Angry Ginge’s mum Michelle sits down with the Mirror to talk about her son’s astonishing rise from his council house bedroom through to wowing viewers on I’m A Celebrity
18:00, 01 Dec 2025
Opening up: Angry Ginge’s mum Michelle (Image: Tim Merry/Staff Photographer)
Sitting on a five-star hotel balcony in Australia overlooking the South Pacific, single mum Michelle still cannot quite believe how far her son has come. A few years ago she was juggling low-paid jobs and worrying about the mortgage on their ex-council house in Eccles, Salford, while her teenage lad shouted at a computer screen in his bedroom.
Now that same boy, Morgan Burtwistle – better known to millions as Angry Ginge – is the bookies’ favourite to be crowned King of the Jungle. “I never ever thought in a million years I’d ever be coming to Australia but to be coming for this reason as well…none of us can believe it,” Michelle says.
She has also inadvertently found herself centre stage when Ginge told millions of viewers of the sacrifices she made for him, and his older sister Tasha, while growing up. He explained that she’d finish her first job, and “then go to her second job then go to her third job and then get home.” He added: “If she can do it then I can do this in the jungle, so that’s what keeps me going really.”
Angry Ginge’s mum Michelle sat down with the Mirror(Image: Tim Merry/Staff Photographer)
Michelle says that money was tight, and every broken boiler or unexpected bill landed squarely on her shoulders. To keep things afloat, she took whatever work she could find. “I’ve done everything. I’ve worked in school kitchens. I’ve done cleaning. I’ve done residential care homes for the elderly. It was a very hard time,” she says. When Ginge was 18, Michelle was forced to sell the family home and move somewhere cheaper. He moved in with his Nana round the corner to ease the pressure. “He moved in with his Nan because I was struggling to pay the mortgage,” she explains. “It was hard but he’s like, ‘mum, just do it. It’ll be fine. I’m with Nan. We’re only up the road. Everything will be all right.’ So that made me feel better.”
While Michelle worked every hour, her son was quietly starting the online career that would change both their lives. Not that she had a clue what was going on at first. “I’d never even heard of what he was doing before he started doing it…I couldn’t get my head around it,” she laughs.
His first stream back in 2020, when he was 19, peaked at just 40 viewers and earned £12.44. He almost quit. But when his beloved grandad – and Michelle’s dad – died of Covid in February 2021, it was that loss, and one particular memory, that pushed him to give it one last go. “Morgan used to go to Blackpool every year at Easter for the weekend, and he remembered his granddad saying to someone that he was going to be a millionaire one day, because there’s no beating him at Monopoly,” she says.
Michelle and Morgan as a boy(Image: Burtwistle family)
“I don’t know what reminded Morgan of my dad saying that, but then he went back online in the March, and the streaming took off again.” She realised he had hit the big time when one of his broadcasts saw 85,000 people tune in, as well as football stars such as Wayne Rooney, who later became a friend. “One day he turned around and said to me ‘I’ve been invited to Wayne Rooney’s son’s christening,” she laughs. “It was unreal as Wayne was his idol, and used to have posters of him on his wall.”
In the jungle, viewers watched as Ginge broke down over the emotional letter from home, in which Michelle told him his grandad would be proud. And she says that it was her dad that inspired his Angry Ginge name. “He used to call him Ginge, because he always used to laugh and joke with him, calling him a ginger -headed b******,” she laughs. For Michelle, seeing him cry on screen is everything she always taught him. “I’ve always said to him never hide your feelings, if you want to cry, then you cry,” she says.
So proud: Mum Michelle (Image: Tim Merry/Staff Photographer)
That sensitivity has always been there, even if the world now knows him as the fiery gamer shouting at his monitor. As a boy he struggled with homesickness. “We used to go to caravan parks and Pontins, and every time we went, he’d wake up in the night and be sick,” she says. “When he was younger, he never stayed out at any friends.” He eventually grew out of it by the time he did his Duke of Edinburgh Award.
But his wobble in camp, when he admitted he was missing home, did not surprise her. “We speak every day or couple of days,” she says. “I think that’s what was hard. He couldn’t just pick up his phone and go, ‘hi mum.’ He’s not been away this long before.” Before he was Angry Ginge, he was a cheeky but hard-working schoolkid. “He had a few sneaky moments, but he was never really naughty, even in school, in fact he was even the head boy,” Michelle smiles. “He got done for selling Lucozade a few times when he wasn’t supposed to.”
Before flying out to Australia, she says he was wracked with nerves, but she gently put his mind at rest. “He said ‘I don’t know how I’m going to cope, because these people are all famous and I’m not. And if I don’t know who they are, how do I ask what it is they do? I’ll feel awful.’ “I said ‘they’ll probably be asking you the same’ so don’t worry.” She also had one clear piece of advice: mind your language.
“When he started streaming, I used to say to him you need to stop that swearing and calm down,” she says. “I got used to it in the end but when he was coming in here, I said he had to tone it down. He said: ‘I’m trying mum, I’m trying.’ It just becomes natural to him without him knowing he’s doing it. Some of his behaviour in camp has been very familiar to her. His reluctance over chores, for a start. “He used to moan about it at home. If I moaned and moaned and moaned, he’d eventually do it but I wasn’t surprised,” she says. So has his terror of creepy-crawlies. “Where he lives, there are bins at the side of the house. And if it’s nighttime, and if he hasn’t got a light, he refuses to put them out. It’s that bad.”
She has loved watching his bond with best mate Aitch play out in camp, as well as the way he interacts with Ruby Wax. “He didn’t know who she was when he saw the lineup? I said, ‘well, you have to watch a few of her You Tubes, and he thought she was funny on them.’ But the thing with Morgan is, as well, he is close to his Nana, so I think he sees a bit of Nan in Ruby, like when she emptied the rice and that on the floor and he was like: ‘you can’t do that.’”
After previously counting every penny, things are now easier. “He doesn’t see me struggle now. He always says to me ‘ask me if you need anything.’ He’s really good like that.” As the votes roll in, Michelle is still pinching herself at the public reaction. “It’s because he just comes across as himself. He’s not trying to be anybody. He’s just a genuine person and caring, and that’s the way he’s always been.I am so proud of him.”
