Top 20 I'm a Celebrity Disasters

#20: Chris Eubank Lies

In this downright bizarre moment, Chris Eubank was having a summit in the phone box with Ferne McCann off of “TOWIE”. It was down to them to choose which team to banish to Snake Rock, with McCann announcing that it was going to be the purple team. Eubank then reappears and says he actually wanted to banish Duncan Banntyne’s team. On the action replay, we can see that Eubank clearly DID say purple, and then lied about it, baffling McCann so much that she ended up in tears. But it doesn’t matter how many times you say it, Chris, “purple” and “Duncan” DON’T sound the same. Everybody ganged up on McCann, though the viewers at home could clearly see that she was right.

#19: Matt Hancock

“I’m a Celeb” always gets into bother when it brings on a politician, with Nadine Dorries roundly humiliating herself during her own stint in 2012, which temporarily lost her the Tory whip. Hancock was no different, appearing in 2022 while attempting to rehabilitate his public image after his disastrous handling of the pandemic and fall from grace. Though he did well in the trials, he was repeatedly grilled by the other contestants, many of whom had lost people during the pandemic and wanted to know how he could possibly defend himself for breaking lockdown rules while he carried on his affair. His excuse? He’d fallen in love, and the rules weren’t legally binding, so he should get a free pass.

#18: Fred Sirieix & Nella Rose

This argument between influencer Nella Rose and celebrity maître d’ Fred Sirieix made headlines, after Fred made a joke that he was old enough to be Nella’s dad. She took that to heart, though, as her father had passed away three years before, and thought that Fred was being insensitive. Later, she was passive aggressive towards him at dinner, and then the pair rowed over the campfire. Fred sincerely apologised and the following day, despite the chaos in the tabloids, things seemed to have been resolved, leading to accusations of producer intervention. Rose was still ultimately voted out first, though, and later admitted that the isolation of the camp made her more sensitive to other people’s comments.

#17: Lady C

The Jamaican socialite was born to court controversy, appearing on “I’m a Celeb” in 2015, despite not being particularly famous at the time. She made waves because of her outrageous comments and highly abrasive personality, which was presumably ratings dynamite for ITV but gave most people a migraine. Even Yvette Fielding was sick to death of her, and everybody in the camp was left wishing that she’d just be quiet. For a while, it even looked like she might win, though Vicky Pattison from “Geordie Shore” stormed to victory after Lady C withdrew. We’re sure ITV was desperate to keep her on for longer, but she left the jungle on medical grounds.

#16: The Moon Landing

In strange scenes, Nick Knowles from “DIY SOS” decided to tell the camp his theories about the Moon Landing, and how he thinks it was faked. Unluckily for him, Anne Hegerty was there to explain exactly how wrong he was, humiliating him on national television. Though, we doubt he was actually that bothered. Emily Atack and John Barrowman were also there listening to this drivel, as Hegerty rebutted every single one of Knowles’ points with ease. Of all the people to get into a battle of intellect with, maybe don’t pick a Chaser. Barrowman joined in to point out that it seems unlikely that all of the Apollo astronauts would have lied about going to the moon consistently for decades.

#15: The Spider

In one of the most horrific moments in “I’m a Celebrity” history, Ferne McCann came face to face with an enormous, live water spider, which she was told she had to eat. This was after she’d already had to eat live grubs and the brain of a lamb. If you have arachnophobia, look away, because watching her spin the spider around and then eat it in one bite will truly turn your stomach. Hundreds of people complained to Ofcom about the needless cruelty of eating a spider alive, and the show has ultimately stopped asking its stars to eat live creepy crawlies – though they ARE still used frequently in non-eating Bushtucker Trials, and plenty of dead ones abound.

#14: Spencer Matthews

Despite being the sort of contestant we could easily see crowned King of the Jungle, Spencer Matthews departed the show very early on. For a while, there was a mystery, then it came out that the “Made in Chelsea” star had been taking performance enhancing pills before and during his time Down Under. After producers found out, Matthews was asked to leave when medical advice determined that it wouldn’t be safe for him to wean himself off them during filming. We’re sure this was a blow to ITV’s plans for the series, but credit to Matthews, he’s since talked about the incident in the media and has raised awareness of people suffering far more than him from the same problem.

#13: Martin Roberts

While the camp was debating whether Sam Quek or Wayne Bridge were going to do the next trial, celebrity estate agent Martin Roberts brought out two straws so that they could draw and see who was the lucky, or unlucky, winner. This put him on the wrong side of Larry Lamb, who was waiting patiently for Sam and Wayne to decide among themselves. When they remained at an impasse, they decided that the straws WERE a good idea, he’d just jumped in too soon. Later, though, and bullying allegations surfaced when Larry had a go at Martin after he’d just left the dunny. Scarlett Moffatt and Sam looked on in horror, saying that Larry was bang out of order.

#12: Sam Quek

More from Olympian Sam Queck, in that very same series, she was actually communicating covertly with her boyfriend on the outside the entire time. She put the numbers “143” on her hat, which was an agreed-upon code between them meaning “I love you”, indicating that she was missing him. Despite this being mostly harmless, there was still frustration about it from showrunners, since the celebs aren’t meant to have ANY contact with the outside world. It didn’t matter that there was no way for her boyfriend to really reply, other than through the phone calls if the celebs are lucky enough to get one, some of the tabloids were still livid.

#11: Katie Price Dumps Alex Reid

After an on-off relationship and a short-lived marriage, Katie Price and MMA fighter Alex Reid divorced for good in 2012. But they were still a couple, just about, during her second stint on “I’m a Celebrity”, which lasted for only nine days until she decided to quit. She walked off and, during her exit interview with Ant and Dec the following day, addressed the speculation that she’d left because she knew Reid was waiting for her and planning to propose. She revealed that she did know that, but then also announced that she was finishing with him and wouldn’t be accepting a proposal. And that was after he flew all the way out to Australia to meet her!

#10: Strawberrygate

Often, the trial prizes are delicious foodstuffs the celebrities have all been dreaming of in their weeks in the jungle. That was exactly the case when boxer Amir Khan and comedian Iain Lee won a huge helping of tasty strawberries and cream after doing well in a trial. However, rather than share the strawberries with the rest of the camp, like you’re supposed to, they ate all the strawberries on the way back and then lied – saying they lost. Iain couldn’t take the guilt and later confessed, with him and Amir playing the blame game over whose idea it was. Outside the jungle, both had their reputations tarnished for putting on such a bad show.

#9: No Treat for Gi

Another case of badly behaved celebrities, during the 2020 series one of the contestants was Giovanna Fletcher, wife of Tom Fletcher from McFly. Gi and Tom have three young sons together, and it was this detail that made it so hard to watch when she wasn’t nominated by the other celebs to receive some messages from home. She broke down in tears when she missed out on the chance to be nominated – along with AJ Pritchard and Jordan North. Tom talked publicly about how hard it was to watch his wife in the castle going without the messages; but at least she won the show that year!

#8: Gemma Collins Quits

When the GC is in town, you know it’s only a matter of time until she throws a temper tantrum and decides to quit whatever it is she’s doing. That’s what “I’m a Celeb” viewers were waiting for when she entered the jungle in 2014, and it’s what they got – but a bit sooner than anticipated. She only lasted for three days, almost quitting at the very first hurdle when she had to parachute in from a helicopter – which she did refuse to do in the end, incidentally. Still, for three days, we had all the insanity, crying and shouting of Gemma Collins going Down Under, as well as the allegation that they’re treated worse than murderers on the show.

#7: Gillian McKeith Faints

A disaster for the voting public, certainly; they wanted Gillian to do yet another bushtucker trial and got short-changed when she staged this infamously dramatic collapse on live TV. Medics were called and the show quickly cut to an ad break, leaving viewers wondering what had happened. Though Gillian herself seems to have maintained that her fainting fit was genuine, Alison Hammond has claimed this wasn’t the case: she was in the jungle that year, too, and says Gillian confided in her that the faint was a fraud. But what do you expect from a woman who built a career on lying about being a medical doctor?

#6: Jack Maynard Gets Kicked Off

It’s not too often that contestants are kicked off by the producers, rather than them getting eliminated or simply deciding the jungle is too much for them. That’s what makes the fallout from Jack Maynard’s addition to the show so dramatic. It all came about because somebody dug up Maynard’s history of using extremely offensive language online, not to mention that he’d been caught behaving inappropriately towards a young female fan. The media circus got so intense that ITV bosses were forced to remove him from the show, though Maynard said he agreed to leave so that he’d be able to fight back against the allegations as they’re not allowed to communicate with the outside world on the show.

#5: Noel Edmonds

A late entrance in 2018, a lot of fanfare was sounded over Noel Edmonds’ arrival – which makes sense considering the exorbitant amount of money ITV paid to get him on board. When he entered the show, he was named the emperor. However, the viewers didn’t really like this, and only a few days later, Edmonds became the first person to be voted off. His quick exit kickstarted rumours of a fix at ITV, with many claiming that he was already prepared to leave before his elimination was revealed. The fix has been hotly denied by Edmonds and ITV, and it’s not entirely clear why ITV would pay so much money for him only to have him booted off first.

#4: Central Heating

In 2020, production moved away from Australia to Gwrych Castle in North Wales. Suffice it to say, Wales is a lot colder than Australia in November-time when the show airs. So, viewers were a little confused when they saw the celebs looking a little too toasty in the draughty, ruined castle – some of them weren’t even wearing coats and jackets! Production came out and said that with it being a medieval castle, it obviously didn’t have any central heating. However, the conspiracy didn’t die, and eventually, we found out that there were top-secret, additional heating lamps in there to keep the celebrities warm. It was downright scandalous.

#3: Sausage Revolt

Nowadays, the celebs heading into the jungle – or, alternately, into the castle – know that they’re probably not going to be having three square meals a day. They’re usually doing pretty gruelling challenges for food, which frequently leaves them with very little to eat of substance – making subsequent challenges even harder. But this was back in series 2, and it seems they weren’t prepared. Upon receiving only one sausage each for dinner, which honestly isn’t too bad compared to some meals we’ve seen, celebrity chef Antony Worrall Thompson led a “sausage rebellion” where the celebs threatened to walk off and go on strike if they weren’t given some proper scran.

#2: The Rat

Speaking of dodgy meals, the celebs were so hungry in the 2009 series that another celebrity chef – this time Gino D’Acampo – took it upon himself to rustle up some grub. That “grub” turned out to be an actual rat that was caught and killed by Stuart Manning when it came into the camp, and was promptly cooked up by Gino so that they could get a bit of protein in them. This turned out to be a dire situation, causing a massive rift between the “I’m a Celeb” production crew and the Australian RSPCA. ITV actually got fined by the Aussies over the fiasco and was forced to apologise for not intervening when Gino suggested killing the animal.

#1: Storm Arwen

The first winter storm of 2021 turned out to be one of the most brutal in recent memory, wreaking havoc across Scotland, northern England, and North Wales – right where Gwrych Castle is. “I’m a Celeb” was still running but for the first time, production had to be shut down completely for three days while they weathered Storm Arwen. The contestants were taken away to stay elsewhere while chaos reigned on-set, with some parts of the crew’s headquarters as well as the castle itself suffering damage. To make matters even worse, some troublemakers broke in and had to be removed by the security team, for the second time that year.

Let us know in the comments who your favourite King or Queen of the Jungle is.