What did you miss?
I’m A Celebrity’s Josie Gibson has spilled all the behind the scenes gossip from her row with Fred Sirieix as she revealed the moment they had a showdown that wasn’t aired on TV.
She was the last woman standing in the I’m A Celebrity jungle but narrowly missed out on the final, meaning it was an all-male showdown on Sunday where Sam Thompson was crowned the King of the Jungle.
Of course the beloved presenter gave her first TV interview to her colleagues on This Morning on Monday following the final and she opened up about how she settled her cooking rows with First Dates star Sirieix in the jungle.
What, how and why?
It was no secret that Gibson and Sirieix had clashed over the cooking on a number of occasions. Sirieix was upset when he was made the pot washer and Gibson was promoted to head chef. The Million Pound Menu star lamented her cooking was the stuff of “kitchen nightmares” and compared it on several occasions to a horror movie.
In scenes that weren’t aired, the This Morning presenter said she won after they had a showdown in the jungle camp. From Australia, Gibson told Christine Lampard and Dermot O’Leary: “Me and Fred get on… After we had our ding dong, we have a showdown. Sam called it, 1, 2, 3, 4, draw. I won the draw.”
Revealing how they responded to the result, she said: “I laughed. We hugged it out. We really get on. He’s a trained chef, he didn’t think I knew what I was doing. I thought my food was amazing.”
Despite their beef, Gibson revealed she had struck up a bond with Sirieix and she said the row had been exaggerated. She said: “We’ve had some really deep meaningful conversations. We had a ding dong in the kitchen. It was a bit blown out of proportion.”
Viewers first got wind of the secret showdown when Gibson sat down with Ant McPartlin and Dec Donnelly to talk about her jungle experience. Opening up about the jungle row, she said: “I was trying to cook and Fred was criticising everything I do. I think I put him straight at the end. In the end, I just had to settle it with a showdown. We had a showdown in the end and I won.”
Sirieix said his mum scolded him for his “unacceptable behaviour” towards Gibson shortly after leaving the jungle. In his first TV interview, he said: “This morning I spoke to my mum because she knew I was out and she spoke to me ‘Fredrick’ – she calls me that when she’s upset – ‘Frederick what did you do with Josie? Why are you telling her what to do? What was going through your mind?’ I got a telling off from my mum.”
What else happened on This Morning?
TV hosts Lampard and O’Leary opened the interview by congratulating Gibson on how far she had got in the I’m A Celebrity jungle. She responded: “Aww! Thank you very much. Thank you Christine and thank you Dermot. I’m so proud of myself. I got even further than I thought I would. I went in with a lot of phobias, my spider phobia is through the roof, I can’t believe I made it to the jungle.”
Without any watches or any real concept of time, Gibson revealed it felt like she was in the jungle for an extended period of time. She said: “Dermot it has actually felt like I’ve been there for six months, for eternity. A day is three days into one.” And when people left, she said: “By the end of the day you feel like they’ve left for a week. It’s the strangest feeling in the world.”
On leaving the jungle, of course she has had an emotional reunion with her five-year-old son Reggie. “Do you know what I’ve not eaten a hamburger yet but I’ve hugged Reggie,” she said. Her son stayed with her best friend of 20 years, Mia, and her son.
The This Morning presenter joked her friend had taken on a “trial” of her own as she had to fly to Australia with two young boys. “We’ve been friends for 20 years,” she said. “They’ve been like brothers. Reg has been living like a rockstar while ive been in the jungle frightened to death.”
Seeing Mia in the jungle at that late stage gave her the final boost she needed too. “I felt like me again, I felt like I could do it,” she said. “I had a real big wobble the last two days. I was pining for Reg. I was really sad, i wasn’t myself. I was ready to go get them again.”
