Carol Vorderman has thanked viewers of I'm A Celebrity... South Africa for their support after she was tearfully forced to quit her latest trial. The former Countdown star is currently competing in the new spin-off of the hit ITV reality show to be given 'all star' status.
The new pre-recorded edition of I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here, which was filmed in the new setting of South Africa's Kruger National Park, instead of the Australian jungle, has seen a number of memorable campmates from the show's 20-year history sign up again to battle it out to become the first-ever I'm A Celebrity 'Legend'.
During Tuesday night's episode (May 2), Carol was left in tears after calling time on the watery task. The 62-year-old jokingly reckoned her ‘buoyant' bum could ruin her chances of success in the Tanks of Torment after she was chosen to take it on and picked Fatima Whitbread to join her.
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Describing the trial, Ant McPartlin told the pair: "This is Tanks of Torment. Carol, it’s your job to swim through the four sections of the tank, collecting stars as you go." Dec Donnelly added: "You will only be able to move through the sections once Fatima has raised the doors that separate them."
As Fatima cranked the doors open, Carol was given 10 minutes to collect 10 stars amongst frogs, crocodiles, snakes and other critters. She powered through the trial but was disappointed to run into trouble when she spotted a snake in a breathing hole and revealed that she had a fear of drowning.
As she emerged from the tank, she was close to tears, telling Ant and Dec "I might cry" as she explained her ultimate phobia. She was then in tears as she confided in Fatima on the way back to camp but they resolved to keep it to themselves. "I don't want to tell them in camp I've been sobbing," she said. Despite Carol's disappointment the duo still returned with seven stars to feed their fellow celebrities.
Taking to Instagram after the show aired, Carol went live to chat to her followers, as she's done every night after each episode, and opened up about the trial, sharing how it made her experience a sad 'first'. Writing in the caption, she said: "INSTA LIVE TUESDAY AFTER @imacelebrity. Thank you for being so lovely about my Tanks of Torment trial....it absolutely petrified me tbh."
She went on to share: "First panic attack of my life....ugh. Sending love." Carol has since returned to her profile with a clip from the trial as she once again thanked fans for their endless support. "Tanks of Terror... my trial with fatima last night on @imacelebrity," she started her lengthy caption.
"Thank you so much for the hundreds of messages I’ve had about this. My absolute fears are being locked in somewhere small (claustrophobic) and drowning. So last night I was chosen to swim through the Tanks of Terror to collect stars. They were large tanks with different creatures in each one. The first was loads of big frogs, the second was catfish, the third baby crocodiles (or alligators, I wasn’t hanging round to investigate) and the final one was full of big snakes. Ugh.
"Each tank was full of water and covered with a perspex lid with a small breathing hole in the centre where you could put your head. Then you had to collect the stars in the tank and then swim through a black mesh into the next tank and do it all again. it very hard. I felt as though I was drowning at one point when I let go of the breathing hole (I wasn’t as ITV had it covered obviously) but and I had my first panic attack. When you’re under the water in the tank you can’t see the breathing hole from down below so everything becomes weird and I panicked massively.
"Anyway, I got 7 stars from the first 3 tanks but I’d looked across at the final tank and could see a massive snake had gone into the final breathing hole. would you have swum through the mesh into that? I couldn’t. I just couldn’t as I think it would have turned into an even bigger trauma, so I settled for 7 stars."
Praising her co-star, Carol continued: "@fatima.whitbread was an absolute star, thank you my calm angel, coaching me through it from outside and turning the gears to raise the gates which separated the tanks. She’s an amazing woman and I love her to bits.
"On the way back to camp I sobbed, properly sobbed (you didn’t see that bit last night). I know it’s only telly, but it deeply affected me. All my life I’ve lived without fear and that was the first time I think I’ve ever had it. So thank you for all your messages. They mean so much."
But as Carol opened up, she was once again flooded with kind, supportive messages from her followers after viewers of the show screamed the trial was 'unfair'. @president_ne said: "It was emotional ! I really felt for you and you came across as very real not fake. Well done."
@janiswilliams_ wrote: "Amazing I couldn’t of done any of it I to have the same fears as you. So well done very inspirational." @shelly_shell_2022 commented: "You were so so brave @carolvorders I couldn’t have done that." @les_sullivan1 added: "You did an amazing job Carol , not many could have got to the third tank."
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