Former Rangers hero Paul Gascoigne has vowed to tackle Chris Eubank – claiming the boxer mocked him on telly over his boozy past.
Gazza and ex-world champ Eubank both star in Scared Of The Dark, which sees eight celebrities thrown together for a week in a blacked-out bunker.
A clip shows Eubank pretending to drink from pints in each hand. Alcoholic Gazza, 55, is sure the gesture was aimed at him – and will challenge Eubank when the cast attend a get-together on Tuesday.
And in a no-holds-barred interview, Gazza says his fellow star is arrogant – and says he wound him up by calling him Eubanks, not Eubank.
Former Tottenham and England star Gazza said: “I will have a go at him at the premiere. He’s not getting away with that. That is, if he has the b***s to turn up.
“He probably will, because he’s that arrogant, things will just go over his head. But when that clip comes up, I will say something to him straight away.
“In the one I saw he was saying:,‘He’s full of that’ and miming necking pints with both hands.
“And I was the only alcoholic in there, so it was about me.
“He was nice to my face on the show, and was even calling me, ‘Paul Gascoigne, the King of England’ so it just shows you how two-faced people can be.”
Channel 4 show Scared Of The Dark is hosted by actor Danny Dyer.
It was reported last week that Eubank, 56, quit the show. Gazza said: “ He didn’t mix with anyone.It wasn’t just me, he rubbed everyone up the wrong way in there.
“I am a team player, and he is definitely not. He loved himself too much for that.”
The football icon, who joined the show in a bid to conquer his fears of the dark, said his heart sank when he realised he was banged up with Eubank.
But he denied any suggestions that they came close to exchanging blows.
He said with a grimace: “When I first got in there, I ended up sitting next to the worst person I could have thought of… Eubanks.
“I’ve met him before, and when I heard his lisp next to me in the dark,
I was like: ‘It’s him.’ I knew we wouldn’t be able to shut him up.
“He thinks he’s better than everyone else because of all these big, stupid words he uses. It’s like he was born with a dictionary up his a***.
“He did rub people up the wrong way.
“But apart from him everyone was nice in there. It was a good atmosphere, we all supported each other.”
Throughout our interview, Paul referred to Chris as “Eubanks”.
And when I asked if it’s deliberate, he grinned mischievously: “I wound him up in there by calling him ‘Eubanks.’
He’d shout at me: ‘It’s Eubank, there’s no S’ and I’d go, ‘All right, Eubanks.’ Another time he complained about swearing, and I just replied: ‘F***’ and walked off.
“At times, he wasn’t a bad guy, but he just loved himself too much.”
Former England star Gazza, has suffered a fear of the dark since he was a child.
His family urged him not to do the show and there was speculation that his previous struggles should have seen him excluded.
But Gazza – who underwent a mental health screening before he was accepted – insisted he was more than equal to the challenge.
He said: “I’ve been scared of the dark since I was a kid. I slept with the lights on. As an adult I slept with the TV on and the sound turned down. I think it’s a fear of the unknown.
“I think I did the show because I wanted to conquer it. But everyone in my family thought I was mad. My Mam said: ‘Don’t do it, Paul, you’re scared of the dark.’
“My sister Anna said, ‘Paul, you can’t do that, you’re s*** scared of the dark’ and my other sister said, ‘But you’re petrified’. In the end, I just told them I’d be all right. But I’ll tell you what, I wouldn’t do those first few hours again.
“I was waiting with Danny and I asked him: ‘We’ll be alright in there, won’t we?’
“He told me: ‘I will, I’m not going in. It’s horrible in there.’
“Then the lights went out. I nearly collapsed. I was sitting on the floor, crying, saying I wanted to quit. But after the first few hours, I started to get my bearings and I got to grips with it. After a few days I was taking the mickey out of the others and having a laugh. People think I’m not mentally strong enough to do something like this, but that’s a load of b******s.”
Eubank is not the only boxing star on the show – Olympian Nicola Adams is also in the bunker, as are comedian Chris McCausland and reality star Scarlett Moffatt.
Viewers will see Gazza using the dark to play pranks.
He laughed: “I’m going to be bang to rights at that premiere, they’re all going to see what I was up to in the dark. I hope they still talk to me after that.
“We were lucky that we had a good crowd. I cried when I came out at the end.”
Scared Of The Dark starts tonight at 9pm, Channel 4.
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