Gemma Collins ‘wanted to die’ after I’m A Celeb exit

17 May 2024

Gemma Collins “wanted to die” because of the “embarrassment” she faced following her ‘I’m A Celebrity …Get Me Out Of Here!’ exit.

Gemma Collins 'wanted to die' because of the 'embarrassment' she faced following her I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here! exit

The former ‘The Only Way Is Essex’ star, 43, left the ITV programme in 2014 after just three days in the jungle, and was ridiculed for her struggles on the show.

Now, Gemma has admitted she wanted to take her own life when she was taunted with horrible comments about her appearance.

She told the MailOnline’s podcast: “All the embarrassment of like, you know what the TV programmes were saying, ‘Gemma Collins left the jungle, she was hungry, she was this’, and it wasn't my fault.

“I can remember laying in my flat where I lived and just thinking I just want to die.

“I haven't done nothing wrong. I've left the jungle because of something that happened to me.

“No one was even honest about what happened to me, so I had to walk around with this shame that I'd something wrong.”

Before she had even arrived Down Under to film the programme, Gemma was attacked by an ex-boyfriend, and it left her emotionally fragile – which heightened her negative experience on the show.

Despite her struggles, Gemma insisted leaving ‘I’m A Celeb’ was her “biggest regret” because she fancied her chances of being crowned ‘Queen of the Jungle’.

She explained: “I'm gutted about because I feel like I was robbed of my moment and then I was also made to feel like the worse person on earth.

“So that's in the past but it has affected me for sure. But that's my biggest kind of regret with the jungle because I probably would have gone on to win the show.

“I would have been hilarious on there you can see from the first couple of days I was in there. But all the psychological like, s***, that was given to me after that, I could have killed myself.

“I actually remember being in my flat thinking, ‘I think I'm going to kill myself I can't cope.’”

Gemma likened her mental health struggle to that of ‘Love Island’ presenter Caroline Flack, who died by suicide in 2020 after she was found guilty of assaulting her then-boyfriend, Lewis Burton.

She said: “What happened to Caroline Flack, that could have been me after the jungle. And that really could have been me. I'm pleased I didn't do anything silly because I would have regretted it.”