Ant and Dec reveal the reason they're 'struggling' to film I'm A Celebrity

The presenting duo are back for another installment of the jungle series
Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly on I'm A Celeb
PA Media
Lisa McLoughlin 20 November 2023
The Weekender

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Ant McPartlin and Dec Donnelly have revealed they’re “struggling” to film I’m A Celebrity because of the time difference in Australia - not the UK.

The pair usually stay on Queensland’s Gold Coast during the annual instalment, but are instead residing in a luxury £1000-a-night beachside apartment in New South Wales this year, 20 miles from production.

With the celebrities and camp based on the Queensland border, Ant and Dec have to cross over the state time zone - constantly flipping between an hour ahead and one behind.

Despite having to get up at 2am to broadcast back to the UK, Dec, 48, told the Daily Mail: “We’re struggling with the time difference here. Because we film the show in Queensland which is an hour behind where we are staying in New South Wales.

“It gets very confusing because we have to hop between the time zones.”

With Ant joking: “Yeah and it means we’re always late for restaurant bookings.”

The pair, who have been presenting the ITV show since it debuted in 2002, returned to Oz last year after the show’s location was moved to Wales in 2020 and 2021 amidst the pandemic.

Ant and Dec's comments come as it has been revealed that Nigel Farage will tuck into a pizza topped with a camel udder, a sheep udder and a cow’s teat in his first bushtucker trial on I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here.

The former Ukip leader will be joined by YouTuber Nella Rose in the Jungle Pizzeria in scenes that will air on Monday night.

Farage was voted by the public to take part in the Jungle Pizzeria challenge, where the duo will eat pizzas with unappetising toppings.

The new series of I’m A Celebrity launched on ITV on Sunday night, when Farage, Rose and Josie Gibson were dropped in the middle of the outback.

Meanwhile, First Dates star Fred Sirieix, food critic Grace Dent, former Made In Chelsea star Sam Thompson and ex-EastEnders actress Danielle Harold had to climb down the side of a skyscraper to win food, while JLS singer Marvin Humes, Hollyoaks actor Nick Pickard and Jamie Lynn Spears, the sister of Britney Spears, had to skydive into a clearing before completing a bushtucker trial of their own.

The first episode of the new series had more than two million fewer viewers than last year.

An average of seven million viewers watched the return of the show on Sunday night, according to overnight ratings, and ITV reported a peak audience of 7.8 million.

The first episode of the 2022 series had an average audience of 9.1 million and a peak viewership of 10.3 million, according to ITV overnight ratings.

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