IT’S two days until Ant and Dec’s latest batch of stars will be chowing down on kangaroo balls, diving out of aeroplanes and ducking under fish guts in the Kruger National Park.
But pop icon Sinitta has a far more pressing matter in mind — her I’m A Celebrity South Africa campmate Gemma Collins.
The women are locked in an explosive feud after the GC accused Sinitta of leaking stories to the Press from the cast’s WhatsApp group.
But Sinitta — whose biggest hit, So Macho, reached No2 in 1985 — isn’t taking the accusation lying down.
Breaking her silence on the bust-up, she said: “I’ve been accused of being the rat who’s been selling the WhatsApp stories . . . the only rat amongst us were those in the jungle.
“Gemma might be suffering a little hallucinogenically from all the, er, animal scrotums.”
The row blew up after Gemma, who had to tackle one of the grim eating challenges during filming last year, dropped the accusations into the stars’ WhatsApp group chat.
Sinitta then tried to put the row to bed at the launch of the ITV series in London last month.
An insider said: “Poor Sinitta was dumbfounded and incredibly upset at such a scurrilous accusation being made against her, with zero proof.
“She made a beeline for Gemma as she had been beside herself with worry and the other celebs were clearly aware there was this unspoken tension.
“It’s caused ripples among the cast, who are now scared they could be accused next.”
The hugely popular All Stars jungle spin-off show returns to our screens on Monday, featuring Gemma and Sinitta alongside other former contestants Harry Redknapp, Sir Mo Farah, Scarlett Moffatt, Adam Thomas, David Haye, Seann Walsh, Ashley Roberts, Craig Charles, Beverley Callard and Jimmy Bullard.
Chatting ahead of Monday’s opening episode, boxing champ David revealed he had also faced off with original Towie cast member Gemma.
He said: “Particularly early on there was a bit of friction between us.
“It’s a big, big, explosive start to everything. It gets really heavy, really, really fast. Emotions are out there and it’s late at night.
“We’re all tired, we’re hungry and there was a bit of friction between myself and Gemma clean off the bat.
“But over the next few days, once we all relaxed, I was surprised that we got on so well.
“If you’d have said to me right at the beginning, ‘You two are going to be really getting on’, I would have said, ‘No, I don’t think so’.”
Last year The Sun also revealed that Jimmy Bullard and Adam Thomas had had a heated row in the camp, with the pair still not on speaking terms.
Sinitta said some moments grew so tense that it was like the Hunger Games, and David added: “Most of the time we got on quite well, but once they start separating the groups, instinctively it’s them against us, and we were battling for the food.
“We’re doing tournaments, we’re doing these trials, so there’s no love lost there.
“There’s lots of banter between the teams, and it got a bit spicy from time to time.”
Talking to David and Sinitta, it is clear they now get on well, but that was not always the case in camp.
David added: “I’m a very competitive person, and you can’t always judge a book by its cover but I wrongly assumed Sinitta would be a lesser team-mate in regards to trials.
“I assumed a big, young male would have outdone her in a physical challenge, but I may have been incorrect.
“I ate my hat a couple of times.”
Sinitta first appeared in I’m A Celebrity in Australia in 2011, when she finished 11th — so she has had plenty of time to think about where she went wrong, not least in the trials.
And it meant that this time she went into the bush camp prepared, by sneaking in contraband food.
She said: “I forgot how popular the show was, it’s been many years.
“What was different this time is now I obviously knew it was real.
“I knew we weren’t just going to get taken off to the Versace Hotel and it’s all for show. This time I took in coffee. They kept us in these little lodges before we went in, and there was sachets of coffee by the kettle, and I was like, ‘Ooh’.
“And I kept trying not to look at them — and then they jumped into my bra.”
Laughing, David added: “I’d never do anything to infringe on the rules of the show, and even if I did I would take it to the grave with me.”
It’s fair to say David took jungle life seriously from day one when he took part in 2012, finishing third.
As well as his prowess in the challenges, it was his tendency to shower in the nude — on national TV — that everyone remembers.
Viewers will be pleased to learn he still likes to soap up starkers 14 years on.
David said: “Don’t most people shower naked? Is that not a thing? When you’re in the jungle and you’re doing these trials and you’ve got sludge, you’ve got maggots, you’ve got all these creepy crawlies in every crack and crevice of your body, you need to get under the shower butt naked.
“You need to freshen up, so obviously that’s the way it’s done.
“I’ve always known the cameras are there and it’s like, ‘OK, it’s my ar*e’.
“It’s 12 years older now, so it might not be as taut as it was in 2012.”
Sinitta added: “There’s lots of slow-motion washing of David’s bottom. — you’re welcome, viewers!”
For the new series Ant and Dec have laid on a string of horrifying new trials for the celebrities, with Scarlett Moffatt sharing in today’s Sun TV Mag that bosses upped the ante “because they were fighting for Legend status”.
She said: “I don’t know what sicko came up with these trials.
“Have you seen the horror movie Saw? Some of these were that level.”
David agreed and said: “They turned the trials up. The first time I did it, it felt very easy for me.
“I was quite vocal about that, going into it, like wanting a bit of a challenge.
“Some of the stuff they were getting us to do, I wouldn’t have thought it was legal to do for health and safety reasons.
“Halfway through, I’m thinking, ‘Has this trial gone wrong? Is this how it was supposed to have been?’ But apparently afterwards, covered in vomit . . . that was part of the game.
“I’m sure in England you wouldn’t have been able to do these trials that were done in South Africa.
“In England, the regulations are too stringent and they’d get shut down, but in South Africa it seems like anything goes.
“I’m quite resilient to a lot of stuff and they really pushed it to the limits.”
Surely Gemma Collins was a flight risk from the off then, I ask?
The reality TV regular lasted three days when she took part in 2014, so she was desperate to rewrite her story.
David said: “She kind of flaked out the first time around and I didn’t have high hopes. But of all the people watching her go through what she went through, she didn’t have an ounce of quit in her at all.
“She obviously looked back and she’s like, ‘I’m going to give it everything’.
“And fortunately for the show she did, because she was part of some real, real heavy challenges that she should be proud of.”
But Sinitta revealed that there had been one moment when her nemesis had been eyeing the first flight home.
She said: “Gemma was ready to leave in the middle of the night.
“We’ve had a really difficult day of trials, we’re physically exhausted, we’re all broken and we’re getting ready for bed. And Harry Redknapp comes in with the noticeboard and he starts reading this awful trial, Prison Of Hell.
“And he says, ‘You’re all going to be tied up and there’s going to be rats’.
“Literally before he could finish reading it out, Gemma’s like, ‘I’m a celebrity — get me out of here’.
“But Harry was pranking us.”
The new series will air for three weeks, culminating in a live finale, when viewers will be able to vote for their jungle legend.
It’s a change from the first series of All Stars in 2023, which was entirely pre-recorded, including the victory by Myleene Klass.
Despite that, it proved to be a ratings hit, becoming one of ITV’s most successful entertainment shows of that year, averaging more than 5.1million viewers watching live every weeknight.
David added: “Because everyone had been through it before, people really knew the outcome and gave it 100 per cent.
“They really gave it way more than I thought they would have done. I was watching some of the trials, thinking, ‘Bloody hell, they’re really going for it’.”
Sinitta said: “It was 15 years ago when I did it, so my children were five years old but this time I kind of left behind 19, nearly 20-year-olds.
“There was more pressure because they were like, ‘Don’t come home and say you just went out’. But they’ll be proud.”
- I’m A Celebrity South Africa returns on Monday at 9pm on ITV1.
