I’m a Celebrity is well under way with ten contestants already braving the Australian outback for their fourth night in the jungle.
While Irish DJ and BBC radio host Dean McCullough “disappointed” Ant and Dec in a Bushtucker Trial earlier this week, GK Barry shocked fans with her “amazing” performance. The pair faced another challenge on Wednesday (20 November), as they completed “Drown in the Dumps” to secure yellow stars for their campmates.
And to mix things up even more, two late arrivals surprised the camp on the show’s latest episode.
After lots of rumours and speculation, Love Island star Maura Higgins was confirmed as a late entry into the jungle.
“I have no clue what time it is, I don’t know where I am,” she said in an interview with The Mirror. “In fact, I’ve done the opposite of preparing myself [for the jungle]. I’ve tried not to think about it, because when I think about it, I get so much anxiety.”
She would be the second Islander, after Olivia Atwood, to appear on the show.
“I just don’t want to let people down, because everyone’s been DMing me, saying ‘Oh my God, I hope you’re doing the show,” she said. “I don’t want to back out of the trials and be the biggest wimp in the camp.”
Writer and broadcaster Reverend Richard Coles joined Higgins on tonight’s episode. Coles rose to prominence for being part of the 1980s band The Communards.
He took an interest in religion in his twenties, after the deaths of friends from HIV, and studied for a BA in theology at King’s College in the Nineties. He was eventually ordained as a priest in 2005.
It comes amid a year of grief for the Reverend, after the loss of his mother in February this year, followed by the death of his two dogs on the same day in August.
The ex-Church of England parish priest lost his husband Reverend David Coles just days before Christmas in 2019. He died aged 43 from liver disease caused by an alcohol addiction.
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In his 2021 book The Madness of Grief: A Memoir of Love and Loss, Coles wrote: “It was really, really tough to see somebody you love destroy himself.
“It is like someone is drowning and you throw them a lifebelt but they are just not taking the lifebelt.
“And I did try everything I could think of to help him stop drinking, and in fairness to him he did try too, but it was too much for him.”
He stepped down from Radio 4’s Saturday Live in March after 12 years in 2023.
New episodes of I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! air on ITV1 and ITVX every night at 9pm.