Food critic Grace Dent has quit I’m a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! after a week in the Australian jungle, ITV has confirmed in a statement.
“Unfortunately Grace Dent has left the show on medical grounds. She has been a great campmate and will be missed by her fellow celebrities and viewers alike,” the a spokesperson for the show told The Independent on Monday (27 November).
The former Masterchef UK star, 50, expressed her desire to quit the show during Sunday night’s episode, telling the camera: “I just want to go home”.
The Independent has contacted Dent’s representatives for comment.
Ahead of landing in Australia for this season’s edition of I’m a Celeb, Dent revealed she “said yes” to signing up for the show after having undergone “a really difficult time over the last four or five years”.
She told ITV: “My dad had dementia, I cared for him and I lost him. Mum had cancer and I lost her. I think that this has made me very strong and resilient. This is going to be a big challenge and now I am older, life is for living and it’s one of the reasons why I said yes.”
Viewers picked Dent and fellow campmate Nella Rose to take part in Friday’s Touchdown of Terror trial, alongside partners Nigel Farage and Sam Thompson respectively.
Their task was to try and release American footballs while wearing a helmet of critters, with Dent and Farage ultimately earning their team a nice dinner after Rose and Thompson pulled the emergency cord.
However, Dent, who has previously written for The Guardian and Evening Standard, was later seen receiving medical attention after one of the insects lodged itself in her ear.
“That’s not nice, I can hear it,” she said, as a medical professional was sent to flush it out.
Dent was seen being comforted by her fellow campmates during her final moments on the show, after she was chosen to participate in the Down The Tubes trial. She appeared subdued and shaken as hosts Ant and Dec read out her name, before Rose and Jamie Lynn Spears reached out to comfort the broadcaster.
Dent has previously criticised the ITV series, calling it a “puerile venture into starvation, televised constipation and animal cruelty” in a 2012 article for The Independent.
After her participation was officially confirmed, ahead of the season premiere on 19 November, Dent told ITV she was “filled with a real sense of dread” at the prospect of being dropped into the Australian jungle.
“Everything is filling me with a real sense of dread,” she said. “But I am especially dreading being really hungry because I tend to eat four or five posh meals out a week because I am a restaurant critic.
“I know they are going to give me an eating trial and I am dreading putting even worse things in my mouth than I have in the past in fancy restaurants! I think I will be writing very stiff columns about the jungle food when I come out!”
Dent, who is reportedly returning to London via Brisbane, added that she hopes her stint on I’m a Celeb doesn’t change her life outside the show.
“I don’t want my life to be different when I finish this programme,” she continued. :I don’t want to change anything at all but this is such a great challenge. It’s going to be fun.”
I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! airs Sunday to Friday at 9pm and Saturday at 9.30pm on ITV.
