DECLAN Donnelly ‘took a turn for the worse’ when a spider bite turned toxic during I’m A Celebrity filming.
Medics rushed to his aid as the star collapsed on the floor – while pal Ant McPartlin looked on to take pictures.
The Geordie duo have presented the reality show – which is filmed in the Australian outback – together for 18 years.
And in a chapter from their new autobiography Once Upon a Tyne: Our Story Celebrating 30 Years Together On Telly, Dec recalled the memorable incident.
“Course, it’s not just the celebs who have to endure trial when they’re in Australia, we have had our fair share of challenges to deal with,” said the 44-year-old.
“…my spider bite. It happened down at the trial clearing, appropriately enough.
“I woke up the next morning, at 2am, as normal and the spider bite had blown up.
“It looked like I had huge red warts on my finger and I was told I needed to get it looked at when I arrived on site.”
But when medics attempted to “pop it with a needle”, things went downhill very fast.
Describing the scene, Ant wrote: “When I came back 15 minutes later, the door to Dec’s and my office was shut.
“Someone said, ‘Dec’s taken a turn for the worse’ and, when the door opened, I saw three medics standing in a circle, looking down on the floor.
“One of them was holding an oxygen tank with the mask clamped around Dec’s mouth and nose, while another held his legs in the air.”
Dec admitted: “I’m not very good with the sight of blood and I nearly passed out”.
But once Ant was sure his friend was on the road to recovery he was quick to take photographic evidence.
He recalled: “The medics assured me that Dec would be fine, and the oxygen was just to bring him round.
“I was so relieved that I took several photos with my phone of him lying on the floor.”
Ant and Dec’s new book is full of shocking revelations, with it also being revealed that the long-term showbiz partners and best friends almost split up at the height of Ant’s addiction battle.
Dec wrote: “Since 1990 we’ve made every decision together for the sake of Ant and Dec. Every discussion we’ve ever had has been ‘what are we going to do? What’s best for us?’
“And now suddenly, we had to think about ourselves as individuals. ‘What do I want to do? What’s best for me?’. That felt like an alien mindset to adopt and it was very frightening.”
In April 2018, Ant, 44, was convicted of drink driving and went to rehab.
In January of the same year he also announced that he and wife Lisa Armstrong were splitting after ten years of marriage.
They’ve now divorced and Ant is in a relationship with his former personal assistant Anne-Marie Corbett.
When he hit rock bottom it forced him to cancel the Britain’s Got Talent live shows and I’m A Celebrity that year.
But it was while Ant and Dec were making ITV show Ant and Dec’s DNA Journey, which aired last year, that they patched things up.
