I was asked to an interview with the executive producers of the show. ‘You do know that if you go into the jungle, you’re going to be covered in bugs and maybe even eating bugs, don’t you?’ they said. ‘There are a lot of bugs.’
‘Yes, but don’t you get to jump out of a plane and things like that, too?’ I asked.
‘Yes, there is an element of that, but there are also a lot of bugs –’
‘You get to live outdoors in a real camp?’ I said.
‘Yes, but you must remember the bugs –’
‘That sounds so cool,’ I said. ‘I’d love to do it!’ It sounded amazing to me, like the ultimate camping adventure.
They must have thought, Blimey, she actually wants to be on this show. She must be a freak!
The interview lasted about an hour and a half and I babbled on for most of it, chatting away like they were my friends. I told them all about how I’d loved camping as a kid when we went all over the country with the whole family. ‘It’s the best. It’s cheap and you have the most fun because you have to make do with what you’ve got,’ I said.
Then I told them how, as an adult, I’d camped at V Festival and Glastonbury. ‘That’s got to be just as grim as the jungle,’ I said. ‘Trust me, I love it.’
I also talked about how I’d relish the extreme physical and mental challenges of doing I’m a Celebrity. I wanted to challenge myself and see how I coped with the bushtucker trials and living in the jungle. ‘People just wouldn’t expect it of me,’ I said. ‘But that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? You’d be bored if you just sat there camping and drinking hot chocolate for three weeks.’
I talked non-stop. By the end of it, they probably thought, Oh, go away!
If they thought I talked a lot, they should hear Zach when he really gets going. He can talk for England; I think he takes after his mum! It was so wonderful when he first learned to speak. It changes your relationship with your kid when you can talk to them, and it means the world when they first look into your eyes and say, ‘Mummy, I love you.’ Honestly, it’s the most amazing feeling! Now we chatter away continuously. Those I’m a Celebrity producers would have their hands over their ears in no time if they had to listen to us for more than five minutes.
I went home from the meeting thinking, I really hope they pick me. I didn’t care if people said that you were only meant to do the show if you were at the end of your career, or looking for a comeback because you weren’t doing well. It didn’t matter to me what anyone said; I just wanted to do it. I kept my fingers crossed every day after that.
I didn’t tell anyone about the interview, though, just in case I didn’t get it. I hate getting people’s hopes up and then dashing them, so I never tell anyone about anything until it’s definite – not Aaron, not even my mum. I guessed they would be interviewing a fair number of people, so the odds were against me, especially as I’d only just come off The X Factor. Still, I didn’t stop hoping.
In September, Aaron and I went on our first holiday together. We were supposed to be going to Thailand; in fact, I’d booked two weeks in Thailand and couldn’t wait to go, until I looked at the weather reports a week before we went and saw that they were having a monsoon out there. ‘I don’t want to have a holiday in the pouring rain!’ I wailed at the travel agent, ‘I couldn’t bear that. It’s our first holiday in two years. Is there any way you can change the booking to somewhere hot?’
Thankfully they managed to change it to Egypt. I wasn’t that excited, because I’d been to Egypt before. On the other hand, I had to go somewhere hot where I could do nothing for two weeks, and Sharm El Sheikh was the perfect place. We wanted to take Zach, but Mum felt I needed a proper rest. I think she secretly wanted him all to herself!
We had such a lovely time. We hardly did anything for two weeks. It was so quiet. Well, except when we did dive bombs in the swimming pool. We were staying in the poshest hotel and we really got in trouble for our dive bombs. I felt like a five-year-old. Oh, but it was so beautiful there. The gardens were full of flowers and there were flamingoes and storks wandering around.
We had such a good time when we went out in the evening, too. It was a bit like when we first met on holiday in Kos, but better because it was just the two of us and this time we actually spoke to each other. I was so happy, because everyone was foreign and no one recognized me, so we could just have fun. We went to Pacha at Naama Bay and I had the time of my life.
Our room faced the sea and we could walk straight out onto the beach. It was paradise. We did loads of snorkelling, but I didn’t fancy learning to scuba dive because I’m a bit claustrophobic. I’m happy to be on the surface with my little snorkel, but I feel a bit funny when it comes to going down into the depths and having to breathe. If I make it onto I’m a Celebrity, I hope they don’t give me any cave trials, I thought as I swam around looking at the fish down below. I have a real thing about caves. They trigger my claustrophobia really badly. I couldn’t even begin to think about my phobia about spiders. I just had to block it out of my mind!
Me and Aaron used to lie around on the bed in our room for hours with the balcony doors open, doing nothing, being lazy. One day, about halfway through the holiday, we were lying on the bed when my phone rang. It was Ben from my management agency. ‘Guess what?’ he said.
‘What?’ I asked, not daring to believe that he could be calling to say that I was going on I’m a Celebrity.
‘You’re going into the jungle,’ he said. ‘Whoo-hoo!’
I couldn’t believe it. I felt like jumping up and down on the bed. I’m a Celebrity was such a cool programme to be part of. I’d loved The X Factor, and I knew this would be just as much fun. It was an amazing thing to do and I would be around some really interesting people.
I turned to Aaron and smiled. ‘What?’ he asked.
‘I’m going on I’m a Celebrity!’ I yelled.
‘Shut up!’ he said, throwing a pillow at me. I’m a Celebrity is his favourite programme. He’s too cool for The X Factor, but he admits to liking I’m a Celebrity.
‘I am, I am! I didn’t tell you, but they want me.’
‘That’s the best one of the lot,’ he said when he realized I was being serious. ‘That’s going to be much easier to watch than sitting through The X Factor.’
‘I know, I’m really excited,’ I said. After I’d danced around the room for a few minutes, we went back to lying there in the warmth of the afternoon, doing nothing, being lazy, listening to the sound of the sea. It was time to make the most of living in luxury, because I was going to be roughing it big time in Australia!
Chapter 14
Night after night I sat glued to reruns of I’m a Celebrity, watching Katie Price crawling through a tunnel in a dark, dark cave, with huge frogs clinging to her back, having bugs poured all over her as she tried to find stars for the bushtucker trial. Each star was a meal for one of the other contestants back at camp and she was determined to get as many as possible. Suddenly, heavy jets of water were sprayed on her, pushing her down through the tunnel into a water hole. Oh my God! For me, this was terrifying because of my fear of enclosed spaces, but for her it was horrendous because she has a phobia about water. ‘Get me out of here!’ she shouted. She was trembling from head to toe and gasping for breath when they lifted her out of the hole.
I dreaded the hole. Give me bugs in any normal scenario and I think I can get over it, but I don’t think I could go deep down in a cave and deal with the bugs as well. It just seemed too difficult. I shuddered at the thought. I have to be brave, I kept thinking, convinced I would be made to do a trial in a cave. I have to complete every trial. I can’t ever say, ‘I’m a celebrity, get me out of here.’ That’s not good enough. That’s losing.
In the two weeks before I flew out to Australia, I spent every night sitting at my computer YouTubing every single trial that had ever been set on the show. I wanted to know exactly what I was letting myself in for. ‘I’m going to have to do that,’ I kept
telling myself. ‘And I will do it.’ I kept reminding myself that I would be doing it for Zach, to help improve our lives and build a better future for him. I’d be paid to be surrounded by bugs for three weeks, so it meant a lot for me and Zach.
I was certain I’d be nominated for every trial, so I decided there was no point in thinking I wouldn’t. I studied them all so that I could get my head round what I would be going through. ‘I’m not going in there like an idiot and saying, “Oh no, I can’t do it!” I have to do it,’ I repeated to myself. I properly talked myself into doing each trial.
I thought everything through as calmly and logically as I could. It was all well and good someone throwing bugs on you, I decided, because it’s something you have no choice about. It just happens to you; it’s physically forced upon you, so in a way it’s not too bad. There’s nothing you can do if you’re standing underneath a bucket and they say, ‘Right, answer this question,’ and you get it wrong and they pour bugs on you. Once they’re on you, they’re on you. You might as well invite the rest of them to crawl all over you, too.
What scared me was the idea of having to make a conscious decision to pick up a piece of disgusting food and put it in my mouth, then chew it and swallow it. Making yourself do something like that against your will feels so wrong, but you have to sit there and force yourself. ‘I’m going to eat that,’ you tell yourself. ‘It’s going to be moving around in my mouth and I’m going to have to kill it in my mouth, but I’m still going to eat it.’ I struggled to convince myself I could do it. I knew it would be a lot harder than having a bucket of bugs tipped on me, because I’d have a choice.
The only way I could deal with my fear was to remind myself constantly of what I was facing. I had some really strange dreams about eating carcasses. One night I was eating the middle of a cow, and another time I was feasting on a kill, like a lion. I had loads of falling dreams, too, mostly falling into water, and I also dreamt my teeth were falling out. My mum says she has the same dream all the time, so maybe it’s hereditary. In my dream I was thinking, Help, I’ve got no teeth! Nobody is going to vote for me because I’m toothless. I suppose I was so anxious that my mind kept turning things over night and day.
The only other bit of preparation I did was to get bio sculptures on my nails. After all, I didn’t want a repeat of that terrible moment when I met Whitney Houston and realized my nail varnish was all chipped! Bio sculptures are layers of really thick nail varnish and they last for weeks, so I could be sure that they’d stay on until I made it out of the jungle.
I had to be really, really secretive about the fact that I was appearing on I’m a Celebrity. It’s even worse than The X Factor, because there’s more publicity surrounding who goes into the jungle than who’s made it onto the X Factor finals. When I came back from Egypt, I had to do my initial interview in total secret at home. That was the one where I said, ‘Yes, I’m really excited about going to Australia, but I don’t know how I’ll get on.’
I made sure not to mention that I suffered from claustrophobia and was scared of caves. No way would I have said anything about that, because you could be sure then that I would have been put in a cave! I didn’t tell them about my lifelong fear of spiders, either, but then my mum blurted it out.
‘She’s petrified of spiders,’ she said.
‘Mum, you are an idiot!’ I yelled, slapping my head in frustration.
Next I had to do the famous jungle photo shoot, where the photos are given to the press once the contestants are announced. It’s all well and good doing a photo shoot, but this was really cheesy and embarrassing. I had to turn to the camera, smile and wink. Oh God, I so didn’t want to wink! ‘Don’t make me wink, please,’ I begged the photographer jokily. For one set-up I wore a black glittery top, then I changed into a couple of different dresses for another, and finally I was photographed wearing jungle gear.
The photo shoot was in London and there were paps outside, so we all had to be sneaked out undercover. It was like an MI5 operation. Someone must have seen me or got wind that I was there, though, because my name was leaked to the papers the next day. That then meant that at every gig I went to, people asked, ‘So are you going on I’m a Celebrity? What are you doing next?’
I wasn’t allowed to say anything, even though I wanted to be open about it and tell everyone, ‘No, sorry. I’m not going on it,’ I had to lie. ‘Wish I was. I’d love to, but I’m not.’
It was really hard. I kept worrying about what they would think when they found out the truth. ‘She’s a good liar, the cow!’ I was concerned that I could lose friends over it.
People were constantly asking about it, so in the end I had to slow down my work and lead a quiet life. I couldn’t go anywhere without a reporter coming after me, so I stayed at home for a bit, which suited me to a tee. Since I was going to be without Zach, Aaron and my family for the next four weeks, it was a good excuse to spend all my time with them now. I was actually glad that things went a bit mad so I could stay in. I spent the next couple of weeks really enjoying Zach and trying not to think too much about how hard it would be to be parted from him.
Finally the day came for me to fly to Australia. I had no idea who I was going to spend my time in the jungle with, because you don’t meet any of the other contestants until you go in. I’d read all the speculation in the papers, but the only one they got right was Linford Christie.
I flew to Australia with my buddy Kieran, the ITV exec who’d be looking after me. I love that man. We got on so well. We spent the whole twenty-four-hour flight watching films and being silly. It was my first ever business-class flight and we lay back in our reclining chairs and ordered as much food as we could eat.
When we got to the hotel in Brisbane, we weren’t allowed out because our identities were still a secret, so I was stuck in my room for a few days, doing nothing, getting over my jet lag. There were paps outside the hotel, so we weren’t allowed in the swimming pool or anything. We couldn’t even step outside.
I just stayed in my room and watched loads of films and ordered more and more food. I just ate and ate. I’m going to stock up before I go in there, I thought, so I stuffed myself with every sweet you can think of, every flavour M&M, crisps, chocolates, chips, fried breakfasts, spaghetti bolognese, pasta, pizza, salads, puddings and cakes. I wanted to eat everything I wouldn’t have access to in the jungle. My favourite food is curry, but apparently in Australia it’s not the best, so I didn’t risk that. I didn’t want to ruin my love of curry!
On the fourth day, Kieran woke me up and said, ‘Wear something nice. You’re going to meet everyone today.’ I got dressed and put on flat shoes. ‘No, wear the heels,’ he said.
‘Heels? I want to wear flats,’ I replied, surprised.
‘Go on, dress up,’ he urged.
Fine, I thought. If everyone else is going to be dressed up, I’d prefer to be in heels.
At eight o’clock that morning, we got into a massive posh car and drove to a really smart estate. It was a big new-build on a lake, with all these beautiful houses around the water. It was a stunning setting, but I couldn’t appreciate it as much as I would have liked to, because while everything was being organized and some of the other contestants were taken inside, I sat and waited in the back of the limousine for ages, getting more and more nervous.
After an hour, there was a tap on the car window, ‘Come on, quickly. They’re ready.’
Oh no, I thought, my heart pounding. Actually, I don’t want to go in there and meet everyone. I walked along a red carpet lined with paps and into a room where there were two men. ‘Hello,’ I said nervously. I recognized one of them immediately. ‘I know you’re off Coronation Street but I can’t remember your name,’ I told him.
‘Hello, I’m Nigel,’ he said.
‘Hiya, Nige,’ I said, smiling stupidly.
The other man was looking at the floor, looking really embarrassed. ‘Hello,’ he said. I realized immediately that he wasn’t being unfriendly o
r rude; he was just 100 per cent uncomfortable. It seemed like he didn’t want to be there at all. It was Shaun Ryder. I didn’t recognize him because he was famous before I was born. He made his music in the 1980s and I was born in 1989.
Soon everyone else started coming in: first Kayla Collins, the Playboy model, then Sheryl Gascoigne, Paul Gascoigne’s ex-wife. I was always seeing Sheryl at kids’ film premieres with her little boy and she’d always been really lovely to me when we’d met. ‘Oh, a friendly face,’ I said, with relief.
I saw TV presenter Gillian McKeith, who I recognized, but wasn’t sure why. Then I met rapper Aggro Santos, former Bond girl Britt Ekland and ex-MP Lembit Opik. I knew who Linford Christie was, of course – the Olympic gold medal-winning sprinter – I was really excited about meeting him.
We all started talking and there was loads of banter. We were having a good time straight away. I remember saying to Linford, ‘I want to race you one day,’ and I think they put that on the telly. Really embarrassing! ‘Yeah, I’ll give you a race.’
‘OK,’ he said. He was probably thinking, What an idiot.
Me and Linford clicked straight away. I thought he was wicked, such a lovely guy, a really genuine bloke. He was so funny as well. I called him Linny and he didn’t even care. ‘You know what, I like you,’ he said. I was so happy. ‘You’re nice. You’re funny,’ he went on.
He took the mick out of me a bit, but he was really nice. I thought, You’re brilliant. I love you.
When Ant and Dec were helicoptered in, alarm bells went off in everybody’s heads. Hang on, they’re not meant to come unless there’s a trial, we all thought. In past years, the contestants went to their camps on the first day and that was it.
‘Maybe they’re going to introduce us to the show and show us to our camps,’ we hoped.
Ant and Dec walked into the villa and immediately divided us up into girls and boys: girls on one side, boys on the other. ‘OK, the challenges start from today,’ they announced.
Stacey: My Story So Far Page 20