Freddie Flintoff has spoken about how he bent rules during his 2015 appearance on the Australian series of I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! which he went on to win
Freddie Flintoff admitted to bending the rules to secure victory on I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!
The England cricket icon participated in the first Australian season of the show in 2015 and emerged as King of the Jungle. Yet, his success came with a dose of deceit.
The series was filmed in South Africa’s Kruger Park – not the Australian jungle featured in the UK version – and Flintoff secretly took cigarette breaks, even though he does not smoke.
He also refilled his water container without permission and manipulated a Bushtucker trial by lying about his fears, making it simpler. “I said ‘I’m a smoker,’ which I’m not by any stretch,” the 47-year-old said on BBC Radio 5 Live in 2018.
“In Australia, I knew it’s illegal to smoke on Aussie TV. They don’t let you smoke on Aussie TV… They asked me how many I wanted a day so I said five knowing I’d have to do it off screen.
“I’d walk out the gate and there’d be a chair with a cigarette that I didn’t have. I just sat and had some peace to myself, not filmed and in nobody’s hearing.”
Typically, campmates must fetch water from a stream and boil it before drinking. Flintoff avoided this effort by sneaking into a nearby medical hut to fill his bottle during his fake smoking breaks, claiming he did it five times each day.
“I also then noticed that there’s a medical 50 yards away,” he said. “In the medical was, a water tub. No water fountain. So I picked all the putty out the window and took it out. And then filled my bottle five times a day.
“I was more hydrated than I’d ever been in my life. [My wee] was crystal clear. After a few days, I was thinking, ‘They must think I’m a camel.’ Nobody’s seen me drink.”
Flintoff had been playing the system from the outset, lying about his fears when completing the pre-show forms. “You fill a form in about what you don’t like,” he explained.
“It’s out there that I don’t like the dark, so I thought I’d be truthful about that. [But] another one I put was frogs because I don’t mind frogs. I did this challenge and they dumped a load of frogs on my head.”
Despite the cheating, Flintoff won the audience’s hearts with his humour and personality, narrowly beating Aussie Rules player Barry Hall. He secured $100,000 (£50,000) for the McGrath Foundation.
Other English stars who have appeared on the Australian series include Joey Essex, Stephen K. Amos, and Paul Burrell, while cricket legend Shane Warne is another notable former participant.
