Nigel Farage and Grace Dent, the Guardian’s restaurant critic, are among the celebrities readying themselves for stomach-churning bushtucker trials in this year’s I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here!
Fred Sirieix, the maitre d’hotel on Channel 4’s First Dates, is heading into the jungle alongside Josie Gibson, a host on This Morning, and Sam Thompson, a former Made in Chelsea star.
Jamie Lynn Spears, the actor and singer who starred in Zoey 101, a Nickelodeon show, but is best known in the UK as Britney Spears’s sister, will also be joining the lineup.
Marvin Humes, who was a member of the boyband JLS and is now a radio DJ; Danielle Harold, an EastEnders actor; Nick Pickard of Hollyoaks and the YouTuber Nella Rose are also confirmed contestants.
Farage, the former leader of Ukip and the Brexit party, has said he has been approached by the ITV show several times in the past, but previously ruled out an appearance, saying the reality show was “humiliating”.
However, there was speculation about whether he would feature when he was spotted at Brisbane airport in Australia, where the show is filmed. He was reportedly offered “substantial sums of money” to take part, with the rumoured sum for his participation at £1.5m, according to the MailOnline.
Former politicians are no strangers to the show and last year Matt Hancock, the former health secretary, entered the jungle. The politician, who was forced to resign from the government for breaking Covid rules, was reportedly paid £320,000 and donated 3% of the fee to charity, according to the register of MPs’ financial interests.
“I understood why Matt Hancock did it,” Farage said. “He went in there with his reputation on the floor. The truth is after the banking issue I raised a few months ago, I was standing up for a million people who had lost their bank accounts, then winning at the TRIC [Television and Radio Industry Club] awards, I am going in at a different stage of my career.”
On whether he thinks he will be popular with the public, he said: “Given millions hate me, I do expect people will vote for me to do trials! My crime was to stand against an establishment view and I was for many years the lone voice saying Europe wasn’t where we should be, so I have been a little bit demonised. I am hoping those who hate me might hate me a little bit less afterwards. But it’s a gamble.”
Others from the world of politics who have taken part in the show include Nadine Dorries, who was censured by the parliamentary standards committee for failing to declare her fee for appearing in 2012; Edwina Currie, who appeared in 2014; and Stanley Johnson, Boris Johnson’s father, who appeared in 2017.
Grace Dent, a restaurant critic and the author of Comfort Eating, said she was most scared of “horrible people”, adding that everything was filling her with a “real sense of dread”.
“But I am especially dreading being really hungry because I tend to eat four or five posh meals out a week because I am a restaurant critic. I know they are going to give me an eating trial and I am dreading putting even worse things in my mouth than I have in the past in fancy restaurants. I think I will be writing very stiff columns about the jungle food when I come out.”
The series, which is hosted by Ant and Dec, will begin on 19 November at 9pm on ITV.
