Claire Sweeney has joked she's a reality show "guinea pig".
Claire Sweeney
The 50-year-old presenter was a contestant on the first series of both 'Celebrity Big Brother' and 'Strictly Come Dancing' in 2001 and 2004 respectively, and she revealed she's still in touch with some of her housemates from the former.
Speaking to the Metro newspaper's Sixty Seconds column, she said: "I still see Vanessa Feltz and I messaged Chris Eubank when his son passed away.
"I bumped into Keith Duffy at a festival a few years back.
"[The series] was very safe by comparison to the recent ones. I seem to be the guinea pig for these shows. I did the first 'Strictly' as well."
Meanwhile, Claire suggested her 'Strictly' experience is almost unrecognisable from the current incarnation of the programme, as she was able to get away with devoting just "an hour at the end of the day to rehearse", whereas the current crop are expected to spend hours in the studio perfecting their moves.
She added: "It was very different. I was doing 'Loose Women' and '60 Minute Makeover' at the time so I’d just squeeze in an hour at the end of the day to rehearse.
"You couldn’t get away with that now."
Claire recently revealed that she avoided looking at social media for a week after fearing the backlash having expressed her support for broadcaster Piers Morgan following his comments about The Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle.
She explained: "I love Piers Morgan and you haven’t always got to agree – that’s why free speech is important and I admire that, he stands by his front.
"He’s got balls of steel and I’m a big fan of Piers, big fan, and I supported him publicly on social media and then didn’t look at my Twitter for a week because I knew I would get absolutely abused but I didn’t care."
Tagged in Chris Eubank Keith Duffy Vanessa Feltz