Mark Labbett has claimed responsibility for convincing his The Chase co-star Anne Hegerty to go on I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here!.
Speaking on ITV’s Loose Women, the professional quizzer, 53, said: “I’ve got a confession to make, I kind of talked her into it. I feel even more guilty after voting for her on that trial.
“Foolish me, when they said ‘mental challenge’ I thought: ‘Perfect for Anne, throw her in, she’s really good under that kind of test conditions.’
'The Beast' @MarkLabbett is unleashed and he has a small confession to make… he might have helped talk @anne_hegerty into the jungle #ImACeleb pic.twitter.com/VOTiXdBCy2
— Loose Women (@loosewomen) November 21, 2018
“I should have realised, with it being the jungle, it would be more than solving a problem, it would be slime et cetera.”
On an episode of the ITV show earlier this week, Hegerty quit a Bush Tucker Trial after suffering under a deluge of slime and six kilos of mealworms.
The 60-year-old was competing to win meals for the campers and managed to get two of the stars on offer before the trial became too much, saying: “I’m sorry, I can’t do it anymore.”
Labbett praised Hegerty, the godmother of his son, for her honesty on the show but warned fans to expect emotional ups and downs from the quiz ace, who has autism.
He said: “The nice thing about Anne is she doesn’t have that filter, that disguise that other people have. So what you’re seeing is how she genuinely is.
“She will be [upset] a bit more. The difference is she’ll pull herself together after 15 or 30 minutes or so, then she’ll be back. I think she’ll go a long way.”
Asked whether he would ever consider appearing on I’m A Celebrity himself, Labbett replied: “If I get enough calories and the fee’s big enough, hell yeah.”