I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here has burst back onto our screens with a new season launching on Sunday night.
And while this year’s opening episode saw two million fewer viewers than the year before, there’s no denying it’s still one of the most talked-about shows on TV right now.
The series, notorious for forcing well-known faces to manhandle massive bugs and chow down on some dubious animal parts, includes Fred Sirieix, Nella Rose, Josie Gibson, Nick Pickard, Danielle Harold, Sam Thompson, Jamie Lynn Spears, Nigel Farage, Marvin Humes, and Grace Dent this year.
You know what it doesn’t include, though? A jungle – and it turns out the I’m A Celebrity... setting comes with a roof, too.
Yup, you read that correctly.
The traditional Australian setting for the show, Springbrook National Park, isn’t technically a jungle at all, but is instead a “lowland subtropical rainforest”. It’s a small, slightly persnickety difference ― but they do bang on about the “jungle” of it all a lot, don’t they?
Perhaps more shocking, however, is the existence of a roof over part of the filming site.
Last year, an insider told Mail Online that while some cover exists to protect the cast from truly torrential rain (and to keep the recording equipment safe), “a lot of the camp is not under shelter ― it’s not like the roof at Wimbledon”.
The retractable 50-foot-high canopy is said to also be useful in keeping the campfire alight, though its alleged existence doesn’t protect the campers completely, and Mail Online’s insider says it’s prone to leaking.
According to ex-cast member Lauren Booth via The Mirror, the waterfall “shower” in the “jungle” is fake too. “Unless, of course, ‘real’ rainforest waterfalls get turned off between three and six every afternoon,” she said.
Another ex-contestant, the late David Gest, also said that some of the rocks on set looked suspiciously hollow and papier mache-like, and pondered that they could have been designed as hiding places for cameras.
Be that as it may ― as long those bugs are legit, I’m still convinced the cast have earned their hefty fees.
HuffPost UK has contacted ITV for comment.
