{"id":415885,"date":"2026-01-16T02:04:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T02:04:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/415885\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T02:04:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T02:04:14","slug":"retired-raider-set-for-reality-tv-debut-nrl-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/415885\/","title":{"rendered":"Retired Raider set for reality TV debut &#8211; NRL News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\">Former <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NRL<\/a> forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/players\/luke-bateman\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Luke Bateman<\/a> has confirmed he will appear on the upcoming season of I&#8217;m A Celebrity\u2026 Get Me Out Of Here!, revealing he is the \u201crugby league Romeo\u201d teased by Channel 10 in the lead-up to the show&#8217;s premiere.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Bateman announced the news on social media ahead of Sunday night&#8217;s launch, saying he would be \u201ctrading the Australian outback for the African jungle\u201d as part of the 2026 cast.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The former <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/nrl\/teams\/canberra-raiders\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Canberra Raiders<\/a> forward played 71 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NRL<\/a> games between 2015 and 2019 before retiring at just 27 due to a combination of injury setbacks and mental health struggles.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">In later years, Bateman openly admitted he had battled depression and a gambling addiction during his playing career.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Since stepping away from rugby league, Bateman&#8217;s profile has surged in unexpected fashion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">After joining TikTok in April 2025, his popularity exploded almost overnight, with his first-ever <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@ZeroTackleNRL\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">video<\/a> amassing more than two million views.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">He has since built a following of nearly 400,000 by posting content focused on fantasy and romance novels, which is a niche that quickly resonated with a wide audience.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Bateman is also set to debut as a fantasy author himself, after Atria Books <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/rugby-league\/international-teams\/australia\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Australia<\/a> signed him to a two-book deal, with his first novel expected to be released in early 2027.<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-48823\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns=\" http:=\"\" alt=\"Bateman re-signs\" width=\"1024\" height=\"665\" data-lazy- data-lazy- data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/GettyImages-814257732.jpg.webp.webp\"\/>CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA &#8211; JULY 14: Luke Bateman of the Raiders is tackled during the round 19 NRL match between the Canberra Raiders and the St George Illawarra Dragons at GIO Stadium on July 14, 2017 in Canberra, Australia. (Photo by Mark Nolan\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Speaking to news.com.au before entering the jungle, Bateman admitted he has received plenty of attention online, including some particularly outrageous direct messages.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u201cThere is a group within society that do send outrageous messages, and that is gay men,\u201d Bateman laughed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u201cSome of the messages I&#8217;ve got from that section of society are just wild.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">While some of the messages have been explicit, Bateman said he largely finds them amusing, adding that he gets \u201ca real good laugh\u201d out of most of them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Bateman also explained why he jumped at the opportunity to appear on the show, saying the decision was an easy one.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u201cWhen someone tells you that you get to have a once-in-a-lifetime experience that not many other people get to do and they will pay you to do it, your answer is yes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former NRL forward Luke Bateman has confirmed he will appear on the upcoming season of I&#8217;m A Celebrity\u2026&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":415886,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-415885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=415885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/415886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}