Olivia Attwood has given her first TV interview after being forced to quit I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here just 24 hours after the new series began.
Attwood, 31, made show history after becoming the first former Love Island star to take part in I’m a Celeb, which returned to the Australian jungle for the first time in two years following the Covid-19 pandemic.
Her time in the celebrity camp was sadly cut short however on medical grounds which were not disclosed by show bosses.
Appearing on ITV’s This Morning, Attwood opened up to hosts Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield about what really went down during her short-lived stint.
“There’s loads [of rumours] swirling around the internet and I think ‘Olivia Attwood pregnant’ was trending on Twitter — and it’s not that, I can assure you — and it’s not that exciting when it boils down to it,” she explained.
“I was pulled out on my first day in main camp for routine medical checks — which can be blood pressure, giving blood — so I had my blood taken and the results came back that my iron was low, I was showing that I was anaemic.
“Potassium was really low, sodium was really low, so basically all the markers you would look for were low, so they consulted with a doctor outside of camp and they said I would need to come to A&E basically off the back of those readings. So I was taken to the nearest A&E department, admitted in there where they ran their own checks and their checks came back normal, so…”
She added: “Just before leaving the UK I’d had all those checks and everything was normal and the first thing I said to the camp doctor was ‘is that possible for things to change in such a short time?’ and he didn’t really have an answer, but that it was not normal and why we need to see what’s going on.”
Willoughby said: “Well you do have to be safe in those situations. If you see results like that and you don’t do something and God forbid something happened, so wouldn’t want it to be that way round either, but during the journey to hospital you must’ve been panicking that something was really wrong?”
Attwoood reponded: “Yeah, [the journey] was quite long because everything’s so far away in Australia and I was thinking ‘oh am I pregnant?’ or ‘have I picked up a virus?’ and wondering how things have changed so much, and also I felt well. I didn’t feel ill. I saw things online saying, ‘I bet she fainted’ but there was nothing…
“I was loving it [in the jungle] as you can see, I was really in my element and I felt healthy so I was even more confused. It was all really strange.”
On realising that she couldn’t return to camp afterwards, Attwood said: “I was like ‘shall we go back?’ and I knew there would be Covid tests and things like that but there was a pause in proceedings there, and it was late at night and taking me back into camp doesn’t work logistically.
“So I went to a hotel and basically, as I now know, the conversations went on all through the night with production obviously desperate to have me back in, but the medical team… I think it’s an insurance thing. Because they had those readings, they had to seek other party opinions and it’s a collective decision.
“I think they thought the readings might drop that low again and they wouldn’t be covered because it’s already been flagged up.”
Willoughby replied: “You can understand it but it is so frustrating, especially for someone like you who’s grown up watching this show and is a big fan of the show and to be teased by being there and around the fire…”
Attwood agreed: “I’ve been a big fan of the show all my life, and those conversations about joining the jungle happened when I left Love Island the first year, so it’s been like five years in the making… and it was the first time they’ve put someone from the show on there”
When asked by Schofield if she felt she’d had something to prove by going into the jungle, Attwood said: “Massively. I think when you come off reality shows you get a huge opportunity, and I’ve done amazing things, but also I think you can be put in a box and I was looking forward to showing a different side to myself.
“I am not a quitter, I am not scared of much, and I was just loving it. I was looking forward to having that exposure to a new audience.”
When asked how she might have been with former health secretary Matt Hancock, she said: “I think it’s a difficult one. When you’re living in those environments you have to take things carefully. But I probably would’ve done it with humour and given him a bit of stick that he deserves.”
Of potentially doing I’m a Celebrity another year, Attwood said: “It might be more of a logistical thing to make it work. I would love to, because yeah, it was cut short. [Tests are still normal] thank God, I’m grateful that I’m healthy, but it makes it harder to accept. But it is what it is, there are worse things happening in the world.”
Drawn on who she thinks might be crowned King or Queen of the Jungle this series, Attwood said she was backing either Jill Scott or Charlene White.
“I think Jill has a good chance and Charlene. I have FOMO watching!” she added.
