by Joel Creasey
Being a fan of the British version of the show, I assumed we’d be parachuting into the jungle, as that’s how they always do it. And as someone who has no desire to parachute ever, I was strangely zen about it. In fact, I just resigned myself to most things on the show, things I would never dream of doing. It’s amazing what you can get out of me with a pay cheque and a camera (strictly on prime-time I mean – not on onlydudes.com).
I could see other open-top vehicles arriving at the air field but they were just far enough away that I couldn’t make out who was in them. Plus the chaperones were holding enormous black umbrellas over our heads. I started to hear what could only be choppers landing behind me, and I turned to see people getting into the choppers one by one. Then it was time for me to get into my chopper. I said goodbye to my chaperone and off I went. I thought, Oh my god. This is it. This is truly it!
And man, was it spectacular. It was like ‘Circle of Life’ – I could literally hear Elton John singing. I was Simba and the chopper pilot was Rafiki (and like Rafiki – he knew the way).
Going up in that chopper, I still couldn’t quite believe that they thought that having me, Joel Creasey, on the very first series of I’m A Celebrity . . . Get Me Out Of Here! Australia was what they needed. This was a multi-multi-million-dollar production! Of course I was flattered and thrilled and excited, but oh, so nervous.
A cameraman was sitting in the chopper with me, so I was trying to control my nerves, very aware that this was probably the first Australia would see of us and would already be picking their favourites. As I said, I judge immediately; when watching a competition show I pick my favourite straight away and back them until they are eliminated pretty early on (I’m a terrible judge of character). So I knew I had to look good.
I also wanted to look funny. Not physically, of course. But I wanted to present myself as a great comedian. I wanted to look strong, too. Obviously it would have been amazing to win the money for my charity, but let’s cut the shit – I wasn’t going on the show to win, I was going on to raise my profile. I was there to prove that I am really funny. And most importantly . . . that you should definitely purchase tickets to the stand-up tour I was coincidentally launching off the back of the series.
All ten choppers started lining up in the air, and it was surreal. The launch episode is one of the few I’ve had the guts to watch and the helicopters flying over Africa looked beautiful. I caught a glimpse of a woman in a white dress waving to me (she turned out to be Miss Australia Laura Dundovic), but I couldn’t see anybody else.
After soaring over the beautiful savannahs of South Africa for a while, we began to land, one by one, on an air field that felt smaller than the last one. My chopper had to hover because there were actual lions by the drop zone. Another friendly reminder that this was not the Blue Mountains but fucking Africa.
As I exited my chopper, I was blindfolded. Not in the fun way. I wasn’t even allowed to see what was around me – all I knew was I would be meeting the other celebrities at a cocktail party. Either that or ASIO were getting more flamboyant.
Blindfolded, I was shepherded through a series of tents and given a final primp and preen by hair and make-up – I’m telling you, helicopters are not good for your deliberately casual quiff. Then a producer approached me and said, ‘Right. This is the last time you will be able to speak to anyone off camera. This is the last time you will be off air. Walk towards the gate. Good luck. You’re my favourite comedian, by the way.’ Clearly not from Colac.
It was the most surreal feeling. The real weight of what I was about to do suddenly started hitting me. Unlike in the chopper, where I couldn’t stop thinking how lucky I was, now I was terrified. A ‘what the fuck are you doing?’–type terror. This certainly wasn’t like stepping onto stage at a stand-up gig, where I’m one hundred per cent in control. But I had signed up for the show without hesitation when asked, so I trusted my gut. Like so many brief romances, I decided to just go, ‘Fuck it!’, and head in.
Through the gate I walked, into the garden of one of the most beautiful houses I had ever seen. The Grand Designs team would cream their pants over this place. Turns out it was called the Manor House, and was owned by a guy who was the unofficial local mayor, and it was also where the hosts Chris Brown and Julia Morris were staying. Standing on the grass to the left was an African choir of about forty beautiful women singing some sort of African chant, which I’m sure Beyoncé will be sampling on an upcoming album. Chrissie Swan later ended up christening these ladies the Human Doorbell, because they started singing every time a celebrity walked past.
At this point I was feeling, well, nothing actually. Once I’m in performance mode I know I have to shut everything else off and just perform. There was a red carpet with a waiter holding a cocktail. I grabbed the glass before realising it was a mocktail and immediately put it down, most likely with a look of disgust. Mocktails are the devil’s piss as far as I’m concerned. You’re not drinking alcohol? That’s fine. Have a Sprite.
I walked down the red carpet and onto the deck where an infinity pool looked out over the sprawling African jungle. It was spectacular. There were martini glasses of devil’s piss laid out everywhere, platters of exotic fruit (me included), vases of flowers, deck chairs . . . And standing there in front of me were two other celebrities. One was Marcia Brady. Yes, the Marcia Brady AKA Maureen McCormick from The Brady Bunch (who was already in tears for some reason) and my now best friend Chrissie Swan.
Chrissie screamed. We knew each other. Not well, but we’d always gotten on in the past. We said something like, ‘Can you believe we’re doing this?’ Chrissie then introduced me to the crying Marcia Brady. We had a brief conversation and two seconds later we heard the Human Doorbell starting to chant. And turned around to see Merv Hughes.
I introduced myself. Chrissie introduced Merv. Marcia Brady said something bizarre and then Leisel Jones entered, followed by Laura Dundovic, Tyson Mayr, Lauren Brant, Barry Hall (eye roll from me) and Andrew Daddo.
And that was it – that was the ten of us. We finished being introduced to each other, and the hosts Chris and Julia arrived, pointed towards the jungle and said, ‘Welcome to your new home.’ We were kitted out in our jungle gear, popped into another chopper and off we went. The game had begun. May the odds be EVER in your favour, was all I could think.
People always ask the same questions:
Was it dangerous? Yes, it fucking was. We had a huge safety briefing in the couple of hours between the cocktail party and being tossed into the jungle. Some local rangers walked us through what we’d need to do if we saw different types of snakes, spiders and animals. I am absolutely petrified of snakes. I’d actually planned on having some hypnotherapy before heading to Africa but missed the appointment due to a hangover. Standard. By day five in the jungle I started to wish I’d been too hungover to make my flight to South Africa at all.
At the safety briefing they also talked to us about the baboons. What I didn’t realise is that baboons are fucking arseholes. Total fucking arseholes. No one told me that. You don’t learn that in school. The ranger said, ‘Whatever you do, don’t look the baboons in the eyes.’ Sounds like some celebs I could name! ‘They’re extremely territorial and they’ll see that as a turf war challenge – particularly from women. So, ladies, do not look the baboons in the eyes because they’re actually quite sexist.’ Which made me wonder how many shaved-down baboons are currently on the Liberal Party’s front bench.
Within thirty seconds of the ranger telling us not to look the baboons in the eyes, Maureen McCormick had located a baboon and stared it down. I thought, Um . . . were you listening just then? As a result, Maureen single-handedly made our lives a living hell for the following six weeks, as these baboons sat in the trees all day long around our campsite, pelting shit at us (actual shit – not, like, random knick-knacks). All because, like so many before them, they were trying to kill Marcia Brady. That is a completely insane reality. Every time a lump of monkey shi
t would hit my shoulder, piffed from a branch above me, I would death stare Maureen, who just seemed blissfully unaware of what she’d done.
Were you actually in Africa? Yes, see answer to question one. Very fucking dangerous.
Did you masturbate? You can’t begin to realise how many times I’ve been asked this question. I guess I’d ask people too. Because you’re on camera 24/7 Big Brother style, it was impossible. Your only options would have been in front of the cameras with the entire control room watching, or in the long drop, which was far too disgusting and smelly to even imagine cranking one out in there. I don’t think any of the other celebrities did either. There was just nothing there to arouse you. Although strangely, my Harry Styles picture did go missing on occasion.
Something I’ve never admitted before, however, is having a wet dream one night. I felt like I was fourteen again. It was about Week Five of the show and it happened in my sleeping bag (thank God. I wonder if you can have a wet dream sleep-walking? That footage would have made The Daily Mail fo shiz). The next morning I had to sneak out of bed and race down to the river to fix myself up.
‘Just taking an early morning shower!’ I yelled at Marcia Brady as I raced past her.
But the first day was truly the weirdest day of my life. After the safety briefing we were flown over some mountain ranges and had to dive out of the chopper into a crocodile-infested river. Everybody starts work that way, yeah? Then we had to pull ourselves across the river on a raft. Determined not to be pegged early on as the ‘weak gay’, I made sure I was at the front of the raft and didn’t stop pulling. I had rope burns up my arm for the following six weeks; I looked like Jean Valjean in the opening scene of Les Misérables, and frankly didn’t hate it. Then we trekked for hours through the jungle until we finally made it to the campsite. We didn’t get in until very late that night, and of course everyone was vying to be Camp Leader, but more importantly, for ‘screen time’. Dinner had to be cooked over the campfire, and Andrew Daddo, Chrissie Swan and I sat back when all hell broke loose as the other seven celebrities tried to take the role of head chef. I swear I watched three celebrities cutting the same string bean. It was absolutely nuts.
I was fine and ‘on’ for the first few days but by about day three or day four I started to crack. That was about the time the comedown kicked in. The excitement was starting to wear off and the reality that this was where I was going be living for potentially the next six weeks was starting to sink in. We were outside. We couldn’t contact our friends and family. We were detoxing from sugar, coffee, wheat, dairy, social media – life in general. There was no clock so we had no idea what the time was. The few occasions we would see producers at Tucker Trials they would even have their watches covered with tape. We had no idea where in Africa we were, and once you’re in the camp, all the cameras are automated like in Big Brother so you don’t even see the camera crew. We only ever saw the other celebrities. You feel so vulnerable and so isolated. And that’s why the show makes such great TV.
One of the main features of camp life was the Tok Toki, which was like a diary room. It was a little hut on the edge of camp and inside was a two-way mirror, behind which was a camera. In front of it was a little speaker through which you could talk to the producers, who, it turns out, were about two kilometres away at the technical base (with a crew of almost 500 if you can believe). You couldn’t go into the Tok Toki and ask them to check your emails, or anything about the outside world, you could only really go in there and answer the producers’ questions – and they would then use our answers to chop up and narrate the show. Often they’d probe you on a certain matter or try to get an opinion out of you on any drama that may have happened in camp, but for the most part the producers were pretty fair. At no point did they change things or twist what happened in camp.
Chrissie and I loved the Tok Toki because we could go in there and have a laugh and show off and just have fun, without someone else shooting you a look for being too noisy. It meant a brief and often welcome reprieve from the other celebrities.
As well as the Tok Toki, there was a ‘Voice of God’ speaker in camp, which the producers used to talk to us. They didn’t use it often – it was mostly to direct us when to sit on the logs if Chris and Julia were coming into camp, or if there was an animal close by we shouldn’t be going near, or to call someone up to the Tok Toki – or to tell Maureen to stop tormenting the fucking baboons.
The first official ‘live’ day of the show, I was nominated for the first Tucker Trial. Tucker Trials were voted for by the Australian viewing public, so I figured whoever was voted in to do a Tucker Trial first up must have been the one the viewers liked the least. It was essentially who they wanted to punish the most. So . . . you know . . . hearing my name read out felt good! I was lumped with the Circle of Strife challenge, where I had to put my hand into five different holes (admittedly not much of a stretch for me), not knowing what was inside them. Turns out it was fun things like scorpions, rats, snakes . . .
I knew I couldn’t fuck up the first challenge and just got on and did it, trying to laugh my way through it. Luckily I completed the challenge and brought home ten stars for the camp, the highest amount you could win. Stars equalled meals for the camp. This made the others very happy and ensured I didn’t get nominated for a Tucker Trial for quite a while after that.
By about day five, the first Wednesday of the show, Chrissie and I were done. We were tired and cranky and had no idea if the show was rating nor if there was any point to the whole exercise. She was missing her kids and I was missing my family, but really missing Jeffery; the last time I had spoken to him, he was stuck in a blizzard in New York. Chrissie and I looked at each other and said, ‘Let’s walk. We don’t need this shit. Why are we degrading ourselves like this?’
There’s a very funny (in hindsight) clip of Chrissie and I sitting in the Tok Toki begging producers to let us leave with tears streaming down our faces, looking absolutely manic. The producers convinced us not to leave and told us to give it a few hours’ thought. Chrissie and I walked out of the Tok Toki and were caught on camera (we were such idiots, there was nowhere to hide) whispering to each other: ‘They know we can’t leave. You and I are the show.’ What arrogant arseholes! But it still makes me laugh.
The producers also booked us for appointments with the psychologist, Kate, who was the only person outside of the camp we were allowed to speak to. We had individual appointments with Kate but of course she was only allowed to listen and couldn’t provide any information about the outside world. She didn’t smuggle in any chocolate either, like we’d hoped.
Chrissie and I decided to sleep on it that night, and the next day woke up and discussed it again and we still wanted to go, but a little bit less than the day before. And the next day was a little bit less again, and so on, until we eventually just surrendered to the whole experience. I don’t think I actually would have left, and I don’t think Chrissie would have either. Plus my skin was looking amazing thanks to our jungle diet.
I learned to deal without most things in camp. I learned to love being away from social media and my phone. Look, I’m Gen Y, I have my phone in my hand all the time. As I’m typing this, it’s sitting beside me with Snapchat open (not many dick pics today, disappointing). But it was nice not to be constantly checking Facebook and Twitter and Instagram (when I say that, I mean checking how many followers I have on each, obviously). Whenever I appear on TV, I’m constantly checking social media to see what people think of me. I’m a performer – I’m insecure and constantly need to be validated. But with this show, I had no means of doing that. I also knew my team on the outside, my manager and my best friends, were really looking after me. I think Thomas was particularly relishing his new responsibility – and pointing any particularly cute fans in the direction of his own, private, social media accounts.
One thing we never learned to live without, however, was coffee. We would spend a good few hours of the day talking about coffee: how
we drank it, how many we’d drink a day, our favourite cafés, our least favourite coffee shops. Our whole world was coffee obsessed. Eventually Chrissie and I ended up going up to the Tok Toki and offering to donate five thousand dollars to a local Save the Rhinos charity for one jar of Moccona. That would’ve averaged around a hundred dollars a cup. We also thought it was a great storyline for the show and would’ve highlighted just how desperate we were. The producers, who seemed to be following a ‘we do not negotiate with terrorists’ policy, didn’t go for it. Chrissie and I were shattered and spent the rest of the time teasing them that they would be single-handedly responsible for the demise of the rhino species. Selfish.
And, fuck, we were hungry. We were really hungry. Everyone was losing weight rapidly. We were only eating eight hundred calories a day, which equals one chicken salad – something you might have as an entrée before eating a main meal and dessert. At brunch. The food and hunger situation led to a lot of tension, and meal times were where all the blow-ups happened. Including me exploding at the (divine) Merv Hughes. It had been a particularly tense few days when Merv thought it appropriate to start wielding the machete and yelling at everybody. I ended up saying, ‘Merv, I speak with complete confidence on behalf of camp when I say shut the fuck up.’ Not surprisingly, I was voted into a Tucker Trial the day after that aired.
Here’s how our days worked in camp. We’d get up super early, at around 6 am (remember we had zero concept of actual time). The sun would rise, so we would have no choice but to get up too. Someone would light the fire. I started going down to the river while that was happening, not to meditate – I’ve never been able to meditate – but just to compartmentalise what was going on and where I was, and to remind myself that I was on a TV show, because you do truly start to believe that this is your reality and you live here now. On particularly crazy days you also started to believe that all these Tucker Trials and challenges they set for you were the Australian viewing public and the producers punishing you. At one particularly low point I convinced myself Australia hated me and I should relocate to Paris. Who did I think I was? Melissa George?
