2015–2016: Career beginnings Barker was a member of four-piece girl band Born2Blush with bandmates Libby Whitehouse, Jazmine Tiley and Georgia McNamara. The group disbanded when she was 15-years-old, which saw her "left devastated", but it ultimately led to her opening a YouTube channel. Barker subsequently opened her self-titled YouTube account on 30 July 2015, where she still continues to create content about
lifestyle and beauty, fashion and
fitness. On 27 October 2015, she opened a side channel, solely dedicated to
video blogging. Barker has over 2 million subscribers on her main channel.
2017–2018: Kids' Choice Awards, digital series and YouTube Rewind In March 2017, Saffron represented the United Kingdom in
Nickelodeon's first-ever 'Social Squad of Influencers' at the
2017 Kids' Choice Awards in Los Angeles, California. In April, Barker and her family presented an original and exclusive six-episode series titled
In My Day for television and
video on demand service
TalkTalk TV. On 6 December 2017, she featured in YouTube's annual
YouTube Rewind video. One year later, on 9 March 2018, she was named Nickelodeon's UK representative of their KCA PrankStars, a
collective of digital influencers chosen to partake in a prank war at the
2018 Kids' Choice Awards in
Inglewood, California.
2019–present: Rise to fame in mainstream media On 1 August 2019, in an interview with
Heart Radio, Saffron confirmed that she would be appearing as a contestant on the
seventeenth series of
BBC dance contest Strictly Come Dancing. She marked the second social media personality to take part in the competition's history after
Joe Sugg. Barker's dance partner was
Britain's Got Talent series seven contestant,
AJ Pritchard. They were eliminated ten weeks in to the competition, on 24 November 2019, after facing
Karim Zeroual and
Amy Dowden in the dance-off. In March 2020, Barker appeared on a one-off special edition of
The Greatest Dancer for
Sport Relief 2020, as a member of
dance troupe Don8. Her team won against Team Encore. Nine months later, in December, Barker was announced as one of the 12 contestants to appear on
The Celebrity Circle. It aired in March 2021, and saw Barker play as a
single version of herself, instead of
catfishing as someone else. She was named the runner-up, as
Lady Leshurr won the show after catfishing as British
rapper Big Narstie. In January 2022, Barker appeared as a contestant an episode of
BBC One's
The Wheel, hosted by
Michael McIntyre. One month later, in February, she appeared as a contestant on
E4's
The Real Dirty Dancing, a talent show hosted by
Keith Lemon and
Ashley Roberts, where ten celebrities paired up in couples to learn dance routines from
Dirty Dancing. Barker's dance partner was
Lee Ryan, and they were named the winners of the competition. In March 2023, Barker appeared in the
fifth series of
Channel 4's
Celebrity Hunted, where she was paired up with former
University Challenge contestant and mathematician
Bobby Seagull. Barker and Seagull had 48 hours left before reaching the extraction point, but decided to split up. Barker ended up being caught by the Hunters after a member of the public told them her exact whereabouts. == Other media and projects ==