Celeste Barber

Celeste Barber (born 1982) is an Australian comedian and media personality.

Celeste Barber was born around 1982 and grew up in Terranora,^[1] on the far north coast of New South Wales coast. She has one sibling, a sister, Olivia. She was diagnosed with ADD at the age of 16, while attending Saint Joseph's College, Tweed Heads.^[2]

Leaving school and home aged 17, she trained in acting at drama school at University of Western Sydney's Theatre Nepean (no longer in existence), graduating in 2002.^[3]

Barber became known for her role of paramedic Bree Matthews in the TV show All Saints (2005–2009^[1]), and for her roles in Office Correctness (a short video) and How Not to Behave.^[4][3]

Barber was a sketch writer/performer on The Matty Johns Show.^[3]

She stars in the lead role of the 2023 Netflix comedy Wellmania, which is an adaptation of journalist Brigid Delaney's memoir, Wellmania: Misadventures in the Search for Wellness. In the series, she performs all her own stunts.^[1]

Although Barber started out in acting, she later started doing comedy. Barber states: "I've always been told I've been funny but I always thought funny was stupid. I thought if you were a bit of an idiot then that was funny. But I've since learnt, no, not the case, and being funny is the best and I love it… My late friend Mark Priestley, who worked on All Saints with me, was like, 'This is your niche', and he helped me focus on it".^[4]

In 2015 she was a Melbourne International Comedy Festival Raw Comedy state finalist, and sold out shows for both the Sydney Comedy and Adelaide Fringe festivals.^[5]

Barber's first book, Challenge Accepted, was published in September 2018. She describes it as "253 Steps to becoming an anti-it girl".^[6]

Her second book was a children's book titled Celeste the Giraffe Loves to Laugh, published in October 2019.^[7]

Her third book, Flamingo Celeste is Not like the Rest, illustrated by Heath McKenzie and published in 2021, was shortlisted for the picture book prize at the 2022 West Australian Young Readers' Book Awards.^[8]

In early January 2015, the earliest instances of Barber recreating photos of celebrities began to emerge on her Instagram, after Celeste and her sister had been sending each other text messages of how women are supposed to do everyday activities and poking fun at the depiction.^[3][4] She posted her photos to Instagram with the hashtag "#celestechallengeaccepted". After posting only a few, one in which Barber imitated a photo of Kim Kardashian in flimsy lingerie, lying on a mound of dirt went viral. Her posts showed up how absurd and false celebrity social media accounts are.^[1]

In September 2018, Barber was featured in comedy videos released by Tom Ford. The three videos, posted to Barber's and Ford's respective Instagram accounts, show Ford teaching Barber how to walk in his shows, while she attempts to sneak some of the clothes home in her bag. The video played at the after party of Ford's show, which opened New York Fashion Week. The videos come after the pair collaborated on a previous comedy video featuring Ford and Barber vigorously making out in an airport terminal.^[9]

Barber has been a panelist on Have You Been Paying Attention? and also was a co-host on morning TV talk show Studio 10.^{[citation needed]}

During the devastating 2019–20 Australian bushfire season Barber launched a fundraising appeal with a target of raising A$15,000 for the New South Wales Rural Fire Service's RFS Brigades Donation Fund. The fundraiser went on to raise over A$50 million, making it the largest ever held on Facebook.^[10] After the money was raised, Celeste learned that the RFS Fund was by law restricted to providing training, resources and equipment for the RFS, and could not be redirected to affected communities as she intended. The RFS and Barber's legal team worked together to find a way to disburse the funds more widely.^[11][12] In May 2020, the Supreme Court ruled that the funds could not go to other charities.^[13]

In October 2023, Barber signed an open letter of Artists4Ceasefire during the Israeli bombardment of Gaza.^[14]

Barber has a podcast called Celeste & Her Best.^[15][1]

Barber has appeared on the covers of Vogue Australia and Vogue Portugal. She has been interviewed by Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Kimmel, and her fans include Kris Jenner and Cindy Crawford.

As a social media influencer, she has found fame by creating videos satirising the image of celebrities presented to the world, juxtaposing them to her lived experience as a woman and a mother. She has many videos of how models pose, versus the same pose on herself as an every-day woman.^[4]

As of 2019^[update] Barber is married, with two sons and two stepdaughters.^[5]

• Challenge Accepted (Comedy Dynamics, 2019)

• Fine, Thanks (Netflix, 2023)

• Celeste Barber at IMDb