I’M A Celebrity’s Russell Watson was secretly rushed to see medics after being “bitten alive” by bugs – but it wasn’t shown on camera.
The opera singer, 54, exclusively told HOAR he was in agony for SEVEN days with an insatiable urge to itch his burning skin after he was covered in bugs and rotten tomatoes in his first Bushtucker trial.
It wasn’t his only injury in the Stage Fright trial, as Russell chipped his tooth within minutes of making his castle debut.
In the wake of the scare, he said: “With the tooth, I was sticking my head in this bowl full of rotten tomatoes and I’m pulling these plastic things out with my teeth, and it was loaded with tomatoes and it took a chip out of my tooth. I actually felt it go and thought I’d lost the whole thing.
“But I’ll tell you this, those millions of beetles that they put down my pants, they bite.
“Nobody is aware of this, but they do bite. Not where I had my shoe, they didn’t bite there, but up to my knees they bit me to buggery and the medic had to come out and see me.
“Once my legs had healed, which they did after about six or seven days, I was using the logging machine and I banged by knee on that. I must be the most clumsy celebrity ever to be on the show.”
But the horrific spectacle wasn’t over for the classical singing legend – as days later he found remnants of rotting tomato stuck in an unlikely place.
He added: “The rotten tomatoes, they stank. I had a shower that day, and a shower a day later, but about three days later I was scratching my ear and I put my finger deep in me ear and I was like, ‘what’s that?’ and it was a bit of that dried rotten tomato.
“I pulled it out and Vernon (Kay) was sat next to me and he said ‘Oh sorry mate, I thought you had cut yourself!’”
Viewers later saw Russell being put through the ringer in the Rancid Rotisserie trial and he admitted he was nearly forced to pull out.
Russell said being strapped to a rack with lights shining brightly in his face reminded him of having an MRI scan back in 2006.
The classical singer battled a benign but aggressive brain tumour 14 years ago, and was also diagnosed with his second pituitary tumour the following year.
He explained: “The Rancid Rotisserie I nearly pulled out of.
“I’m petrified of MRI scans because I associate them with bad news. So I was lying on my back and there was a light shining on my face and I thought, ‘this feels like I’m about to go on the scanner’ and I started to feel panicky.
“There was a guy strapping me in, and I was like ‘oh my god’ I was so close to saying I can’t do this.
“Then all of a sudden I switched on and said to myself, ‘no, I can do it that’s what I’m here for, to face my demons, to prove to myself I can actually do this’.”
I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here on ITV continues tonight at 9pm.
Did you miss our previous article…
https://www.hellofaread.com/im-a-celebrity/aj-pritchards-girlfriend-abbie-reveals-stars-secret-signal-that-shows-hes-missing-home-on-im-a-celeb/
