Samantha Fox on ‘Jungle dramas’

The former jungle participant has pondered recent events in the 2023 camp.

Former I’m A Celebrity campmate Samantha Fox has told stocklytics.com that Nella Rose is a “bully” who is playing a game to try and earn attention, amidst her high-profile spat with fellow campmate Fred Sirieix in the new series.

“I don’t like the game she’s playing,” said the ex-glamour model and singer. “She seems a bit of a bully, and I don’t like bullies. I thought she was bang out of order throughout that whole argument with Fred, when he mentioned ‘being old enough to be her dad’, right from the beginning. I would have come in there and said, ‘it’s a figure of speech, don’t be over the top!’. She just wants lot of air time, so she’s just going round and round in circles.

“I couldn’t believe how cool Fred was about it and how much of a gentleman he was, but I wish he would have told her it was a figure of speech! He dealt with the situation so well – she was then even more horrible to him when she said he was never going to eat his food again, though it didn’t last long, did it? She was very nasty and I felt sorry for him.

“The whole argument was for show. I could tell from the beginning of the series when she had the trial with the snakes that she wanted a lot of air time. She was doing a lot of screaming before the actual challenge, but when she put her head in there, she wasn’t scared. That pizza challenge as well – she took so much time before eating it to have a look at it and scream at it, but once she had it in her mouth, she was absolutely fine. You could see Nigel Farage sitting on the other side of the table thinking, ‘I want the airtime!’”

In recent episodes, without any on-screen explanation, it appears there has been a calming from Nella who most likely has been told by producers to quit with the fallout as its had a negative effect on her, taking her from a potential winner to being likely one of the first voted out of the camp by viewers.

Drawing upon her experience in the Jungle, where she was a contestant in the 2009 series, Samantha Fox also suggested that Nella’s early outbursts will have a detrimental effect on the rest of the camp for the remainder of the series.

“Those arguments affect the camp massively,” she said. “When it’s that early on, you’re all supposed to support each other and you become a family early on. After two days you feel like you’ve known those people for a long time because you’re 24/7 with each other and you’ve got a lot of time on your hands – you talk a lot and you get to know each other very well, so for that argument with Nella and Fred to happen after a couple of days was very upsetting because it created a divide.

“Not a lot of people were there for that moment – if I was there, I would have diffused the situation and told her it was a figure of speech and that she was being over the top. She’s making a mountain out of a molehill from situations, and that can really split up the camp – it makes the camp feel uncomfortable only two days in. She wants the attention, and she’ll end up getting the camera – that’s the reason she’s in the show.

“What happened after the argument was that she got given attention by her campmates – they all came up to her and asked her, ‘are you okay? Are you hungry?’, which is exactly what she wanted. If she really meant what she said about not eating Fred’s food, then she could have just eaten rice and beans and stuck it out rather than being a hypocrite. You can’t be a hypocrite on national TV – if you really hate him that much, then don’t eat his food and eat the rice and beans!”

I’m A Celebrity continues on ITV1, ITVX, STV and the STV Player at 9.30 pm