Gemma Collins only lasted a few days in the Australian jungle when she took part in the 2014 series of I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! But that hasn’t put her off going into the Big Brother house when the celebrity version of the show returns in the summer.
When she was in the jungle, Gemma found the severe lack of food hard to deal with.
"I need some decent food. I can’t eat porridge ever again,” she said. “I’m going to die. If they don’t give us a treat I’m going to kill myself. I’d give anything for a bit of dried fruit.
“People that murder get treated better than this and that’s the truth. Even a murderer gets fed three times a day."
But as she eventually broke down in tears, viewers had no idea that it wasn’t just the shortage of grub that she had to deal with.
On her return to the UK, she told This Morning’s Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford about why she decided to quit the series at such an early stage…
“I’d been through a horrific ordeal 24 hours before I left for Australia,” she told the TV couple. “I've had a terrible backlash from the media and the public but it is not their fault because they don’t know what happened to me.What happened to me was horrific but I thought I've got to do this for everyone who has supported you all those years on TOWIE. I did not want to let anyone down."
She added: “"I regret it terribly because on a personal level it was the dream job I always wanted. I went in to win it. I’m not a quitter.
“In hindsight, I never should have got on the plane to go. It is not the TV company’s fault – I was trying to be upbeat. They knew something had gone on but I didn't want to let them down after they gave me this massive opportunity."
A source has told Mirror Online that the 34-year-old Towie star is going into the house this summer, despite the disaster that was I’m A Celebrity!
“This is Gemma’s chance to put the dramas of I'm A Celebrity behind her and show people what she’s really capable of,” the source told the website. “Going into the jungle, Gemma wasn’t in the right state of mind. She had so much going on in her life and it all just got too much for her.
“But this time round everything is different. She’s happy and feels ready to get stuck into CBB. She wants the public to see the real her.”
