RIP I’m A Celeb (2002-2023): It was fun while it lasted, but let’s call it a day now

I think it’s time that in this fine year of 2023, we called time on I’m A Celeb. I was a huge fan of the show back in the day, but now it’s just tired and well, boring.

This series has been dreary and dragging, so much so two of the campmates themselves packed it in and went home. Grace Dent and Jamie Lynn Spears had enough of the jungle, took their six-figure fees from ITV and went home, and now I’m starting to think ITV might have to pay me six-figures to carrying on watching.

I’m saying it and I mean it: I’m [not] a celebrity, please lord get me the hell out of here.

I’m A Celeb is just a bit boring now and the concept is tired

The concept of I’m A Celeb is pretty simple: A bunch of celebrities who have nothing else going on in their calendars get dumped in an Australian jungle and have to complete trials to earn their food. It’s been the same since the show started in 2002, with little adaptations to it’s overall premise.

But, 21 years on and I’m sad to say the show no longer gives us any shock, or real entertainment, value. I’m sick to death of Ant and Dec’s one-liners, and every night I feel as though I’ve seen the trials a million times before. There are only so many times I can cry over the celebs being sent letters from home, feel for them when they’re denied luxury items, and get a little excited when they name someone leader of the camp. It’s a broken record now.

The show lives off big personalities carrying the camp – and this year all we have left is Sam Thompson. Our perfect golden retriever cast member, but even for him carrying the show on his back is too much to ask.

We don’t want politicians we hate to be paid well over the odds to be in the jungle

Who told ITV we wanted Matt Hancock and Nigel Farage in the jungle? The two controversial politicians are among the highest paid I’m A Celeb stars of all time, so ITV clearly backed them both to bring in viewers. But really, they both just made their respective jungle seasons all the more sad.

Matt Hancock was in the jungle off the back of being health secretary during the pandemic, and in there was faced with campmates who hadn’t been able to attend funerals of loved ones they’d lost. Charlene White chatted to him about this, and it was difficult to watch her heartbreak. And at the end of all this? Hancock got a pay cheque of £400k.

Matt Hancock didn’t win the show, nor did he really give any juicy parliament gossip, so maybe ITV should have seen this, ticked it off the list as something it tried, and moved on.

Oh no! Enter former UKIP and Brexit Party leader, Nigel Farage! Just what we need! ITV thought sod it, and has reportedly chucked £1.5million at Farage to be in the jungle, the highest anyone has ever been paid for the show – what great messaging!

All the wrong people get backlash in the jungle

If you’d told me that weeks into I’m A Celeb 2023 the UK would have turned on Nella Rose and Fred Sirieix but would be almost celebrating Nigel Farage I’d have wanted a one-way ticket out the country. But alas, that’s what has happened.

Nella was piled on after she said she was offended by Fred’s comments about her dad, and think what you like, but it’s nobody’s place to say what she can and can’t be offended by. Plus, now everyone has turned on Fred for how he is coming across. Meanwhile, we’re laughing at Nigel Farage getting naked and singing? Pull the other one.

A situation where celebs are being starved and forced to live among strangers is no place to judge them. If I was being made to eat beans every day and sleep on the floor of a jungle I’d probably be a bit of a knob, too.

We just don’t get any iconic moments anymore

I’m A Celeb simply doesn’t provide like it used to. Give me Paul Burrell screaming as he shoves his arm into anonymous holes in a wall, Helen Flanagan crying over trials, Nadine Coyle teaching the camp how to do the Girls Aloud Promise dance, or Gillian McKeith fainting. Think we’re getting these moments again? Spoiler: We’re not.

Sorry, the show has run its course and I’m wishing it a not so fond farewell.

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