind In March 2017, Saffron represented the United Kingdom in Nickelodeon's first-ever 'Social Squad of Influencers' at the 2017 Kids' Choice Awards in Los Angeles, California. In April, Barker and her family presented an original and exclusive six-episode series titled In My Day for television and video on demand service TalkTalk TV. On 6 December 2017, she featured in YouTube's annual YouTube Rewind video. One year later, on 9 March 2018, she was named Nickelodeon's UK representative of their KCA PrankStars, a collective of digital influencers chosen to partake in a prank war at the 2018 Kids' Choice Awards in Inglewood, California. 2019–present: Rise to fame in mainstream media On 1 August 2019, in an interview with Heart Radio, Saffron confirmed that she would be appearing as a contestant on the seventeenth series of BBC dance contest Strictly Come Dancing. She marked the second social media personality to take part in the competition's history after Joe Sugg. Barker's dance partner was Britain's Got Talent series seven contestant, AJ Pritchard. They were eliminated ten weeks in to the competition, on 24 November 2019, after facing Karim Zeroual and Amy Dowden in the dance-off. In March 2020, Barker appeared on a one-off special edition of The Greatest Dancer for Sport Relief 2020, as a member of dance troupe Don8. Her team won against Team Encore. Nine months later, in December, Barker was announced as one of the 12 contestants to appear on The Celebrity Circle. It aired in March 2021, and seen Barker play as a single version of herself, instead of catfishing as someone else. She was named the runner-up, as Lady Leshurr won the show after catfishing as British rapper Big Narstie. In January 2022, Barker appeared as a contestant an episode of BBC One's The Wheel, hosted by Michael McIntyre. She came second