I’m a Celebrity host Ant McPartlin has suggested that Coronation Street star Alan Halsall was being “passive aggressive” before an argument broke out between him and BBC Radio 1 DJ Dean McCullough.
In the latest episode of the ITV reality show, McCullough took issue with Halsall for waking him up then walking away after initially trying to get him to help Loose Women star Jane Moore collect firewood.
Posting an Instagram Live, McPartlin and his longtime co-host Declan Donnelly discussed the incident, which the latter referred to as “the first little bit of tension” in the camp.
“What would you have done, would you have kicked off?” McPartlin asked him. “Alan was kind of OK about it, but he had a little bit of passive aggressiveness back as well, didn’t he?”
He added of McCullough’s response: “I wouldn’t stand for any of that… I would be like, ‘Shut up.’”
At the time Halsall approached McCullough about helping Moore, the Northern Irish presenter was taking a nap. When he barely stirred as Halsall attempted to wake him, the soap actor asked: “You don’t fancy it? No?” He then left to go and help Moore himself.
Soon after this, McCullough got up and joined them in the jungle, telling Halsall he could “go back now”.
“Listen to me, if you’re going to wake me up, you need to give me a minute, alright?” he told him.
“It takes me a couple of minutes for my contact lenses to get back working again, all right? So you don’t need to turn around to me and say, ‘Do you not fancy it?’ OK? And then turn around and walk away.”
McCullough repeatedly told Halsall to “listen to him”, as the actor attempted to explain: “I didn’t say it how you think I meant it, but if you took it that way, then I apologise.”
On social media, viewers called out the presenter for what they percieved as “insufferable” behaviour.
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“Dean McCullough has to be up there for being one of the most insufferable people to ever be on I’m a Celeb,” another fan said.
“Dean pisses me off more with each episode,” one viewer complained. “He slept in a bed then went for a nap and has the audacity to speak like that to Alan.”
“If this episode has taught me anything it’s that Dean is a selfish bastard,” another fan said. “What has he done to make him more tired than everyone else?? You need to be a team player… then to be rude to Alan, awful.”
I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! continues tonight on ITV1.