ITV has issued a response to the claims Nigel Farage has been receiving fewer on-screen minutes in recent days.
After the channel reportedly paid £1.5million for Farage to head into the jungle, the first few days in camp featured the GB News star heavily – from a Brexit bust-up with Fred Siriex to an immigration row with Nella Rose.
But more recently, Farage hasn’t featured as much as some of his campmates and GB News reporter Ben Leo even claimed an unmissable chat about Donald Trump was left out of one of the shows.
“I have discovered a rather bombshell revelation which I am fairly certain is true,” Leo said from Down Under on Sunday. “If anyone has watched tonight’s show, they will be wondering why the only contribution from Nigel was him saying, ‘I love the Jungle, it’s beautiful’.
“Of course, he has been barred from some trials for medical reasons, he has a dodgy back. I’ve discovered that a couple of days ago, Nigel had a discussion about his ally and good friend Donald Trump.
“The campmates seemed very interested, but we have not seen that on television. Why have ITV not played that?” Leo asked.
Farage has been shown less and less on-screen
ITV/Shutterstock
The GB News star claimed it “played into reports” that show bosses are limiting Farage’s screen time to weaken his appeal to young viewers.
ITV has since responded to the claims and defended how each episode is edited.
A spokesperson told GB News: “We are a 60-75 minute Entertainment show and the content featured is a fair and accurate representation of life in camp.”
An ITV source went one step further to claim that the limiting of Farage’s airtime was complete “nonsense”.
A source told the Mirror: “This is nonsense. Even if he has mentioned Trump, we can’t feature every single camp conversation – there’s just not enough screen hours in the day.
“We’re an entertainment show, we can’t show everything, it’s that simple.”
Reports of limiting Farage’s airtime come as calls for a “boycott” of the series continue due to his inclusion in the line-up.
A number of famous faces including Kathy Burke and Jason Manford led calls for his head before he’d even stepped foot into the jungle earlier this month.
Nigel Farage has taken part in a handful of trials
ITV/SHUTTERSTOCK
Farage has made no secret of the fact he wants to experience as much airtime as possible and even grew irked that he wasn’t voted by the public to take on the trials as it gives celebs “25 percent more” time on-screen.
His frustration was evident in Sunday night’s episode when both he and Frankie Dettori felt they weren’t given the chance to put themselves forward for the Misery Motel task.
