Scarlett Moffatt became a household name from her family sofa on Gogglebox, but her story began in Bishop Auckland - the County Durham town she has continued to call home throughout her TV career.
Born in Bishop Auckland on October 17, 1990, Moffatt grew up in the town before finding work locally, studying in the North East and eventually being cast in Channel 4’s hit reality show alongside her parents, Betty and Mark, and younger sister Ava-Grace.
The 35-year-old is now known as a presenter and reality TV star, having won I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! in 2016 and gone on to appear on programmes including Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway, I’m a Celebrity: Extra Camp and Streetmate.
But Bishop Auckland remains central to the public image that made her popular: a recognisably County Durham voice, a close family and an unapologetically local outlook.
How did Bishop Auckland get its name?
(Image: Sarah Caldecott)
A Bishop Auckland upbringing
Before television fame, Moffatt led a life familiar to many young people in the town.
She worked as a checkout operator at Asda in Bishop Auckland and spent a year working for Student Loans in Darlington.
She attended Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College in Darlington before studying PE and sports coaching at York St John University.
She later worked as a disability adviser for students, a job she still held when the Moffatt family became increasingly recognisable after joining Gogglebox.
Moffatt also began dance training as a child, starting lessons at the age of six and continuing until university.
That background in performance eventually led to an early television appearance on MTV’s Beauty School Cop Outs in 2013 — before the family’s living-room commentary made her one of Gogglebox’s breakout personalities.
(Image: PA/Ian West)
The road to Gogglebox
Moffatt rose to national attention after appearing on Gogglebox between 2014 and 2016, in which ordinary households offered their frank reactions to the week’s television.
Her warmth, comic timing and close relationship with her parents made the Bishop Auckland family favourites.
The show created a route into mainstream entertainment, but it was Moffatt’s victory in the 2016 series of I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! that turned her into one of the country’s best-known reality television figures.
She then joined the presenting team on I’m a Celebrity: Extra Camp, appeared on Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway and hosted Channel 4 dating show Streetmate.
Scarlett’s County Durham connection
In a 2023 interview for the Show on the Road podcast, Moffatt took listeners around places connected to her life in County Durham, including her Bishop Auckland primary school, dance school, favourite chip shop and the home where her Gogglebox breakthrough was filmed.
The programme underlined how strongly her career remains tied to the town.
It was not a retrospective visit to an unfamiliar birthplace, but a tour of the everyday places that formed her childhood and the family life later seen by millions on television.
Moffatt, who welcomed her first child with partner Scott Dobinson in 2023, has remained closely associated with County Durham even as her TV work has taken her across the country.
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A town behind a TV favourite
Bishop Auckland has changed substantially in the decades since Moffatt was born there, with regeneration work and cultural investment giving the town a higher national profile.
The relationships, humour and County Durham identity that propelled her from Gogglebox to the jungle were formed long before the cameras arrived.