We’re 11 days into the latest season o_f I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here!_ and somehow, the reality show has already lost two celebrities – days before the public are due to start voting out their least favourite celebrities. After food critic Grace Dent left the jungle on medical grounds, releasing a heartfelt statement earlier today on Instagram, actor Jamie Lynn Spears followed suit yesterday.
‘Jamie Lynn Spears has left I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! on medical grounds,’ said ITV in an official statement. ‘She’s been a fantastic camp mate who has triumphed at trials and bonded well with her fellow celebrities.’
Spears’ departure comes after telling campmates she felt ‘emotionally weak’ in a recent episode, often expressing her agony at missing her two children, Maddie, 15 and Ivey Joan, five, while she was in the jungle. The medical grounds on which she has left have not yet been reported.
Dent and Spears aren’t the only celebrities who were feared to duck out of I’m A Celebrity early this year. Nella Rose has similarly expressed thoughts around leaving and was removed from camp temporarily in last night’s episode in order to see a medic but returned shortly after. Even the ever-emphatic Sam Thompson declared he ‘wants to go home’ after Jamie Lynn’s abrupt exit.
Never in the reality show's history have we see seen so much misery expressed so early, with viewers now wondering if there’ll be much a show left should celebrities continue to drop out of their own accord. ‘There’s going to be no one left the way the celebrities are currently leaving #imaceleb,’ one viewer tweeted.
So, what’s in the jungle water? Evidently, this year’s crop of celebrities are struggling to cope more than ever – and now some are hypothesising why. Has the show become too tough to handle over the years, with trials and dingo dollar challenges getting more extreme each season? Or is it this specific mixture of campmates, unable to power through with team comradery as we’ve seen in previous years? The inclusion of a certain right-wing politician surely can’t help the vibes in camp.
According to tabloid sources, it’s not at all that convoluted – it is, in fact, the rain. Seriously, apparently monsoon season this year is so awful that the celebrities are really struggling to cope with the downpours.
‘The weather in the jungle this year has been terrible,’ a source told The Daily Mail. ‘The campmates have had barely one full day of sunshine and have had to contend with endless rain which has only made the already gruelling living conditions worse. The weather has really affected the mood in camp. Everyone is miserable and wanting to leave.'
Climate change, spreading more doom and gloom over our lives, now in form of guilty pleasure TV watching. But seriously, this isn’t something to be glossed over. In 2022, Australia was deluged by devastating floods thanks to record-breaking rainfall, and this year experts expect more severe thunderstorms and heavy rain across eastern Australia in coming weeks. I’m A Celebrity is filmed in Springbrook National Park, near Murwillumbah, New South Wales, which sits in the southeast of Australia.
With such tough living conditions in an already difficult environment, it’s no surprise celebrities are finding it harder to make it through jungle life then. At least we know Nigel Farage is facing the same consequences of the climate crisis that he’s dismissed for years though.