As Ant and Dec plan the ultimate I’m A Celebrity, we look back at the show’s top 12 contestants from Katie Price, Peter Andre to Helen Flanagan
From Gillian McKeith's famous 'fainting' fit to Dean Gaffney's bush spa-breakdown, TV critic Ally Ross compiles his list of the Australian outback's most entertaining contestants
ANT and Dec volunteered the idea of an all-time all-stars version of I’m A Celebrity.
Dec, 41, told The Sun: “Sometimes we talk about how it would be brilliant to do a Best Of and get some of the jungle Kings and Queens back.
“And also some of the contestants that were great but didn’t win. We’ve had so many genius people over the years.”
Here our TV critic ALLY ROSS picks his own dream line-up. Come up with your own filled with eye-candy and reality bores, if you so wish.
He’s going with the contestants who turned this show into the TV juggernaut it is today.
Peter Andre and Katie Price
HARD to believe now, but before he turned into the professional, camera-chasing wonder-dad, Peter was the adorable lummox who got off with Katie Price, composed Insania on the hoof and attempted to write OZ on his own face, in a mirror, but ended up bearing the legend “ZO”.
A nation fell in love with the old simpleton. A nation probably ended up regretting it.
And to Katie. Thanks to Myleene Klass and other bimbos, a whole generation of female eye candy has grown up under the misapprehension they’ve been sent in there purely to take a jungle shower and land a commercial deal with Marks & Spencer.
Katie understood better. You’re there to get off with one of the blokes, dumbo. The less said about her 2009 return the better. It sullied a legend.
Darren Day
ARGUABLY the daddy of them all – and not just in a paternity test sense. Series one looked, on paper, to be just another Z-list reality show, until Darren Day flirted with Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, fell out spectacularly with Rhona Cameron and boldly declared: “I’m a street boy.” The mean streets of Colchester. West side.
John Lydon
THE greatest and unlikliest booking of all time. A tragedy he walked out early, as he was destined to win series three.
The former anti-Christ’s highlight was probably being covered in molasses and viciously pecked by a trial ostrich as he barked “That’s not funny,” even though it was very VERY funny.
Tara Palmer-Tomkinson
EVERY Romeo needs his Juliet. Every Jay Z his Beyonce. And every street boy from Colchester needs his coke-shovelling, C-list aristo. Tara was Darren’s.
Wore bunny ears and was mad as a box of frogs.
Which, if I remember rightly, was also one of the first Bushtucker trials.
Shaun Ryder
THE voting public rarely gets this show right, bless ’em. Stacey Solomon was crowned the winner, but true fans know the real champion was the Happy Mondays singer, who not only had to endure Alison Hammond’s arrival but was also bitten by a snake, which has been weaving its way erratically round the Australian jungle ever since, I’d imagine.
Lady Colin Campbell
SOME C-listers simply vanish into thin air after their jungle stint. Phina Oruche, Scott Henshall, Stuart Manning and Matthew Wright anyone?
Not this gal. Fell out with everyone except, weirdly, clearly besotted Keiron Dyer and single-handedly saved the 2015 series from oblivion.
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David Van Day
ARRIVED like the Zika virus five days into the 2008 series, accompanied by Timmy Mallett, and knew just what was required of him. He had to act like a camp, spoilt, over-the-top has-been with delusions of mega-fame. A routine that came remarkably naturally.
Poor old Nicola McLean will never recover from the fact she finished sixth and he was fourth. And who can blame her. An epic jungle monster.
Gillian McKeith
BUDGIE-FACED jobbie botherer didn’t so much as blink when she once had to sift her way through a Michelle McManus stool sample.
Yet she became one of the show’s immortals when she “passed out” at a live trial in 2010. Haven’t seen her since, but then I don’t, as a rule, hang around Beckton sewage works.
Janice Dickinson
TAKES a special kind of bat-s**t mad woman to stand out in the company of genuine pieces of work like Rodney Marsh, John Burton Race and Lynne Franks. But Janice Dickinson was that woman, during the epic 2007 series.
Fell out with everyone and even Biggins.
Wins bonus points and place in my line-up for referring to Dec as: “Junior”.
Dean Gaffney
TO be honest, in different circumstances, Dean would be well behind Freddie Starr and David Gest in my all-time list.
But Freddie only lasted three days and David Gest, may the legend RIP, is sadly unavailable.
So I’m bowing to popular demand and including The Gaffinator, in honour of his infamous bush spa trial in 2006.
“Go on, Dean, you’ve nearly got it.” “WUUUUUARGH. WUUUUUUUUUAAAAAARGH.” “Deep breaths, Dean. And try and calm down.”
Golden television.
Helen Flanagan
OK, so if you’re not going to get off with one of the blokes (and you could hardly blame her, surrounded by the likes of Limahl and Eric Bristow), then you might as well starve your campmates and massively p*** off everyone, including Ant and Dec.
“You can do this Helen. Honestly, you can do this, Helen.” LOOK. IT’S JUST BLOODY MEALWORMS, YOU PATHETIC CREATURE. AAAAAARGGH.
