TV

I’m a Celeb star reveals they’ve turned to therapy to recover from show

Contestant claims show is full of mind games

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The I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here! experience can be a lot to cope with – and one contestant has revealed he’s turned to therapy to deal with the emotional fallout.

Broadcaster Iain Lee admitted to needing help after his stint in the jungle, claiming therapy was helping him work through the experience.

Read more: I’m A Celebrity star hits back at “cruel and unkind” messages about her skin

Iain claimed that a combination of the bullying he was subjected to on the show, and the inherent psychological pressures of the competition left him emotionally exhausted and in need of support.

Iain opened up about the aftermath of the show to  Susanna Reid and Piers Morgan in an appearance on Good Morning Britain.

“Everything becomes so important in there,” he said, “who’s drying their pants – everything is this massive thing. And yeah, you come out and you get a bit of space between you and the show, and you go ‘oh, it doesn’t matter, it was a silly show.'”

Piers asked the comedian if he felt better or worse for his experience on the reality show, and Iain claimed he had found his time in the jungle traumatic.

“I feel – and I’m going to use a word that is difficult to explain here – I feel traumatised,” he said. “There was an element of trauma in it.”

Susanna asked him to clarify what he meant by trauma, and Iain said that he felt beaten down.

“It’s so hard to put into words,” he said. “But I know that me and a few other people have come out and have felt battered by it.

“You know, it was a silly TV show, it was a reality show, and it’s not important in the great scheme of things, but I feel a bit dirty coming out of it.”

Susanna pressed him further, asking if it was because of the way he was treated by the other contestants – after fellow contestants  Jamie Lomas, Dennis Wise, Rebekah Vardy and Amir Khan were accused of bullying him.

But Iain claimed that was only part of the problem.

“Because of the treatment I suffered, but more – it’s such a surreal experience, there’s mind games going on the whole time. When you go from the camp to a trial you have blankets over your head and you drive in black out vehicles.”

Read more: Toe-curling moment on GMB as Iain Lee confronts Amir Khan over I’m A Celeb “back-stabbing”

He admitted that he had found value in his experience but stressed that he was seeking help to deal with it.

“Over all I’m glad I did it. I just need to go and sit in a room with a guy for a few weeks.”


Nancy Brown
Associate Editor