Emmerdale star Danny Miller has shared the struggle he faced after being crowned the King of the Castle on last year's I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! The actor, who recently made a brief return to the ITV soap as Aaron Dingle, appeared on Good Morning Britain on Friday (November 4).
He was on the the ITV news programme to chat to Kate Garraway and Ben Shephard about his upcoming role in panto. But with days to go until the new series of I'm A Celeb, the hosts wasted no time in asking him about his own experience on the ITV reality show during the second of its two series in the UK as well as get his thoughts on the new batch of campmates.
During last year's series, which was filmed at Gwrych Castle in North Wales due to travel restrictions imposed by the coronavirus pandemic, Danny bet Coronation Street star Simon Gregson and Loose Women panelist Frankie Bridge to being crowned the winner.
But despite emerging victorious, and being reunited with his then fiance and their then six-week-old son, there was one thing that Danny 'hated'. The 31-year-old said: "It took me a few months to be able to go and say 'I wish I could've done it again' because I hated the feeling after it of kind of being completely isolated to being like 'here's a load of responsibilities' and 'here's your phone back'.
"I really struggled with it because it was hard...you didn't have to worry about anything, because you didn't have any phones, you had no stresses, no worries, no anxieties and suddenly you got out and someone goes 'oh, well done for winning, here's your phone back'."
Even now, Danny has unanswered and unread text messages after he found the post-I’m A Celebrity experience an ‘overwhelming’ one to deal with. "There are still messages I haven’t read, but it was just so – all my mates texting, that I haven’t spoken to for years," he shared. "It was quite overwhelming. It took me quite a while to want to go back in again."
However, Danny did reveal he still has long-standing friendships from the show, including with former footballer David Ginola after the pair won over I'm A Celeb viewers with their bromance. "He texted me yesterday, saying 'how are you doing, crumpet'," Danny revealed to Kate and Ben.
"He didn't know what a crumpet was, so I introduced him to Marmite, butter and a crumpet - if you never had it, you need to have it." Ben then replied: "When David Ginola has a pet name for you, you know you've made it," to which Danny smiled and said: "Well, we shared a bed for a long time."
And speaking of the line-up, Danny said that Matt Hancock should expect the public to use him as a "toy" before voting him off the show. The former health secretary has had the Tory whip suspended and come under fire after it was revealed he had signed up to the show and would be a latecomer to this year's camp.
Reigning champ Danny predicted viewers will vote for Matt, 44, to take part in all the show’s gruelling eating challenges. He said: "I think he needs to just accept the fact that he is going to be everyone’s toy. Last year, unfortunately Naughty Boy got it because he did the first one (challenge) and he was very entertaining and everyone then went, ‘Naughty Boy, Naughty Boy, Naughty Boy!’.
"This year I think regardless of how entertaining he is, he needs to accept that what he has put us through, I think the public are going to say, ‘This is what we are going to put you through’. And when they are done with him they will just get rid of him, I think." And Danny wasted no time in picking who he thinks will fair well in the jungle. "I’d like to think Sue Cleaver, Boy George, Jill Scott – they’re my pick for the final three," he told Kate and Ben.
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