Gemma Collins blames early I'm a Celeb exit on a prior 'horrific ordeal'

I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! flop Gemma Collins blamed her early exit on 'a horrific ordeal' shortly before she joined the show and said she had handed over her fee to charity.

The reality TV star, who found fame on The Only Way Is Essex, quit after three days while grumbling about hunger and complaining she thought she may have malaria.

But she told ITV's This Morning that 'in hindsight' she should have not gone on the show, but did not 'want to let anyone down'.

She said: "I had been through a horrific ordeal - 24 hours before I left for Australia - and I've had a terrible backlash from the media and the general public. But it's not their fault because they don't know what happened to me.

"And I've wanted to go in to the jungle for three and a half years - ever since I was lucky enough to come into TV, that was the one job that I wanted my whole life and what happened to me was horrific. But I just thought 'Gem, you've got to do this, you have to do this, not only for yourself, but for everyone that has supported you throughout your years on TOWIE'."

Asked if she got her full fee for the hit ITV show, she said: "No I didn't - I have been given a percentage which is going to charity. It's going to a children's charity for starving children."

 

Patrick McLennan

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix. 


An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.