It turns out that snakes and spiders are not the only things to look out for when competing on I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here — one must also be wary of loose lips.
An executive producer of the Channel Ten reality competition series, which premiered on January 3, has revealed that a contestant once inadvertently confessed to cheating on his wife while taking part in the show.
Asked about his best “go to funny story” about the popular competition, produce told Benjamin Norris from the TV Reload podcast about the unfortunate slip of the tongue.
Worrying that people would immediately know to whom he was referring, Mavroidakis said, “There was a series where a celebrity told a story in camp about a girl he had been with. And he talked about specifics, in terms of what he had been doing on that day, what time of year it was.”
The contestant allegedly then bolted to the diary room, having realised what he had done, and begged producers to edit the scene saying, “I’ve just realised I was still married at the time.”
“They’re all playing for charity and… the more you love them, the better the show is going to rate,” Mavroidakis said as to why they agreed to keep the infidelity on the down low.
While the current competitors ostensibly are faithful to their significant others, they were chosen for the latest iteration of the hit series for a variety of reasons and were apparently culled from a list of more than 60 potential choices.
Explained Mavroidakis, “We’ve got to check off diversity, we’ve got to check off fame, we’ve got to check off funny, we’ve got to check off headlines.”
One celebrity who is no stranger to making headlines is disgraced TV Chef Pete Evans —who was rumoured to be heading into the Aussie “jungle.” However, Mavroidakis insists that the anti-vaxxer was never a possibility.
Instead, on Sunday January 3, Toni Pearen, Grant Denyer, Mel Buttle, Abbie Chatfiled, Ash Williams, Jack Vidgen, Paulini Curuenavuli, Jess Eva and Travis Varcoe were all revealed to be the first nine cast members, with more, including a Brownlow medalist and “true diva”, still to come.