Dean Gaffney has revealed he feels lucky to be alive after medical checks for I’m A Celebrity flagged up warning signs for bowel cancer and he was rushed in for emergency surgery.
The former EastEnders star, whose eating trial with Joe Swash had hosts Ant and Dec in tears of laughter, was eliminated from the all-stars contest in South Africa on Wednesday ahead of Friday’s final.
But he counts himself fortunate to be here at all after what doctors discovered in tests in 2020, while examining him ahead of a possible appearance in ITV’s Covid-safe series of the show at Gwrych Castle in North Wales.
In an exclusive interview, Dean said: “There is no doubt I’m A Celeb and its medical team saved my life. I might not be here today if it wasn’t for them finding what they did.”
The 45-year-old was shocked when doctors found a number of polyps in his large intestine and said he needed an immediate op.
He said: “Within hours I was in a hospital gown and under general anaesthetic and they took it out.”
When he came round, the doctor told him: “Had you not come to us today, in three years that could have turned to bowel cancer. You’ve been very lucky.”
Dean said: “I still remember his exact words. I feel so, so lucky. It’s made me so careful about checking my stools.”
He is now urging anyone worried about signs of cancer to get checked. And he hopes he can raise awareness of the disease like Bowelbabe fundraiser Dame Deborah James, who died aged 40 in June last year.
Dean said: “Dame Deborah was an inspiration to so many. I’ve so much respect for her fight and the awareness she raised for bowel cancer.
“If I can do a small fraction of that for men, it’d make me very happy.”
Dean played Robbie Jackson in EastEnders in various stints from 1993 to 2019, often with pet dog Wellard at his side.
He and former Coronation Street star Helen Flanagan were evicted from I’m A Celeb together. But it was the show’s eventual winner Myleene Klass, 45, who Dean secretly confided in about his cancer scare.
They had been campmates in 2006’s I’m A Celeb, in which Myleene was the runner-up and Dean finished fifth.
Dean said the former Hear’Say singer had been “very understanding” about his health worry.
But while he entertained viewers with his antics in South Africa, Dean – who is father to daughters Charlotte and Chloe and grandfather to Chloe’s two girls – was hiding the ordeal he reveals today.
In 2020, he was one of 12 stars on standby to take the place of any campmate in Gwrych Castle, near Abergele, Conwy, who caught Covid. Dean said: “I’m A Celebrity staff told me in September I’d got the job and I was called to a medical in October. I thought nothing of it and did the routine blood tests. When it came back, it showed I was losing blood.
“They thought it might be anaemia or an iron deficiency. I thought they were being a bit over the top.
“I was losing blood somewhere, I just felt maybe it’s low iron or something because I don’t take vitamins. While they waited for further tests, they put a camera down my throat. It’s like a pill with a camera attached, so when you swallow the pill you have a belt around your belly that can create something like 24,000 images a second. So it creates a film while this pill is going through your intestines. They then gave me a colonoscopy.
“Later that day the results showed they had found polyps which were massive. One was huge. I think 20mm, which is big for a polyp.
“They didn’t mess about, they put me under general anaesthetic, operated and burned the polyps away. When I came round, I could see the doctors were slightly angry with me and it was serious.
“They didn’t mince their words and said how lucky I was it had been found now. I was stunned.
“The doctors were asking why didn’t I notice blood in my stool. I’m sorry but I’m not Gillian McKeith, I just flush the toilet, I don’t make a habit of looking at my stools. Any time I’ve ever seen a bit of red I just think, maybe I’ve had peri-peri sauce. I’m not tired and run-down, because I’ve been quite lucky. I don’t smoke, I rarely drink. I haven’t been to a doctor in years.
“Apart from tonsillitis four times a year, I never get ill. It just shows you that anyone can get it.”
The scare has changed Dean, who said: “I’m so grateful to the people on the show for bringing it to my attention. I check my stools all the time now. I’d urge others to do it, too.
“I feel there’s someone looking over me because when I have low points something comes good for me. It’s like a roller-coaster. I get to the bottom, and think, ‘Oh my God, I’m going to crash’ – and then somehow I get back up again.
“It’s similar to EastEnders. I lost my job and then, bang! Jobs come in.
“I’m very blessed because there’s someone looking over me saying, ‘Don’t worry’. Sometimes I do feel like a cat and my nine lives are running out. I’m lucky to be here.
“Death does scare me. I’m not one of these people who think you go to a lovely place and it’s fine.”
Dean said his memories of his 2006 jungle experience are a little hazy but he loved being back in the camp. And the doting grandad joked: “I didn’t like the trials. I gag at the sight of a dirty nappy.”
Dean said doing the show in South Africa with fellow ex-EastEnder and good friend Joe, 41, had been “wonderful”. He added: “He is one of my favourite people. Myleene and Carol [Vorderman] are lovely, too. Phil Tufnell is a joker, I love him dearly. To be honest, we all got on.
“Janice Dickinson is a bit spiky but funny with it. She doesn’t mean harm, she just has that American thing – we’re British so we don’t know. There was no bad blood between me and her or her husband after I left the show, as has been suggested.”
For Dean, the hardest thing was his eating trial with Joe – which included drinks of fermented eggs and eating kangaroo penis.
He said: “Ant and Dec said my trial was the funniest thing they’d ever seen. They usually take 20 minutes and ours took about three hours. Ant and Dec were crying, the producers were crying with laughter. When we got in one of the cars to go back to camp, a producer said, ‘We could do two shows out of that trial’.”
Now that his adventure in the camp is over, Dean will be throwing himself into family life. And he reveals he is enjoying being unattached at the moment, saying: “It’s the first time I’ve been single and I’m enjoying it. But I’m keeping my options open.
“I have a good life, a wonderful family, and I feel so lucky that I’m not battling cancer thanks to the I’m A Celebrity medical team
