Phil Tufnell has confessed he struggled with the fame that came with being crowned King of the Jungle and it has taken him a few years to get his life back on track.
The 49-year-old TV presenter retired from professional cricket in 2002 and went on to win I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! in 2003.
Tuffers was crowned King of the Jungle in 2003 (Andy Butterton/PA)
But Phil revealed: “There was that press and media attention [that came with winning I'm A Celebrity...], and it’s not as easy as people seem to think. Everyone seems to think fame is all great, and everything’s all fine, and you’re going to openings and parties, but it’s not quite as simple as that.
“It was overwhelming.”
He added: “It’s only when you look back, you think, ‘What was that all about?’ You could have gone down so many different paths. You sit back and go, ‘Phew, well, thankfully it’s all turned out all right in the end’, because there were so many things that might not have.”
Phil and Karen Hauer on the Strictly live tour in 2013 (Rui Vieira/PA)
But he wasn’t put off reality TV, appearing in Strictly Come Dancing, Celebrity Antiques Road Trip, The Chase and most recently Channel 4 skiing contest, The Jump.
“I was terrified! Absolutely terrified,” he confessed of his role in The Jump. “It wasn’t quite what I was expecting. It was so completely out of my comfort zone.
“I fell off the skeleton! I’d done three days pootling down a little nursery slope in Hemel Hempstead [Hertfordshire], and then turned up in Austria and went, ‘This is pretty hardcore’! I fell over three times just getting from the plane to the hotel!”
Phil admits he was terrified on The Jump (Todd Anthony/Channel 4)
But Phil won’t be quitting the limelight anytime soon.
“I’m certainly not retiring!” he insisted.
Fans can read more in Phil's new book, Where Am I?: My Autobiography, which is published in hardback by Headline, priced £20. Available August 27.
