I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! always provides salacious celebrity drama. From romantic trysts to all-out rows the show has long proved reality TV gold. This season, we’ve had Matt Hancock quizzed on his Covid rule-breaking, Boy George put to task about his 2008 assault conviction, and now, the most dramatic of all… Charlene White refusing to sleep in an RV.
One might hope we’re being sarcastic, but Charlene’s bed arrangements really have become the most talked about on the show. This week, after winning the role of deputy leader of camp, she was given the opportunity to sleep in a more comfortable bed next to camp leader Matt Hancock. However, when she spotted spiders crawling over the bed she told the Bush Telegraph, ‘My bravery levels are done for today. I really don't want to have to sleep in the RV.’
She’s since been sleeping in her normal camp bed, but tensions are growing as her decision not to sleep in the RV means someone in camp has to sleep in an uncomfortable hammock (camp rules dictate that only camp leaders can sleep in the RV). Now, viewers are getting increasingly frustrated too.
‘Nothing has ever annoyed me more than Charlene not going in the RV,’ former X Factor star Jake Quickenden tweeted.
‘The fact Charlene is making everyone else change their sleeping arrangements because she doesn't want to sleep in the comfiest bed in the camp and none of them are saying anything to her about that is really annoying me,’ another viewer shared. ‘Just sleep in the RV! You're a grown woman stop being so difficult.’
Others think they know the ‘real reason’ why she’s not sleeping in the RV, but that hasn’t made them any more sympathetic.
‘What is Charlene’s problem,’ one person tweeted. ‘She’s causing such a scene. She shouldn’t be deputy leader if she’s going to be ungrateful for an actual bed she’s getting. She’s letting Owen sleep on the ground like seriously!! She clearly doesn’t want to sleep in the same room as Matt.’
Ant and Dec have come to the same conclusion, sharing on their IG Live after the show that they believe she doesn’t want to share the RV with Matt Hancock too. ‘But you’ve got to think of others and if other people have to then sleep in a hammock because of your actions and have a bad back, then you’ve got to look at your actions,’ Ant said. ‘I’m not sure it’s really playing as a team member by doing that.’
Of course, there could be any number of reasons Charlene doesn’t want to sleep in the RV that perhaps she doesn’t feel comfortable sharing on television. But even if we are to draw the conclusion that it’s all about sleeping next to Matt Hancock, shouldn’t that be enough to validate her decision?
Putting pressure on a woman to share a small sleeping space with a man she doesn’t know well – nor may she necessarily like – is ludicrous. If Charlene is uncomfortable with the sleeping arrangement, that should be enough to warrant her sleeping elsewhere. Yes, it’s unfair that someone else has to sleep in an uncomfortable hammock, but those camp rules are made by producers, not Charlene.
Others on Twitter agree. ‘Honestly there is no way I would have been in there with Hancock either,’ one viewer stated online. ‘And it’s okay for women not to want to sleep in an enclosed space next to a man they don’t really know.’
‘I’m appalled at the way so many people, women especially, can’t understand that she doesn’t feel comfortable sleeping in a confined space with a man who she barely knows,’ another agreed.
‘Maybe it's because she lost an aunt that she was very close to at the beginning of the pandemic, she died alone, along with many thousands of others. So maybe in her heart and her gut it doesn't feel right, it feels like a betrayal to her aunt and all those others,’ a third person hypothesised. ‘I'd be the same.’
Ultimately, the decision seems a lot more complex than simply her not being willing to support her team. Perhaps reactions like this are exactly why she hasn’t elaborated on her reasoning too.