Trending Now: ‘I’m A Celebrity stripped me bare’ – Fans React

Twelve years on from her jungle stint, when she infamously
quit after just 72 hours, Gemma Collins is back. The former TOWIE star, who lasted longer than three days this time around, tells heat how much she missed her stepson Tristan, whose dad is her fiancé 
Rami Hawash.

‘My little stepson was the first person I called when I came out of the jungle, I’d missed him so much. Then I called Rami,’ she says. Gemma says she blocked out thoughts of Tristan, seven, so she could focus on surviving in the South African savannah alongside
her fellow latecomers Harry Redknapp, Craig Charles and Jimmy Bullard on the all-stars spin-off I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! South Africa.

‘In the beginning,
I literally shut it down in my mind – the only way 
I could stay strong was not letting my mind go there,’ she says.

‘But towards the end, those thoughts kept coming. I started thinking about what we would be doing after I picked him up from school. That’s when it started to break me.’

After suffering a backlash for her previous appearance on the show, Gemma, 45, says her
IAC comeback was ‘redemption’. She adds, ‘I’ve spent my whole life with this black cloud hanging over my head. It’s not The GC in there, it’s Gemma Collins as you’ve never seen her before. You’ll see me vulnerable, you’ll see me thinking I’m Lara Croft. I was stripped bare.’

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Gemma Collins, Ashley Roberts, Scarlett Moffatt, Beverley Callard and Sinitta ©Jeff Spicer/Getty Images

The other celebrities competing for the coveted legend title include Scarlett Moffatt, Sinitta, former Pussycat Doll Ashley Roberts, actor Adam Thomas, soap star Beverley Callard, comedian Seann Walsh, ex-
boxer David Haye and Olympian Mo Farah.

While she bonded with her campmates, Gemma admits it wasn’t all laughs and light moments.

‘It’s a lot tougher this time, so much tougher than before. Camp life grinds you down. It breaks you in ways you’ve never been broken before,’ she says.

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‘I left some trials broken to within [an inch] 
of my life. I can’t describe the pain I felt. It was so traumatising.’

But she adds, ‘It was one million percent the best decision I ever made. I had unfinished business but this was redemption. And I shut it down.’

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