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Bushtucker Trials - November 2007 |
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Who ever said being a celebrity was easy? Mel Bezalel spoke to three I'm a Celebrity contestants who paid a disgusting, sometimes harrowing, price for fame - their bushtucker trials.
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Carol Thatcher (five trials)
What was your most frightening experience?
When I walked round [for her final trial] and thought, "Oh God, it's snakes". I wasn't mad about snakes and kept thinking any minute the enormous anaconda called Beefcake, which was metres long, would sink its rather large fangs into me - but I managed it… There was a lot of being asked how you feel, and I didn't feel a lot. I'm a doer, and that's what got me through.
Did you have a particular strategy for the trials?
You just have to go for it. There's normally 20 minutes between being told you've been voted to do a trial and being told the title of it. Then your imagination goes into overdrive. When it's explained what's going to happen to you, listen very carefully. Particularly with insects and creepy crawlies; when they say start, go immediately, don't hang around. It'll take the creatures time to realise you're there and by the time they've realised, you might have grabbed a couple of stars. It's good Australian advice - just bloody do it!
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Jan Leeming (six trials)
Were there any trials you hoped wouldn't come up?
I hoped that they wouldn't put me in any trials with snakes, which I loathe and fear.
What was your most frightening experience?
If I had to choose it would be a toss-up between the first - "Mineshaft Misery" - and the "Snake Pit". "Mineshaft Misery" was a combination of many horrors. One of the worst was the claustrophobia and fear of the unknown: having to push your hand and arm into you knew not what. So there was the combination of the darkness, the smell of the maggots all over me, the itching from the biting ants and the unknown.
I was almost hysterical at the thought of the "Snake Pit", but the voice in what I called the Confessional [the Telegraph Hut where contestants can speak to production crew] calmed me down to the point where I was able to face up to it. And although I wouldn't seek them out, and still don't like them, I'm no longer afraid of snakes.
Why did the public keep voting for you to undertake trials?
From what people have said to me since then, it was a combination of things. The older generation of women were proud of what I was doing and wanted to see how far I could, or would, go. I think others wanted to see how far they could push me till I cracked - but I didn't.
Was it worth it in the end?
I'd been invited before and turned it down. Now I'm delighted that I accepted the challenge. It was actually life-enhancing and showed me that I've got more courage than I ever thought possible. It's amazing what you can do when you have to.
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Scott Henshall (five trials)
What was your most frightening experience?
The "What Lies Beneath" trial [in which he and Phina Oruche had to swim underwater through murky, black water covered in glass with only a few airholes to find stars] was terrible. I couldn't overcome my fear. If you're claustrophobic and you're not used to swimming underwater, it's a tall order. Phina and I were both going to say we wouldn't do it and then we both went for it.
Why did the public keep voting for you to undertake trials?
They probably thought I was completely pathetic and wasn't getting any of the stars. But I did jump out of a plane! I didn't take it personally when I got trials, but I did take it personally when I was voted out second. Everyone in the camp thought it would be Lauren [Booth], but it was me. I just thought, "What have I done?" It's all fun, though.
Did you have a particular strategy or tactic for the trials?
My strategy was if I didn't want to do a trial, I wouldn't do it. I wasn't trying to gain anything. I'm better at endurance things, like when we had to catch the balloons - we got seven out of ten. I'm scared of bugs and things. Some people do trials because they think it will endear them to the public, but I'm not going to compromise my integrity to make myself look better.
What advice would you give this year's contestants?
You can never second-guess anything. Maybe don't make any bitchy comments if you don't want them to be taken out of context. You might mean them tongue-in-cheek, but no-one else knows that.
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