Vernon Kay says ‘I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!’ left him “emotionally drained”.
Vernon Kay
The 46-year-old television presenter finished in third place during the final of the ITV reality series on Friday (04.12.20), and he has now revealed he found life in Gwrych Castle, North Wales, to be incredibly tough to deal with emotionally, as he said he cried right from the start.
He confessed: “I still cry at ‘Forrest Gump’, so I expected to cry while I was on ‘I’m A Celebrity’. I even cried in the interview I did at the start of the series.
“And when you’re in there, you are emotionally drained because you are missing your family. I felt comfortable with that group of people that I could cry. I didn’t think about trying to stop myself from getting emotional.
“You are physically drained, too. We were eating nothing but rice and beans most of the time. I lost two-and-a-half stone – that’s weight I didn’t really have to lose.”
And when Vernon was feeling down, he always turned to campmate and Queen of the Castle Giovanna Fletcher, whom he praised as an “amazing lady”.
He added: “Giovanna is an amazing lady. When you talk to her about anything emotional or anything personal, she sits and listens.
“She lets you talk through your emotions to her and when she knows you’re finished, she’ll come back with a comment. She could do a show like Oprah Winfrey.”
The ‘Family Fortunes’ presenter reunited with his wife Tess Daly and their daughters - Phoebe, 16, and Amber, 11 - over the weekend, and said he feels grateful he was able to “make the girls proud” whilst on the show.
Speaking to the Daily Star Sunday newspaper, he said: “Tess is so, so proud. She is just elated. She said that all three of them jumped through the roof when I got to the final. They were glued to the TV. That reassured me. I went in to make the girls proud and that reassured me that I’d done that.”
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