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Sunday 22 November 2009

Status Anxiety

I’m the celebrity who told ITV there was too much Ant and Dec — get me out of here!

Believe it or not, I actually turned down an opportunity to be on Celebrity Big Brother. This was back in 2002, after the series in which Vanessa Feltz made her infamous appearance. Given its career-destroying potential, I asked how much I would be paid. ‘Oh no, there’s no fee,’ explained the Channel 4 executive who’d contacted me. ‘It’s all for charity.’ (By the time George Galloway made his appearance on the programme, this policy had been revised.)

I came closer to appearing on I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! This was in 2005, when the show was at its height. My television agent received an email from the ‘celebrity producer’ asking if I’d be interested. ‘The success of past series of the show has meant that we are now able more than ever to cast people who don’t “need” to do the show, such as Janet Street-Porter and Johnny Rotten, and with this in mind I am approaching you,’ she wrote.

I instructed my agent to write back saying I would indeed be interested and, a few days later, I went along to ITV’s headquarters on the South Bank to meet the show’s producers. I’m a Celeb seemed a much safer bet than Celebrity Big Brother — and contestants are generally well paid — so I told them what I thought they wanted to hear. For instance, when they asked me how I’d react to being in the jungle and having to live off rice and beans I said ‘not well’. ‘I tend to be very short-tempered at the best of times,’ I explained. ‘I’ll probably end up having screaming rows with all my fellow contestants.’

By the end of the interview I was convinced it was in the bag.

More articles from: Toby Young | this section

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