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Frankie Dettori insists he still feels like a winner, despite leaving the I'm A Celebrity jungle in the first eviction vote off.
The 52-year-old jockey was surprised to be first past the post when it came to leaving, aside from Grace Dent and Jamie Lynn Spears who quit the camp on medical grounds. In his first in-depth interview since leaving camp, Frankie blamed the show’s editing for his early exit, but insisted he had no regrets.
Referring to entering the show on Day 5 as a latecomer, he said: “Everybody had already bonded for four days. So I’m, you know, the new kid who arrived in a new school afterwards.
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“It took a while to break the ice and be accepted to get to know everyone, I’m not going to lie about it. I have to go round one by one and really, you know, apart from Nigel, I never met anyone. So that was a slow process.
“And you don’t see what is edited on TV. And speaking to my wife, she said, you know, I had very little airtime and I thought I had done a lot. It all depends how it is edited to the programme. But you know what? To me I have come out of there as a winner. I challenged myself. I passed every challenge.
“And, I like to say it could have been two weeks or three weeks, it wouldn’t have made no difference. I just felt like I did everything I wanted to achieve and I’m very proud of what I did.
“Going to the jungle it’s not a race when you are actually in control. It’s the public in control. It’s the media, it’s the social media. I mean, I feel like a winner because every challenge I took, I did it and I took it head on I never ducked out to anything.”
The charismatic jockey was supposed to retire last month and signed up for I’m A Celebrity at the end of Britain’s flat season, only to then agree a deal to keep riding and move to America in 2024. And one added bonus of his jungle adventure is he has lost some weight which will be useful when he gets back in the saddle to begin racing again at the end of December.
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Even when given the chance to pig out at the JW Marriott hotel in Surfers Paradise, he chose a caesar salad for his first meal with wife Catherine. “Rice and beans was boring and plain but it is fuel,” he said of the diet on the show. Actually your body craves fuel because of the humidity.
“The terrain of the jungle, wow, I mean I didn’t realise, I thought it was flat. From getting the wood through to Camp, is at least a 100 foot hike, probably even more. And when you do that, two or three times and it’s 90 percent humidity and you have a lack of calories. Yeah, when food is presented in front of you and it is fuel you eat it.
“You know, we are all starving hungry obviously. Yeah. everybody, you know, there were a lot of days when I felt drained. You know, mentally, I was always the same, but my body couldn’t keep up with my head.
“Especially as a person that has been dieting for 30 years, I found it challenging. I think I lost five pounds. But putting that in perspective when I’m half the size of Tony[Bellew]. Yeah, you know it will be 10 of his pounds.
“I am actually at the bottom of my racing weight. So it’s great. Perfect. The thing is now I think it’s not putting it back on! That’s the key. It was challenging, it was difficult but in the other way it was fun and unpredictable. It went in waves, you know, the moods. It was a good experience.”
Frankie knew Nigel Farage before going into camp and whilst he is divisive and at the centre of rows in camp, the jockey is full of praise for the politician. However, Farage may have fallen foul of some guidelines the celebs are given when it comes to showering naked, as viewers and Josie Gibson have witnessed.
“The shower is miles away from the camps so we don’t know what’s going on,” Frankie said when asked if he had also seen Farage frolicking with his naked bottom on show. I am not going to go and spy on Nigel’s butt. But really? We were told to keep our swimmers on.
I love Nigel, he is super funny, very interesting, very knowledgeable. He’s got an opinion about something. And he says it how it is.”
Asked to pick a winner, Frankie has no hesitation in putting forward the name of Sam Thompson even if at times he would have preferred the Made In Chelsea star to be quiet for a few moments.
“He reminds me of Rylan when I did Big Brother, he is full of life and he hasn’t got a bad bone in his body,” he said. "Sam is funny, he is entertaining. And you know, he brings a lot to the table. It’s an entertainment show and I think he is a natural entertainer. I think that’s who he is as a person.
“I mean, sometimes you want to put him on mute, you know what I mean? He’s just non stop. He’s like our phones, right? It’s fully charged and then the charge runs out. Boom, he goes to sleep, he gets up eight hours later and sings, dances and makes songs. There’s just no stopping him. In a nice way.
“He sees everything in a good light and brings happiness to everything. The camp would be very different without him and he will get to the final.”
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- ITV
- Nigel Farage
- I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here
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