Fake rocks, overhead canopies and security to stop us escaping – Jane Moore reveals I’m A Celebrity’s biggest secrets

FINDING a leech in my bra wasn’t on my bucket list, but thanks to I’m A Celebrity I can now tick it off.

Along with drinking a cocktail of bull’s penis and fish eyes (as you do), skydiving from 10,000 feet over Australia’s Gold Coast, and being submerged in icy cold water underground with snakes, eels, mud crabs and various unimpressed reptiles.

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Well I did say I wanted an ­adventure.

I also lost 10lb and gained new friends who, prior to finding themselves trapped in the jungle with me, had probably spent most of their lives trying to avoid journalists.

Like Coleen Rooney, for example, who I avoided picking as my team-mate for the initial race into camp in case she called out “I’m A Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here!” from the get go.

My experience on one of British TV’s biggest shows started earlier that day with a visit to a luxury villa near Brisbane, Queensland, made famous when Johnny Depp and Amber Heard stayed there after illegally smuggling their two Yorkshire terriers into the country in 2015.

From there, in a scene reminiscent of big-budget show Succession, we skydived out of five black helicopters then headed off to the iconic camp which feels so much smaller than it does on the TV.

Huntsman spiders

Nabbing myself a camp-bed (hammocks, I feel, are strictly for the under 40s) I set about getting the fire started with the flint provided, then went to check out the infamous “dunny” positioned about 20 metres away up a small pathway.

It was as grim as I expected, with two resident Huntsman spiders on the hessian walls — one of them the size of a baby’s hand.

“They’re harmless. And they keep the nasty funnel-webs away,” said one of the security team positioned a few metres outside camp at all times. (Not, one suspects, to keep intruders at bay, but to stop any rebellious campmates from escaping.)

The camp is situated near to Springbrook National Park in New South Wales.

Despite a few fake rocks housing multiple cameras, the setting is very much real, along with all the wildlife that comes with it.

There were few concessions to make our camp life easier, apart from a retractable overhead canopy to protect the fire area.

So when it became the wettest I’m A Celebrity ever thanks to constant, torrential rain, a river of water ran through camp and we spent days just recycling damp clothes that simply would not dry.

Our beds got wet too, but we had sturdy tarpaulin sleeping bags to shield ourselves under.

The jungle days always started with a Hi-de-Hi!-style wake up call over the camp’s Tannoy at what we guessed was around 5.30am.

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I invariably rose first (thanks, bladder) and would trek up to the Bush Telegraph to collect the day’s supply of drearily tasteless rice and beans, before re-starting the fire so the allocated chef could cook breakfast before the daily visit from Ant and Dec at approximately 7.45am jungle time (9.45pm in the UK).

Then that day’s Bush Tucker Trial victim would head off to their fate while the rest of us found ways to fill the painfully looooooong day.

For my part, I’d brave the freezing cold shower (yuck), do my chores and instigate conversation with my fellow campmates, all of whom had ­fascinating life stories to tell.

It felt a privilege to gain their trust.

We also learned the Charleston and Salsa with Strictly’s Oti Mabuse, played charades and “Olympicsticks” (a throwing game using twigs initiated by McFly’s Danny Jones), threw hoops that Corrie’s Alan Halsall had made from leaves, and Reverend Richard Coles and I did a pub quiz for everyone. We had a lot of fun.

Doing a show like I’m A Celebrity has its risks because, thanks to the intensity of the experiment and the plentiful pockets of boredom, tiny tensions can ­mushroom in to World War Three if there’s a clash of personalities.

Luckily, this year’s cast were a tight team with wonderfully democratic principles and any small infractions, such as Dean McCullough and Alan having words over log collection, were rapidly dealt with and ­forgotten.

But if trivial things can flare up in camp, it is nothing compared to how things get distorted then amplified on social media.

Which is why I was stunned to emerge from the jungle and be told that “Washing-upGate” had become a thing among the delightful online trolling community. Yawn.

When new camp leaders Danny and boxer Barry McGuigan were reallocating chores, I asked not to be put on washing up simply because it’s the most physically demanding job in camp; schlepping two large buckets of mess tins and cutlery up and down around 100 steps at least three times a day, as well as the cast iron frying pan and casserole pot.

After the previous eight days of doing other heavy chores (wood collecting, dunny emptying etc) when my co-worker Dean was always away on trials, I had drained all my pre-jungle energy and was physically exhausted.

They didn’t hear my plea and gave me the job (along with Tulisa whose back was playing up) so I teased the suggestion that it was sexist that four women had done the washing up so far but none of the six men.

A minute later, I told them it was a wind up and we hugged. End of.
Squint and a prayer.

Nor, as some have suggested, did I use drinking water to wash the heavy pots.

I used one inch of creek water to soak and soften the caked-on rice before cleaning them.

Perhaps the biggest revelation to me is that most of what happens in camp never makes it to air and we are all at the mercy of the edit.

I get it. They spend a fortune on the trial and challenge sets so want to feature them heavily, and with just an hour’s show to fill and around 12 hours of daily content, they can’t show context to every eventuality.

Everyone moans about their tasks at some point but if your beef becomes a chosen narrative, then it can seem to the outside world that you’re the only one doing it.

C’est la vie.

And so to the trials. My time eventually came with the underwater trial Fright At The End Of The Tunnel.

Sadly, it involved inputting small letters into padlocks and, without my 2.5-strength reading glasses, I’m as blind as a bat.

The same eyesight issue sadly befell Barry in his first trial too.

So I strategised and went solely for the above-water stars where I was allowed to remove my misted-up swimming goggles and input the padlock code word with a close-up squint and a prayer.

I loved every second of my time with the toads, geckos, baby ­alligators, mud crabs, snakes, and eels.

It is what I came on the show to experience, and hats off to the production designers and construction teams who come up with such incredible concepts and sets. It’s awe-inspiring.

I felt privileged

The people (750 crew and fellow campmates) were what made I’m A Celebrity such a special experience, even when being transported to trials like hostages in vans with blacked-out windows, so we wouldn’t see any future sets along the way.

Given that less than 300 people have been invited to take part since the show started in 2002, I felt privileged to be there.

No one else understands how physically and mentally challenging it is, nor the intensity of the highs and lows.

So the bond you share is unique and I know I will remain in touch with the cast of 2024 forever.

When my time came to leave camp for good, I crossed the bridge and asked my daughters: “Am I still your mother or have you ­disowned me?”

They replied: “You smell.”

Gee, thanks.

But just for ­clarification, they were referring to the smoke of the campfire.

Since leaving, I am spending my days hanging out with the other families and friends at the pool of our luxury hotel, along with Dean, Tulisa, and Melvin Odoom, and awaiting the arrival of the other evictees.

So yes, whoever is crowned King or Queen of the jungle will be the ultimate victor, but having lasted the course and met such amazing people, I feel like a winner too.

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