{"id":143164,"date":"2025-11-16T17:00:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-16T17:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/143164\/"},"modified":"2025-11-16T17:00:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-16T17:00:10","slug":"why-im-a-celeb-winner-regrets-appearing-on-reality-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/143164\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I’m a Celeb winner regrets appearing on reality show"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m a Celebrity\u2026 Get Me Out Of Here! will be welcoming a slew of new stars hoping to be crowned the next King or Queen of the Jungle, but one winner is speaking out about his regrets of appearing on the show at all.<\/p>\n

Busted star Matt Willis won the sixth season nearly two decades ago and has since referred to his stint on the show as a \u2018mistake\u2019 .<\/p>\n

The musician famously beat Myleene Klass and Jason Donovon to become King of the Jungle in 2006, but his initial plan for the show was to boost his solo career, but that didn\u2019t really go according to plan.<\/p>\n

\"mattMatt Smith and wife Emma after he was crowned King of the Jungle on I\u2019m a Celeb in 2006 Pic: ITV<\/p>\n

Upon leaving the Jungle, all anyone wanted to talk about was his time on the show as opposed to his music career, which he was trying to relaunch following the breakup of Busted. <\/p>\n

Speaking about the reality series on his On the Mend<\/a> podcast, he said: \u2018I was thinking of a time when I lost my own narrative. And the one thing that springs to mind the most was leaving\u00a0I\u2019m a Celebrity.<\/p>\n

\u2018I was in a pretty bad place. The record company basically wasn\u2019t going to release my solo album\u2026 They said, \u201cYou\u2019ve got to do something to raise your profile. Will you go on\u00a0I\u2019m a Celebrity?\u201d <\/p>\n

\"EmmaEmma Willis and husband Matt Willis host Love is Blind: UK Pic: Netflix\/Zoe McConnell<\/p>\n

\u2018I went, \u201cYep, absolutely. Anything, please release my album!\u201d Once I came out of that show, I realised no one cared that I had a record out. <\/p>\n

\u2018Everywhere I went, they just wanted to talk about\u00a0I\u2019m a Celebrity. And it really bummed me out. Before I went on that show, I was only really famous to Busted fans. <\/p>\n

\u2018Then I came out and everyone knew who I was. When you\u2019re in [an] active addiction \u2013 which I was at the time \u2013 and you just want to hide, that\u2019s the worst thing that can happen.<\/p>\n

\"MattMatt Smith after he was crowned King of the Jungle Pic: ITV<\/p>\n

\u2018Suddenly there were paps everywhere I went. I\u2019d get in a cab and the driver would say, \u201cHello Matt\u201d. It was such a weird experience. It was probably a bit of a mistake going on that show.\u2019<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s batch of celebrities includes stars from Emmerdale, EastEnders, comedians, musicians, footballers and reality stars from other shows.<\/p>\n

Ireland\u2019s own Vogue Williams<\/a> is rumoured to be appearing but wasn\u2019t among the list of initial campmates, so if she is going in, it\u2019ll be as a late arrival.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I\u2019m a Celebrity\u2026 Get Me Out Of Here! will be welcoming a slew of new stars hoping to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":143165,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[93,61,60,282],"class_list":{"0":"post-143164","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143164\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}