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BUSH TUCKER VILE
New I’m A Celebrity will have toughest Bushtucker Trials yet with shock new eating task & highest ever jungle challenge
Bosses hope the move will avoid a repeat of last year, when viewers were left unmoved
I’M A Celebrity’s campmates are in for the toughest trials yet as bosses crank up the volume across the board for the show’s big return.
A string of no-nonsense stars, including Jill Scott, Owen Warner and Matt Hancock, made last year’s challenges look easy, leaving viewers moaning that the once gory and gruelling trials had gone soft.
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Now ITV has upped the ante and promised a string of high-octane set pieces to challenge new recruits, including Nigel Farage, Josie Gibson and Fred Sirieix.
For starters, bosses say there will be the highest ever challenge.
It comes after The Sun told last week how the Walk The Plank trial had been souped-up with new slippery poles.
The eating trials have also been overhauled to make them as disgusting as possible.
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Executive producer Laura Woolf told The Sun: “The launch show is bigger and there are things we have never done before.”
A source added: “ITV has not come to play this year. The brief to teams was bigger, better, harder and more disgusting than ever. “Gone are the days of Helen Flanagan and Kim Woodburn shrieking through trials, and it’s been ages since our last ‘Get Me Out Of Here!’ when a celeb refuses to take part. They’ve all got tougher and more professional as nobody wants to be seen as a quitter.
“Bosses are determined to really push the line-up this year.” Celebs taking on Bushtucker trials will now have to eat far bigger portions to win stars and there is a new revolting food on the menu — Scandinavian pickled herring surstromming.
It has been dubbed the “smelliest food in the world”, with viral videos online showing people trying not to vomit after opening a tin of it.
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It is hoped these steps will avoid a repeat of last year, when viewers were left unmoved by the trials.
Footballer Jill Scott was a gutsy winner, but after she just let out one small scream as she fell from a car suspended in the air, one viewer wrote online: “Is it just me or do the trials not feel like trials this year?”
Another added: “Is it me or are the trials a lot easier.”
It’s a far cry from the jungle’s greatest hits of old.
In 2012, boxer David Haye was attacked by a bandicoot during one trial, with it savagely biting down on his arm after he had been lowered into a dark well.
A year later, reality star Joey Essex had a panic attack after being submerged in water with eels and crocodiles.
Then in 2015, Towie’s Ferne McCann had to eat a live water spider, whose moving legs emerged from her mouth while she chomped down.
The Chase star Anne Hegerty was one of the last celebs to utter the “Get Me Out” escape clause in 2018 after being covered in mealworms in her first Bushtucker trial.
And earlier this year, Carol Vorderman quit a water trial during the all-stars series in South Africa due to flashbacks over past traumas.
Other changes being brought in for the new camp will see Kiosk Kev now conduct his business from a battered ice cream van.
There is also a new gossip area down by the pool, with a bench erected on an area of decking, where bosses hope the celebs will spill their secrets.
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And as told by The Sun this week, ITV will also soon reveal a huge touring coach has been crashed into camp.
- I’m A Celebrity . . . Get Me Out Of Here! begins on Sunday night at 9pm on ITV1 and ITVX.
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