Charlene White has spoken out about quitting a Bushtucker trial just hours before she was voted out of the jungle - but insists she was 'terrified' and had no choice.
Reflecting on the I'm A Celebrity trial brought back memories and emotions of other times in her life when Charlene had to put on a brave face, like when she was a teen mother to her siblings after the death of her own mum.
Charlene screamed I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here in a trial called Watery Grave as she competed with Boy George.
Looking back she said: "Any time I’m scared or upset or fearful of something, my default is to just be strong and to get through it. That is my default because of my history.
"I had to be all of those things after my mum died so at 16 I was a surrogate mum. Really, from 16 and I took on a lot of mum duties so my default position is always when it’s an unknown – I’ll mother, because that’s what I’ve always done.
"And if I’m scared or I’m afraid of something or nervous about something, I’ll just go to my default and ‘I’ll just be strong and it’ll be alright’ because I couldn’t show those things when I was 16 because I didn’t want to upset my brother and sister.
"On the outside it always looked like ‘she isn’t scared of anything’ but I’m scared of so many things but I’m not used to showing it."
She added: "At the start of the trial yesterday I was like ‘yep I can do this and it’ll be fine’ even though my heart was beating and I had gone very, very quiet. So the walk to the trial, standing and waiting going into the trial – we had towels over our heads and stuff – I was very quiet.
"Every other moment I was chatty and laughing but when I’m scared I go very quiet and that’s how George knew how scared I was. Then I got in there I was just utterly terrified and panicked and I couldn’t breathe and the door shut and I just didn’t know what to do, I'm panicked, I'm scared – and that’s when I couldn’t breathe. And that was one of the biggest problems with that."
Those close to Charlene knew from watching on screen that she was not faking or exaggerating how she was feeling.
She said: "It’s interesting because when I spoke to my dad on the drive out of camp, and it may not have seemed that I was terrified to anyone that didn’t know me but one of the first things my dad said on that FaceTime call was ‘you were utterly terrified’.
"And he knows that because he knows it is an uncomfortable position whenever I show fear, it must be something serious and dad knew that immediately because I was utterly terrified."
Charlene was relaxing at a plush Gold Coast hotel yesterday with her sister Carina after being the first one out of camp in the public vote.
After eating small portions of rice and beans for much of the last two weeks she could initially only manage to eat two slices of garlic bread as a food treat.
She added: "I showered three times. I have washed my hair twice.
"I've drank lots and lots and lots of water that doesn't taste like smoke. I'm not very hungry haha. I'm just very, very thirsty.
"I am still overwhelmed. It feels weird to be around people and not be with the people I've been living with for two weeks. I think we had all gained so much comfort from being with each other. And no matter how hard or tough or difficult it became for any of us, I think we all gained a lot of solace from the fact that we were doing it together. So it feels weird to be here without them. And I do really miss them."
In her first interview since leaving the jungle, Charlene also spoke about the difficult position she was put in when Matt Hancock joined the show.
She said it led to inner turmoil and fears she could lose her job on ITV News if she was not impartial.
