I’M A CELEBRITY winner Giovanna Fletcher has revealed whenever she felt low in camp she put on a brave face because she didn’t want to disappoint her three young sons watching her from home.
The first ever Queen of the Castle tells how she battled freezing temperatures, pining for her kids, the stress of feeding her campmates and shaking with nerves before eating a bull’s penis.
She said: “All I kept thinking about when I felt low is that I made a promise to my boys before going in that they would see mummy on TV having fun and enjoying herself and that is what kept me going in there.
“Any moments that were hard I just thought of my sons, it kept me going I didn’t want to let them think I was scared with a snake on my head or when I was going over the side of the cliff. I just did it without overthinking it or letting fear take over.
“There were moments in the castle where I’d be lying in bed imagining their smiley faces and thinking about them. I had to immerse myself in the TV show and put family life in a little box. I didn’t want to cry the whole time or what was the point?”
The 35-year-old podcaster has three sons with McFly star Tom Fletcher, 35, Buzz, six, Buddy, four, and Max, two.
Fans watched as she shed tears after missing out on a message from home during one of the camp trials, but seeing a shooting star flash across the sky when she was having a moment to herself to cry gave her hope.
She said: “It was heart wrenching – those words mean so much, I didn’t want to dampen everyone else’s enjoyment of it.
“I was crying a lot, so I took myself off and there was a shooting star, which travelled across the sky and I thought that was my boys and Tom. Then Victoria came and gave me one of her glorious hugs.”
As well as the constant hunger Gi admits she felt under pressure as the camp cook with limited ingredients.
She said: “It was intense having everyone watch you cook because you are cooking things like rice, beans, squirrel and pigeon and everyone by that point just wants to go to bed, but you’ve got to prep food.
“Vernon chipped in with ideas of food, but I don’t think he realised the pressure of having 11 campmates who were hungry and tired around you until he became chef.
“It’s something that we really laughed about, we would never have got to boiling point though as we were so aware of each other and supporting each other.”
