I was on Celebrity Masterchef – the show left me with sleepless with nightmares, admits EastEnders’ Richard Blackwood

ONE celebrity from this year's MasterChef has revealed a part of the programme left him with sleepless nights and nightmares.

Actor Richard Blackwood was one of this year's famous faces to put their culinary skills to the test for the popular cooking competition.

However, the former EastEnders actor, who now stars in Channel 4's soap Hollyoaks, revealed he couldn't stop thinking of food as he slept.

The 50-year-old told The Mirror the BBC show would keep him awake thinking about dishes he had already cooked, and ones he wanted to make.

"It’s tough," he admitted. "You have sleepless nights, dreaming about dishes that you’ve made or that you want to make."

He continued: "Then whatever the food was, it wasn’t even edible. It was like literally, you just don’t stop thinking about food."

Last night's episode saw the actor make it through to the quarter-final alongside Jimmy Bullard and Leslie Joseph.

Richard revealed when producers approached him to take part he said yes "apprehensively".

"I was trying to cook a lot more before during the show once I knew I was doing it.

"But I guess, preparing for MasterChef is like preparing for a quiz where it is general knowledge questions; you don’t know where they going to go.

"No matter how much you might study geography, or you might study history, they might go there, well, the special subject is horror movies."

On tonight's episode of MasterChef the celebrities must cook a faultless two-course meal for former finalists Andi Peters and Megan McKenna and 2020 champion Riyadh Khalaf.

Celebrity MasterChef airs from 9pm on BBC One.