The finale of I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! Australia is almost upon us.
Sadly though, in the penultimate episode, there was a shock double elimination and both Ellie Cole and Brittany Hockley were booted from the jungle.
Ellie once described herself as a I’m A Celeb “superfan”, so hopefully she’s ecstatic that, while she didn’t win, she’ll go down as one of the bravest contestants in the show’s history.
During her time on the show, the Paralympian was submerged in a train carriage, battled through bites from rats, endured snakes slithering on her face and looked down the barrel of a cannon – all with a smile and can-do spirit!
The Weekly spoke to Ellie shortly after she left the jungle to talk about her thrilling experience…
Read our full I’m A Celeb interview with Ellie Cole below:
The Weekly: What was the best thing you experienced in the jungle?
Ellie: Wow. It’s kind of hard to think about the last four weeks. It was such a whirlwind, but it also was very slow moving at the same time. But I think the best thing about being in the jungle, for me; it’s probably a similar answer that you’ve heard from others… But it was to be able to meet all of the other campmates.
I really enjoyed being in a jungle with 11 other celebrities who all had very, very unique personalities and different viewpoints on topics and discussions. And it was just fascinating to be able to have a conversation with a really eclectic group of people who all offered a different opinion on things. Because I suppose as an athlete, or retired athlete, I spend most of my time around athletes and everybody kind of has similar views on things. So what I loved about being in the jungle was just the variety of personalities, I would say.
What was the hardest challenge to get through?
The hardest challenge for me, I had to do this trial where I had to be lowered down this mineshaft. And I have claustrophobia and it was pitch dark in there. Anyway, they lowered me down this mineshaft and then they closed the hatch over me so it was completely dark in there. And I had to rely on one of my teammates to turn the lights on, but every time he turned the lights on, he got electrocuted. That trial was really difficult for me because of my fear of claustrophobia.
Oh and there was this very aggressive rat that effectively, I think, bit me about 20 times on the hand. And then I had to continue with the rest of the trial with a pretty significant amount of blood running down my arm and it was dripping down into crocodile infested waters below. But it was still fun even though it didn’t sound like it with what I just described.
I was going to say, I watched both of those challenges and you seemed fine. You handled them like a champ.
I was very distracted by getting the stars and taking food back to camp. So I was happy that I had that distraction because I was able to almost completely disassociate my mind from my body. Which is a skill that I really learnt to do when I was an athlete and I was in really heavy training. I think I used a lot of transferable skills from being an athlete and took them into my trials.
Are there any I’m A Celeb contestants that you now consider a friend?
I knew Brit Hockley before I went into the jungle. I’ve been on her podcast as a guest before. But I got to know her like so much deeper in the jungle. And she’s also a Sydneysider, so I’m pretty sure that we’ll be catching up quite regularly now.
I also really enjoyed Skye [Wheatley]’s company. And that really took me by surprise because she isn’t really the type of personality that I have in my close circle of friends at home. So I’m really looking forward to staying in contact with her as well.
But my best friend in the jungle was Tristan MacManus and he’s in the top three and I’m really hoping that he takes out the crown of King of the jungle. He was voted by Australia as the ‘Voice of Reason’ and he really was in there.
We had so many ups and downs with our experience; every single candidate had so many ups and downs with their emotions. It really was a roller coaster. And Tristan was always the one who brought the positivity back into camp so he’s certainly someone that I’m going to want to have close by me for the rest of my life I would say.
You’ve just answered it; who do you hope will win I’m A Celeb this year?
Tristan, yep… You can vote for my friend, Tristan.
What’s the first thing you’ll do when you get home? Aside from obviously hugging your partner and son?
I think the first thing that I’ll do – I’m really close to my neighbours and they’re Italians, so I’m sure that they’re going to be cooking up a huge feast. I’ve heard that my neighbour has already sliced up some prosciutto that he makes.
And so, I’ll probably just have dinner with them, invite them over for dinner and, yeah, I feel like that will just make me feel like I’m right at home. A nice, big, fresh batch of pasta and meatballs from my Italian neighbours with a glass of wine, I think.
The finale of I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! Australia airs on Sunday, April 21 on Channel Ten and 10play.
