Name: Brian Paddick
Age: 50
Occupation: Former London Mayoral Candidate and Ex-Deputy Assistant Commissioner for London's Metropolitan Police Service
Phobias: None
Special skills: Cooking
Brian Paddick says he is heading into the jungle stop people from taking him so seriously - and he thinks he’ll probably burst into tears while he’s in there.
Brian says he wants people to realise he is fun, and hopes that by appearing on I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here-! the requests for him to comment on serious issues will dry up.
He says: "I get asked to do very serious programmes. I go on and debate policing issues. I talk about terrorism. I talk about racism in the police. And really it’s all very heavy and very serious. "
He continues jokingly: "And I’m thinking once I’ve done this I probably won’t get asked to do any of those things any more and that’ll be great. Hopefully I might get asked to do different things. But at least the really heavy, serious stuff will dry up."
"I did 30 years in the police and now whenever there is a crisis at Scotland Yard whether it’s something to do with drugs or racism or all the serious stuff then the phone doesn’t stop ringing and I want to do something trivial. I want to start enjoying myself. This is about doing something for fun and showing people that I’m not just a serious politician and a serious former police officer.
"I think the public when they see me in the jungle are going to see that I’m not some camp, that I’m not some sort of liberal guy who’s got really crazy ideas about everything on the planet including drugs. I think they’re going to see somebody who actually is fairly normal, whatever normal is."
And he also says he empathises with people so much that if he is talking to someone who starts to cry, he will cry with them.
He said his partner and his electric razor are the two things he will miss the most.
His biggest fears about the jungle are being filmed and eating insects.
He says: "Eating the bugs I think is the thing I’m most concerned about. The thing that I’m really dreading is the Jungle Sushi. Eating the live bugs and stuff. That’s the thing that’s really worrying me.
"As far as the rats and snakes and whatever else it is, I don’t really know how I’m going to react because I’ve never really come to face to face with one before."
And he reveals that the things which would annoy him the most about fellow contestants are racism and sexism.
He says: "I’ve worked with lots of people, who I have never chosen to be with, not quite 24 hours a day. But although it is for a relatively short time it can feel like eternity if someone is very, very irritating.
"What I try and do is that I try and work out why people are the way they are. Whether they were dropped on their head as a baby or whatever it is, to try and understand it. But if somebody has racist or sexist opinionated views and won’t change their minds then I’m likely to get angry."