Do we like Celeste Barber?
Our score: 8 out of 10. A clean record on harm and a big public good deed, with one joke that a fellow public figure called out and a thin record on LGBTQ+ topics.
Celeste Barber is an Australian comedian who grew up in New South Wales and went to drama school at 17. She spent about a decade on stand-up and TV roles, including Home and Away, before Instagram made her a household name. Her turning point came in 2015 with a parody of a Kim Kardashian photo, which took her following from about 8,000 to 50,000 almost overnight.
The parodies, with the hashtag #celestechallengeaccepted, recreate glossy celebrity photos on an ordinary body, and the point is plain. She told Marie Claire in 2019 “My body, well, that's my body. Deal with it.” That body-positive streak runs through everything she does, and it's why she's been booked for women's events as well as comedy gigs.
The big moment came in January 2020. She started a Facebook fundraiser for the NSW Rural Fire Service during the bushfires, and it raised more than US$32 million within days, which Facebook told CBS was the biggest total in its fundraising history. Over 1.2 million people chipped in, and donations came from 75 countries.
Then came the mess. A NSW Supreme Court ruling in May 2020 found the money had to stay with the RFS fund, so it couldn't be spread to other states or charities as she'd hoped. Barber took it on the chin in a statement and joked that studying acting at university does not make her a lawmaker. She wasn't accused of anything; the problem was the fine print of the trust.
Her one proper stoush is with Emily Ratajkowski. Ratajkowski blocked Barber after a parody of her swimwear shoots, and said she wasn't giving consent for the joke any more. Ratajkowski also said she thinks mocking women who show their bodies is often sexist, though she called the drama blown out of proportion and said she finds Barber funny. Barber's own take was that Ratajkowski is allowed not to love it.
On the harm check, nothing nasty turned up: no slide into conspiracy theories, no campaigning against anyone's rights, and no dodgy company in the sources we read. We also found nothing either way from her on trans issues, so that is a gap, not a tick. Her recent public work is hosting the 2026 AACTA Awards, announced in January, where she said she was “so bloody excited” to celebrate Australian TV and film.