I’m the celebrity who told ITV there was too much Ant and Dec — get me out of here!
Earlier this year I made a life-changing decision. I realised after I had made it that it had been simmering away, on the edge of my consciousness, for some months. But at the time it seemed revelatory: one of those epiphanies that the American self-help guru Dr Phil calls a ‘defining moment’.
‘Darling,’ I said to my wife over breakfast, ‘there’s something I need to tell you.’ ‘Oh God,’ she said. ‘You haven’t been fired again?’ ‘No, no, nothing like that. I’ve decided that if I get the call-up to appear on I’m a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! this year, I’m going to say no.’ She looked stunned.
‘Are you feeling OK? You haven’t had a mini-stroke have you?’ ‘I’m being serious. Appearing on a reality show no longer has the allure it once did.’ ‘Wow!’ she said. ‘I’ve read about men who experience a complete personality change for no apparent reason, but I never thought it would happen to you.’ I should say at once that this resolution was never put to the test. I did not get the call-up this year and, had I done so, I might have been tempted. But I like to think I would have stuck to my guns. Contrary to my wife’s reaction, this is not an attack of high-mindedness. More a gut feeling that being a contestant on a reality show — even one watched by ten million viewers a night — no longer has the impact it once did. After winning I’m a Celebrity in 2003, Phil Tufnell went on to earn over £1 million in less than a fortnight. The winner of series six, by contrast, was a former boy band member called Matt Willis. He spent five weeks earlier this year in rehab.
Believe it or not, I actually turned down an opportunity to be on Celebrity Big Brother. This was back in 2002, after the series in which Vanessa Feltz made her infamous appearance. Given its career-destroying potential, I asked how much I would be paid. ‘Oh no, there’s no fee,’ explained the Channel 4 executive who’d contacted me. ‘It’s all for charity.’ (By the time George Galloway made his appearance on the programme, this policy had been revised.) I came closer to appearing on I’m a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! This was in 2005, when the show was at its height. My television agent received an email from the ‘celebrity producer’ asking if I’d be interested. ‘The success of past series of the show has meant that we are now able more than ever to cast people who don’t “need” to do the show, such as Janet Street-Porter and Johnny Rotten, and with this in mind I am approaching you,’ she wrote.
I instructed my agent to write back saying I would indeed be interested and, a few days later, I went along to ITV’s headquarters on the South Bank to meet the show’s producers. I’m a Celeb seemed a much safer bet than Celebrity Big Brother — and contestants are generally well paid — so I told them what I thought they wanted to hear. For instance, when they asked me how I’d react to being in the jungle and having to live off rice and beans I said ‘not well’. ‘I tend to be very shorttempered at the best of times,’ I explained. ‘I’ll probably end up having screaming rows with all my fellow contestants.’ By the end of the interview I was convinced it was in the bag.
‘I think we’ve heard enough,’ said the series producer. ‘Is there anything you’d like to ask us?’ ‘Yes, actually,’ I said. ‘Why so much Ant and Dec? If I have one criticism of the show, it’s that there’s far too much of them and not enough of the contestants. If I were you, I’d cut them right down to the bone.’ The producers looked at me with openmouthed astonishment. Had I really just criticised the two biggest stars in light entertainment? Didn’t I realise that Ant and Dec are the jewels in ITV’s crown? It was as if I’d been interviewed by the Pope about a job as a cardinal and, at the end of the meeting, told him to cut down on all that guff about Jesus. The atmosphere in the room became so leaden that I expected a trapdoor to open at my feet, plunging me down a shoot and sending me cartwheeling on to the street. Needless to say, I never heard from them again.
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