There’s probably been more column inches devoted to the apparent bullying in the I’m a Celeb camp this series than there has been coverage of Bushtucker Trials.
The whole saga of the apparent ill-treatment of Iain Lee by his campmates has dominated headlines and social media – with rumours abounding earlier in the week that Dennis Wise was under threat of REMOVAL from the camp because of his war of words with the radio host before he was actually voted off.
In fact, things got so bad that people were actually phoning Ofcom to complain about Dennis Wise, Amir Khan and Jamie Lomas’s behaviour.
It’s worse than school, right?
But now he is out of the camp, footie star Dennis has wasted no time in setting the record straight – that there was no bullying, it was all bantz, and he and Iain are actually besties.
Well, he didn’t quite say besties, but his account of camp life does suggest they were actually all pretty good pals – despite how the edited scenes appear to viewers.
Read More: Which I’m a Celeb ‘bully’ has donated a hefty part of their fee to charity?
Speaking to former Gogglebox and I’m a Celeb contestant Scarlett Moffatt on Extra Camp, the IAC spin-off show, Dennis was in good spirits and playing down any notion of trouble in the camp.
“The thing about it, it is a game for starters,” he said, offering up a timely reminder to us all that, despite our investment in it, it is indeed just a TV show.
“I think when Iain came back from strawberry gate he turned round and said ‘this will make really good TV’. Now that wasn’t played. As soon as he said that I thought ‘ok I get the game’,” he continued.
“That’s when it kind of clicks in that that’s the case and so therefore you just kind of go ‘OK’, but to me it wasn’t a game. Well it was a game but it was about getting the food and about getting the stars. You guys have all been there, you know how hungry…” he said (somewhat confusingly).
One thing Dennis wasn’t confused about though was his relationship with Iain – which he says was absolutely fine and just based on ‘banter’.
Any problems, he reckons, have been whipped up by social media.
“I don’t understand it Scarlett, it’s probably social media that has got a little bit carried away,” he said, before going on to prove how he and Iain were in fact so close they are practically brothers from another mother:
“I’ve given him tickets to a Chelsea game! I’m going on his show! I’m going to catch up with him in Gerrards Cross ‘cos his mum is in a care home!” he insisted.
Blimey.
Read more: Which camp-mate has revealed their dramatic weight loss after three weeks in the jungle?
In a separate interview, Dennis even claimed that things were so good between he and Iain that he had even hugged and kissed him in un-aired scenes, and that he was unfairly being made to look like a ‘bully’.
“Unfortunately in life you get goodies and the baddies, and I am a baddie. My relationship with Iain is fine,’ he told The Mirror.
“I am not a person who likes bullying. I am a person who says what I think and I am working from a competitive angle. Iain knows the situation and Iain is comfortable with it. Iain has spent time on his own when he needed to. You don’t hear everything or see everything.”
Fair enough.
We can’t wait to see how the great Gerrards Cross reunion pans out though…